I met a millionaire.

I never would have guessed that she was a millionaire. She was walking her dog / a mutt at an outdoor market where she savored the free samples and spent only a few dollars, though she felt full by the end.

An inside source told me that she had wealth; no one watching her would have ever known, though. I wanted to know her secret. She shrugged. “I was just lucky.”

Making money is more than she led on, I have started to realize. This woman rents out rooms in her house to college students. When she’s away for a few months, she rents out the entire house. The city garbage company requires monthly service payments, though sometimes she doesn’t fill the whole trashcan in one week or she’s gone, she cancels the service and saves $4.

We all have our own ideas on how to save money and how to stash wealth. She showed, not told, me a secret: be persistent. She got ridiculed a lot by other people; other people who happen to not be wealthy and still happen to be working 9 to 5. She hasn’t worked in years.