Posted on 12/29/2007 5:48:14 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
He fibbed his way onto the Jerry Springer Show, just to wangle a free trip to Chicago for spring break.
And right there on stage, in front of millions of TV viewers, his long dreadlocks flapping wildly like dirty-blond ropes, he got into the obligatory fight with three of his best friends from the University of Georgia.
Fists flew. Blows landed. Chairs were slung before the bouncers grabbed the flailing foursome.
Alan Corey and his friends — all warily in on the charade — were gleeful.
Sure, they'd made "total fools" out of themselves on national TV, but they'd finagled exactly what Corey wanted — a free trip to someplace other than Florida — and red-carpet treatment fit for stars, complete with a stretch limo, expensive steaks, a wad of cash and a fine hotel.
The former Walton High basketball star in east Cobb and University of Georgia graduate has always been jazzed by seemingly impossible challenges.
His first goal after college was to get a job in New York.
It took a couple of months.
His second: to become a millionaire by age 30.
He did it at 28.
His third, to write a book. He's done that, too.
The Random House title: "A Million Bucks by 30: How to Overcome a Crap Job, Stingy Parents and a Useless Degree to Become a Millionaire Before (Or After) Turning 30."
Here's how he did it.
For years, though he lived in tony east Cobb, he compulsively saved money.
He opened a 10-cent lemonade stand at 5.
"The biggest challenge, there, was my sister taking half the profits when I was doing all the work," he says.
But that taught him a lesson. And maybe it's why in the front of his book, after dedicating it to his parents, he adds on a separate page: "Just to be clear, this amazingly awesome book is not dedicated to my sister, Jill."
He learned that when it comes to money, details need to be worked out ahead of time.
Then, he started making a little more, mowing lawns for $20 a pop. And those customers recommended others. So by the time he graduated with a computer degree from UGA, he had $10,000.
"I have obsessive compulsive disorder when it comes to money," he says.
After living a couple of months in his mom's basement, he got an offer — $40,000 a year at a computer company in New York.
He flew to New York and rented a 30th-floor apartment in a federally subsidized housing project in Spanish Harlem, where he could see uptown to the lights of Yankee Stadium.
"I ate ramen noodles for more than three months, found furniture on the streets, bought huge cans of peanut butter, didn't pay for entertainment, but still had fun," he says. "I didn't hide it. I'd brag about how I could get into places."
He started doing a little stand-up comedy for free, getting drinks and some food, gratis.
"It was my entertainment, my fun," he says. "I developed a financial book fetish, reading every one I could get my hands on. I saved all I could, even opening a second savings account way across town that was too inconvenient to get there."
Within a few years, he had a substantial chunk of change, in addition to savings in 401(k) and IRA accounts.
And, oh, he also figured he could get a little help from his friends back in Georgia.
"He had the guts to take the risks in order to achieve his lofty goals," says friend Matthew Hake, who also attended Walton. "He asked to borrow $10,000 from me, promising that he would pay me back in a year with 10 percent interest."
"At the time, it was just about all I had in savings, but since he was my best friend, I couldn't say no," he said. "Not only did he pay me back six months ahead of schedule, with interest, he also made the right decision with the money and ended up making a killing on the profit of the sale of the building. Of course, I'm still waiting on a huge 'thank-you' check, but that's another story."
So, Corey became a real estate tycoon. First he bought an apartment, and remodeled it into a two-bedroom. Then a two-family townhouse in Brooklyn.
"I've sold everything except for my two-family house," he says. "I still live there with three roomies. I live in the crappiest room with no windows. The second floor is rented to random tenants. My mortgage is $2,300 a month. My rental income is $4,300 a month, so I get paid $2,000 a month for living in my own house. As long as I don't spend more than $2,000 in one month, I don't ever have to work again."
Corey's no more shy about sharing the details of his wealth than he was about peddling lemonade.
