Age: 38
Occupation: IT specialist at the Pentagon
Salary: $94,000 a year

Government Thrift Savings Plan: $107,000
Roth IRA: $6,000
Savings Bonds: $2,000
Online savings account: $10,000
Brokerage account: $1,000
Other savings: $4,000
Home equity: $190,000

Her friends say her commitment to her finances borders on obsession. Her neighbors may chuckle when she drops $400 on bulk detergent and toilet paper in a single shopping trip. But Jeanette Courts’ budget-minded habits have put her on track to becoming a millionaire. Courts, a 38-year-old single mother and information technology specialist at the Pentagon, has stashed away $113,000 towards retirement and has built up $190,000 in equity in her 3-bedroom townhouse in the Washington D.C. suburb of Bristow, Va.

The road to financial security, however, was not always easy. After splitting with her husband nearly four years ago, Courts had to juggle a career, a mortgage, and her then-3-year-old son, Carlito. It didn’t help that she was thousands of miles from her family in Puerto Rico. “I had to believe in myself that I could do this,” she says.

She’s looked for - and found - opportunities to minimize her expenses, such as buying clothes in the off season, bringing her lunch to work every day and buying everyday household items by the car load. Courts also puts pretax dollars into her flexible spending account to cover day-care costs, rides the bus to work from Bristow and takes advantage of free activities like going to the park or a museum.

She’s also made an effort to put away as much as she can in her government Thrift Savings Plan, a federal employee’s equivalent of a 401(k). Courts is debt free and has $6,000 in her Roth IRA account and $10,000 in her ING Direct online savings account, which is earmarked for her son’s college education.

If she puts in 30 years of service, her estimated gross pension payment during retirement would be $2,250 per month. Assuming she continues to stash away pretax dollars and that the Social Security Administration is still financially solvent, she is likely to have a solid income stream during retirement. Ideally she hopes to sell her home and join her extended family in Puerto Rico after she calls it quits. “I would like to be able to retire worry-free,” she says.

Our expert’s take: Courts wants to retire when she hits 58. But if she can wait 4 years and continue socking away 15 percent of her pay, she’d have just over $1 million in today’s dollars in her Thrift Savings Plan alone, assuming an annual 8 percent return, says Gail Fialkow, a certified financial planner at Fairfax, Va.-based Capital Planning & Investments. By waiting until she’s 62, she also gets the benefit of a higher pension. And since Social Security benefits kick in at age 63, she won’t have to worry about digging too much into her retirement nest egg.

Courts’ Thrift Savings Plan could also use some spring cleaning, says Fialkow. Instead of having a blend of large cap, small cap, international and a target retirement fund, she should simplify things by putting her entire account savings into a 2030 target retirement fund.

Courts should also move her son’s college fund from an online savings account into a 529 savings plan, according to Fialkow. By shifting her money into a reputable 529, like Virginia’s CollegeAmerica plan, her savings would grow tax free and could be distributed tax free when it comes time to paying for her son’s tuition. What makes this 529 an even smarter move, says Fialkow, is that Courts would also be eligible for a tax break.

Finally she should consider increasing her emergency cash reserve to $15,000 from its current level of $4,000, says Fialkow. Instead of stashing that money in a savings account, Fialkow recommends putting it into a Virginia tax-free bond mutual fund. The benefit, she says, is that Courts’ money would be sheltered from Federal and state income taxes without losing any of the liquidity of a savings account. The one downside, warns Fialkow, is that the fund is not FDIC insured.

–By David Ellis, CNNMoney.com staff writer

Are you a millionaire in the making? Tell us why at millionaire@cnnmoney.com

Age: Jerry 47, Lynn 46
Occupation: Regional sales manager and secretary
Salary: $106,000 combined
Investment accounts: $225K
Checking: $3,000
Home equity: $90,000

Achieving financial security, let alone becoming a millionaire, was a distant dream for Jerry and Lynn Moser 14 years ago. At the time, the yet-to-be married South Dakota couple had battered credit ratings and virtually no savings. Lynn was working two jobs trying to pay down a high credit card balance, while Jerry, recovering from a drug and alcohol addiction, was earning just $6 an hour working in an appliance store warehouse.

Recognizing how dire their financial situation was, the couple, neither of whom earned college degrees, began studying up on money management, learning the fundamentals of personal finance. While Lynn juggled her job and two daughters (now 20 and 16), Jerry logged 60- and 70-hour weeks, working his way up to his current regional sales manager position.

Now the Mosers boast a combined salary of $106,000 and a combined net worth of over $300,000, and they say that their credit rating is in tip-top shape. “We went from disaster to success in a relatively short time,” says Jerry.

What’s their saving secret? Nothing fancy, explains Jerry. The couple contributes 15 percent of their pre-tax income into their respective 401(k) accounts and $2,000 each into their Roth IRAs every year. They carry very little outstanding debt (other than the mortgage on their home), rely on coupons and research long and hard before making any big-ticket buys.

The Mosers are confident they will reach millionaire status by the time they reach their mid-sixties. “The process is in motion,” said Jerry. “All we need is time for our money to compound.”

That goal is well within the Mosers’ reach, and that’s not even including the equity in their home, says Lisa Kirchenbauer, a certified financial planner and president of the Arlington, Virginia-based Kirchenbauer Financial Management & Consulting.

In fact, Kirchenbauer recommends they could even scale back some of the aggressiveness in their portfolio - which has large doses of international stocks as well as energy and real estate funds. A more diversified portfolio would better position them to weather a downturn.

In addition, says Kirchenbauer, they should set a more ambitious goal . “I think to be able to have the comfortable retirement and especially to provide some inheritance, they will need to shoot for something more like $2 million,” says Kirchenbauer.

To do that she recommends that the Mosers increase their retirement account contributions closer to the Federal max - $15,500 for 401(k) and $4,000 each for their individual Roth IRAs. Living in a relatively inexpensive part of the country and with their children almost grown, they have a lot of time to earn and save even more, says Kirchenbauer.
She also notes that the couple should also build up their cash reserves for an emergency fund. In addition, they should ensure that they have a reasonable amount of life insurance and a strategy to cover their health care expenses during retirement.

–By David Ellis, CNNMoney.com staff writer

Are you a millionaire in the making? Tell us why at millionaire@cnnmoney.com