4 Millionaires’ Stories
(1) Linda
The best revenge
Who: Linda, 52
Where: Houston
Net worth: just passed the $1 million mark, including $150,000 in home equity
Her tips: Get educated for a high-paying job; max out your retirement accounts; take some risk; buy disability insurance.
Linda's story sounds a lot like a country song.
She dropped out of her East Texas high school at 16. She got married, divorced and then married again. She was 20 and five months pregnant when her husband was killed in a Christmas Eve auto accident. Seven weeks later, her father dropped dead of a heart attack.
Her mother moved in with her. After years of supporting her mother and son, Linda finally remarried, only to get divorced again after giving birth to another son. Eventually, her younger son decided to live with his father, and Linda ended up paying child support.
Then at 48, she developed a crippling case of lupus that forced her to quit work.
So how in the world did this woman become a millionaire?
Linda traces the start of her journey back to the dark days after her first son was born. The husband who died in the car wreck had failed to change the beneficiary on his life insurance, Linda said, and her in-laws kept the proceeds.
"I was broke, uneducated and had no medical insurance," Linda remembered. "I owed the hospital and doctor for my son's birth and owed for my husband's funeral. My treatment by my in-laws made me furious, so I decided I'd show them!"
Linda started reading the classifieds in the Houston Chronicle and noticed a lot of ads offering high-paying positions for pipe designers, an engineering job in the oil and gas industry.
"I thought, 'How complicated could that be? (A pipe is) a tube with a hole in it,' " Linda said. "I called a community college that was a hundred miles away and asked if they taught pipe design, and they said, 'Sure, but late enrollment ends tomorrow.' "
Linda hustled to sign up and sold most of what she owned, including her television and stereo, to help pay for school. After graduating with her two-year degree, she moved her family to Houston and went to work in June 1978 for $4.95 an hour. Over the years, her pay rose to $40 an hour, or more than $80,000 a year -- "not bad for an AA degree," as she put it.
After working for several years, she was offered the opportunity to start investing in a 401(k), and she grabbed it. She initially split her money between a stock fund and a bond fund, but eventually shifted more into stocks to get a higher return.
"I knew if I ever had a hope of retiring, I'd have to be aggressive in my investments," Linda said. "Through bull and bear markets, I've stayed almost 100% in stocks all this time. I've kept it diversified among U.S. and international and a small amount in emerging markets. I am just now beginning to move some assets into less-volatile holdings, but still have about 75% in stock funds."
She made another smart decision: buying long-term-disability insurance through her employer. That policy now pays her $60,000 a year, about two-thirds of the salary she was making when her disability forced her to quit work in 2000.
Four years ago, she remarried. She convinced her husband, who had no retirement savings, to start contributing to his 401(k), but the bulk of their current wealth came from the years when she was making $60,000 or less and supporting her children and mother.
"All in all, I can't believe I've managed to accumulate as much as I have," Linda said. "If I can do this working from the hole I started out in, anyone can. All it takes is discipline."
Identifying register: find more formal synonyms for the following words/expressions:
1. max out (your retirement accounts)
2. she dropped out (of her East Texas high school)
3. (a crippling case of lupus) that forced her to quit work
4. I was broke
5. I decided I'd show them!
6. reading the classifieds
7. a lot of ads
8. Linda hustled to sign up
9. She made another smart decision
10. ( If I can do this) working from the hole I started out in