"My only house I have now can be sold for $1,175,000, and I owe $380,000 on it," Corey says. "Equity is $795,000."
He has $213,370.35 in stocks, savings and checking and $30,000 in equity in a bar. His total equity, he says, is $1,038,370.35, not counting his salary from that computer job and his rental income — more than enough to put him among the richest 2 percent of American adults.
One of his tenants is another friend from Walton, Andrew Wright, who's trying to make it as a comedian.
"Seeing as this guy was a class clown, and I was voted most likely to succeed in high school, you'd think he'd be paying rent to me instead of the other way around," Wright says.
So far, though he's lived in some rough areas, the "scariest and funniest" situation he's faced happened late one night when "I fought with some dude over a cab, and then he threw me out and yelled, 'Maybe if you could afford to live in Manhattan, you wouldn't need a cab home."
Corey laughs:
"I was 24 and owned two properties at the time."
Tons of grads from UGA and Georgia Tech live in New York, and they get together often at bars, including one where Corey's college chum Jeff Palmiotti, 29, pours libations.
Palmiotti is the guy who, with Corey, convinced the Jerry Springer Show they had a sexy story to tell.
They recruited two reluctant female friends.
"The story was, Alan was dating one, and I was dating her best friend, but I was having sex with both of them," Palmiotti says. "Springer springs the story out on the show, and Alan tried to make himself cry and got so worked up he punched me. One of the girls slapped me in the face. It was ridiculous, surreal."
Corey routinely "got dumped" by women who didn't relish eating boiled noodles.
Says mom, Nancy, a school teacher: "I'm proud of him. He's still stingy. He doesn't act like a millionaire."
But if she wants to go to a Broadway show, she has to take a friend from home.
Corey concedes he may have to alter his cheapskate ways, at least a little.
He's got a "serious" girlfriend now, Sadia Perveen, 27, of London.
"We pretty much split everything, actually," she says. "And instead of buying me flowers, he bought me a big plant that has flowers all year 'round."
He hasn't popped the question yet, but doubts it'll be long, and she knows why.
"He found out I have a friend in London with an uncle in India who can get a diamond really cheap," she says.
Then you must really be proud of Priscilla Ceballos
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1945384/posts?page=1,50
That's the one thing every financial book I have read agrees on - cars are the biggest money drain you can find.
Remember he had just gotten that job so he had no job history. As to the assets I don’t know what the NY rule on that is but since he got most of it as a minor....
There seems to me that there is some reason people don’t think he should have gotten housing.
Who marries for money, earns it.
Old Jewish saying.
Miser, skinflint, cheap as rags....he’ll probably turn into a bag man in his old age and feed the pigeons. NYC is full of them.
According to the inflation calculator, one million dollars today would have been $7.2 million in 1955 and going the other way, $138,000 in 1955 would be equivalent to one million dollars today.
PS The Big Sh*tty has always had lots of airborne rats, and the hawks moved in to feed on ‘em.
What feeds on bag men? Petty criminals, and the ‘social worker’ goobers on gooberment salaries who are there to help the bag men.
On second thought, those two categories of predator may be more closely related than I thought. My apologies for any redundancy.
I do think that the moral of this story is the “saved compulsively” part.
Many people could have a lot more in the bank if they saved with even a little more enthusiasm and creativity.
I can't argue with your logic. But we here in the Atlanta area are lucky to have as a local radio host perhaps the most beloved tightwad in America, Clark Howard. Clark was a retired multimillionaire in his thirties and instead of writing some lame book bragging about how he schemed and conned his way into saving he shared real knowledge with people, a job he does to this day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Howard
ping
2007 thread, don’t ask how I found it.
Your quote in December of 2007 talking about the guy who was rich in real estate: “Not for long weird boy. Most if your “wealth” is paper wealth tied to a house. Expect to take a 50% haircut to your net worth in the next few years... “
You sir are a prophet!
It will happen again in 2016
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