How Did a Janitor Amass $8 Million?

The name Ronald Read might not mean too much to you — yet — but it certainly does to Vermont’s Brooks Memorial Library and Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, which received gifts totaling $6 million. They came not from a titan of industry or big-name philanthropist, but from the estate of Ronald Read, who worked as a janitor and gas station attendant. Read died last year at the age of 92, with an estate valued near $8 million.

Stories like this are actually not unheard of. For those who pay attention, they offer a hugely valuable lesson — that we can probably amass far more money than we would ever expect.

Of course, there’s more to amassing $8 million, or any other large sum, than merely wishing for it and socking away extra dollars now and then. Let’s review how Read did it, and what lessons we can learn from him:

How he did it:
He took a long time.
He lived frugally.
He kept learning.
He invested in familiar companies.
He favored dividend-paying stocks.
He was a buy-to-hold investor.

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