We never expected to be rich. We married and my wife was very frugal. After 3 months we had $1500, I never had $1500 in my 26 years. I started making sure not to waste money, at 1 year, we had $6,000. We only earned $18,000 that year, this was in the 80s. We never made a lot of money, usually less than the median household income. I started buying stock market index funds in the late 80s. We saved as much as 30% of our income. We bought a very modest 1-1/2 times our income home, did some upgrades, sold it and bought a little nicer home, but we always were about 1–1/2 times our income. We bought used cars, ate at home, didn't waste money on stuff. Just kept saving and investing. Over the years investing our savings, the money grew to where we are now in the top 5% of Americans, we are Financially Independent. None of our neighbors or family know we have money. We don't live a lavish life style and guess what, if you do that you will see $1M dwindle pretty quick. And that first $1M is the hardest to accumulate. Took us 30 years for the first $1M and only 6 years for the second. How do we keep it, don't spend the principal, live off what the money generates. Frugal, we drive 1997 and 2009 vehicles. We haven't started living off our interest yet, but retirement is close. And forget about keeping up with the Joneses, they aren't rich, they are in debt.