Here’s a millionaire next door story from an admiring grandson: 

This is about my grandmother. . . a millionaire next door type all my life [35 years]. . . I had no clue.  My grandmother never graduated from high school.  Married at sixteen.  She moved from New Mexico with my grandfather to a farm in Nebraska. . . really didn’t make any money farming.  When I was 5 years old my grandfather died.  My grandmother who had been a homemaker since sixteen years of age was now responsible for a barely break even farm. 

Here’s where the grandmother demonstrated considerable courage and foresight. In order to keep the farm she moved her family to town into a rented mobile home and leased the farm out from that point on. 

She got her GED and then worked mainly entry level jobs . . . drove an old Ford Taurus forever, never turned the heat up past 65 degrees in the winter.  If you would meet her you’d have thought, here’s a sweet old lady living on minimum wage with only Social Security for retirement.  . . . a few years ago my dad and I were talking.  He looked at me and said, “you know your grandmother is a millionaire.”  She’s the model we are following to become financially independent.  She’s making a six figure passive income now. . .  but doesn’t look like she’s making the income she is.

In the spirit of the millionaire next door, it is better to live in a trailer and own a million dollar farm than to live in a million dollar home in which you only own a trailer’s worth of equity.