Single mums guide to making a million

It's not easy being a single parent. It's not easy being a working single parent. It's not easy being a working single parent on a salary that is just about ok.

Imagine the fun while watching an episode of "the Great British Benefits handout" where families claiming benefits were given £26,000 just for existing. I'm guessing a social experiment but observing who? I'm not sure. The views across twitter alone tickled me; some in support of innocent benefits claimants and how shows like this give honest people a bad name. Some talking about how benefits claimants are irresponsible and don't know the value of money. I will with-hold my opinion in this instance.

Does having £26,000 make you rich? The thing is with the £26,000 threshold is that to have that as a net wage would put the pre-tax wage above £34,000 per annum which the majority of working parents are not on. A wage that is neither above £34,000 nor below £26000 per annum puts a person square in the bracket of those not eligible for any benefits but also "just about managing" as the current prime minister would define. By cultural definition, it is a massive land of nowhere inhabited by hardworking families,  that are expected to be happy to be paying bills with their hard earned cash, dropping kids at day-care so they can go and work for someone else but unsure of whether their dinner plate will be a balanced meal or yesterday's leftovers because what's left isn't enough to last up to pay day.

​The addition of a lovely new hubby with the same salary would double the household income and make the situation different but who wants to go on dates with the sole interest of finding someone to share the bills? How romantic (not)! So these past few months my aim has been to get my finances in order and actually have a profit. I love organising so I don't have an issue with this. For those looking for an insight into how to become a millionaire, here are my suggestions:

1. Are you already one?
Since most definitions of a Millionaire do not just count money in the bank but count value of assets, a lot of people do not actually realise that they are in fact millionaires already. For example; the balance defines "millionaire" in terms of value of property, cars and stocks; "Net-worth represents that person's assets, minus their liabilities. Net worth is described as what you own minus what you owe." This Guardian article talked about how 1 in 10 Brits might be Millionaires because of their property. With the value property going up so much, a millionaire might actually not have a million pounds in the bank. So count your blessings, name them one by one and you may find to your surprise you already have a million!

2. Get your ducks in order
Not literal ducks mind, figuratively speaking. Practicing good financial habits means a number of things. get some help with a free review from "still struggling" where you can speak to a professional debt adviser from one of the partner organisations so that, your creditors will stop harassing you, you won’t have to get stressed every time mail arrives through the door, you won’t have to worry about the phone ringing,  you can stop playing one debt off against another simply to be able to pay the important bills; and most importantly of all and you can establish a budget which means that you do have enough money left to cover the important things

3. The multiple side hustle
You would have seen it on many online articles and advice pages that millionaires have ​multiple income streams. They do not rely on one source of income nor do they settle for what their employer says they are worth. The day job is just the tip of the iceberg. Millionaires have multiple side hustles. So what do you do? Medium.com talks about he possible streams of income that are common to many millionaires, the day job is just one of them. So think like a millionaire if you want to become one and don't settle for "just managing" anymore.