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Perhaps the only clue that Ronald Read, a Vermont gas station attendant and janitor who died last year at age 92, had been quietly amassing an $8 million fortune was his habit of reading the Wall Street Journal, his friends and family say.
It was not until last week that the residents of Brattleboro would discover Read's little secret. That's when the local library and hospital received the bulk of his estate, built up over the years with savvy stock picks."Investing and cutting wood, he was good at both of them," his lawyer Laurie Rowell said on Wednesday, noting that he read the Journal every day.
It's nothing that amazing. It requires only a little financial discipline, time, and compound interest. If he started when he was 15 years old with $600 invested and increased that about 4% each year until his death in an account that generated an annual return of 9%, then by his last year at age 92 he would be contributing about $11,800 into his account and would have almost $9.7 million. It's not that unreasonable to expect he could contribute that much each year.
It's nothing that amazing. It requires only a little financial discipline, time, and compound interest. If he started when he was 15 years old with $600 invested and increased that about 4% each year until his death in an account that generated an annual return of 9%, then by his last year at age 92 he would be contributing about $11,800 into his account and would have almost $9.7 million. It's not that unreasonable to expect he could contribute that much each year.
What was min wage 77 years ago?
Edit looks like the fair labor standards act of 1938 set a min wage of 0.25 per hour so without any taxes or expenses one would have to work 2400 hours to get that initial 600.00
Edit looks like the fair labor standards act of 1938 set a min wage of 0.25 per hour so without any taxes or expenses one would have to work 2400 hours to get that initial 600.00
Not unreasonable for a kid to save that up in a couple years of working full time if they saved all of it (not hard if you have no expenses). Or he could have had a bit of money bequeathed to him when he was young and used it as seed money to start investing. Who knows?
At any rate, not unfathomable at all, especially if he got lucky and invested in some choice stock picks long ago (Coca Cola, Apple, etc.) and held them long enough.
Nice and all, but to me the point of being a millionaire is to enjoy the elevated lifestyle it brings, not just to sit back and say "I have a million dollars" or to give it away never using it.
No thanks, I could not imagine living the life he did, I rather spend the money and enjoy myself more. I guess he enjoyed doing the same routine for decades, but that lifestyle is not for me.
Not unreasonable for a kid to save that up in a couple years of working full time if they saved all of it (not hard if you have no expenses). Or he could have had a bit of money bequeathed to him when he was young and used it as seed money to start investing. Who knows?
At any rate, not unfathomable at all, especially if he got lucky and invested in some choice stock picks long ago (Coca Cola, Apple, etc.) and held them long enough.
No I do think your example is rather unreasonable hence my initial question. That original 600.00 accounted for 600k of your final figure. While I have no problem with folks savings and investing your example was a bit bogus
Nice and all, but to me the point of being a millionaire is to enjoy the elevated lifestyle it brings, not just to sit back and say "I have a million dollars" or to give it away never using it.
No thanks, I could not imagine living the life he did, I rather spend the money and enjoy myself more. I guess he enjoyed doing the same routine for decades, but that lifestyle is not for me.
Yes, but this man's example is an inspiration for the majority of people to try harder at saving and investing money so they can eventually become financially independent at some point in their lives.
The excuse making that is done by some simply doesn't add up in real life, as his example shows.
The headline is a little misleading, as usual. It appears that in between working as a service station attendant right out of the service and working part-time as a janitor in retirement he owned a garage with his brother.
Not that owning a garage is the sort of vocation common to people with $6 million estates, but it would certainly have paid more than pumping gas and sweeping floors. And if he and his brother bought the garage in the '50s and sold it in the '80s he could have realized a pretty significant gain right there.
It's still a great story, just not as unbelievable as it seems on the surface,
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