Grace Groner lived to a 100.
She left behind $7 million dollars for the university she had studied at.
If you think that is amazing, there is more.
She was not born into wealth; she did not marry into it.
And she did not have the kind of career usually associated with such wealth. She was neither a banker nor a lawyer. Neither an actress nor a singer.
Grace Groner worked for 43 years as a secretary.
She was a Secret Millionaire — not because hardly anyone knew she was wealthy. But because she harnessed the power of an open secret.
This open secret has three parts: savings, time and a reasonable return on your investment.
Here are the three secrets of Secret Millionaires:
1. Secret Millionaires don’t waste time.
When we are young, we think we have time. And that we’ll start saving later. And so we fail to use one of the most powerful parts of this secret.
2. Secret Millionaires save regularly and aggressively.
We live beyond our means. We don’t save regularly. And we don’t save enough.
3. Secret Millionaires don’t fixate on returns.
We wake up late and then seek aggressive returns to make up for lost time and savings.
But sadly the power of compounding lies far more in time than in returns.
And by chasing aggressive returns, we risk what savings we do have.
Ironically, those who have time, can afford to chase aggressive returns. Because time irons out a lot of the bumps in the road.
So the lessons from Secret Millionaires are:
a. Grab what time you have with both hands — start saving now.
b. Save every month. And save aggressively. If you save 10% of your income, push that to 20%.
c. Take reasonable risks for reasonable returns. Don’t go nuts and take irrational risk. Equally, your money should work hard. Don’t let it languish and avoid risk completely.
Good luck!
If you need help managing your investments, here’s how we think about money.
If stuff like this interests you, join our Telegram channel
AutoFi (Autofitech Services Pvt Ltd) is an AMFI-registered Mutual Fund Distributor
