Of course, if you truly want to put my plan to the test, imagine your finances under the worst-case scenario.  Imagine you never get more than a minimum wage job after discharge.  That, after all, is the least you can ever make under U.S. Law.

Georgia and Wyoming have the lowest minimum wage in the country, with both mandating an entry level wage of $5.15 per hour.

A minimum wage job in the poorest states in the country will yield gross wages of $10,300 dollars per year.  That is assuming the employee takes two weeks off every year for vacation, but, honestly, do you know of any minimum wage jobs that allow two weeks of vacation every year?  I don’t.  But let’s pretend that they do.

In a lifetime of working at that wage, you’d earn half a million dollars.

What?  You are surprised? 

If you are, it is probably because you attended public school, where you are taught math, but never how to use it.  The fact is, U.S. Law, even the worst U.S. Laws on the books, guarantees that a family of four, even if they never earn more than the lowest minimum wage, will be millionaires in life.

Even if they never invest.

Does that not sync with what your high school counselor taught you?

$515,000.00 x 4 (Father, Mother and two children) will together earn $2,060,000 in their life as a family.  Go ask your camp counselor to correct my math.  Just be warned, they will come back with an obvious objection, that I didn’t account for taxes and other government withholdings.

Technically, that is true, but I’d next ask them why we tax the lowest income earners at all.  The poorest among us could obviously be better off keeping what little they do earn.  

Trust me.  Your camp counselor’s response will be political.  Politics is not above my pay grade it is just beneath my dignity.  But don’t take my word for it.  Ask any of the millions of people risking their lives riding on the tops of trains for a chance to live in the United States of America.

Do you honestly believe they are all coming here for a high school education?  No.  Millions of people are risking their lives for a minimum wage job.

I apologize.  Your teachers lied to you.    You don’t need college to succeed in life financially.  All you need to do is realize financial independence is more about what you spend, not what you earn.  And I will be the first to admit it, for civilians, finding the discipline to invest instead of spend, that is truly difficult.

The Armed Forces makes it a piece of cake.

I know, your teachers have insisted all along that, if you don’t study hard and go to college, you will live a life of poverty and probably end up in prison.

I can’t explain what teachers teach.  I can only unteach what teachers teach.

Enlist in the Armed Forces and your drill instructor will unteach you good!