Ronald Read was a janitor and gas station attendant who lived in Vermont.

A World War II vet, he was the first in his family to graduate from high school. He drove a used Toyota Yaris and lived a frugal lifestyle.

But when he died in 2014, he left $6 million to charity and $2 million to his family.

Anne Scheiber was an IRS auditor. She never made more than $4,000 per year. Upon her death in 1995, she donated a $22 million fortune to her two favorite colleges.

These aren’t the millionaires who have become household names. But these “secret millionaires” were able to grow their humble earnings into sizable wealth… and live on their own terms until their last days.

At Intelligent Income Daily, we don’t believe in the messaging Wall Street sells you: that you have to already be rich to get rich.

There are ways anyone can secure financial independence – and then some. 

And today, I’ll show you how a secret to immense riches can help you retire in safety and splendor.

Retiring Rich Doesn’t Require Luck

Mr. Read and Ms. Scheiber didn’t get lucky by buying Amazon or Apple early… They didn’t master speculative options or day trading… Nor did they inherit a lot of money.

So how did they get richer than 98.5% of Americans?

According to the Wall Street Journal, Read died owning 95 stocks. But they weren’t rock-star growth and tech stocks like Amazon.

Just look at some of the companies he owned:

  • Procter & Gamble

  • JPMorgan Chase

  • General Electric

  • Dow Chemical

His biggest holdings were Smucker’s, CVS Health, and Johnson & Johnson.

These large, ponderous stocks are hardly the kind you’d imagine can make you rich… but they can.

As for Anne Scheiber, when she retired in 1947, she started earning a $3,100 annual pension. And having worked for the IRS, she knew how much money could be preserved when you don’t have to pay capital gains taxes.

That’s why she bought and held blue-chip stocks, just like Mr. Read did, for nearly 50 years. Starting with $5,000 in her portfolio, she grew that to $22 million.

You might think these stories of the past only applied to that time. But you can still replicate that level of success today…

Let’s consider three investors. The first buys the S&P 500, which historically earns 7% inflation-adjusted returns.

The second buys dividend growth blue-chips, like what we at Wide Moat Research recommend to our subscribers, and earns 10.5% annual returns after inflation.

And the third combines high-yield dividend growth blue-chips with the best hyper-growth world-beaters and earns a 12.5% annual return. (This is the strategy we recommend to our younger subscribers.)

(Source: FactSet, Dave Ramsey Investment Calculator)

Over 40 years, starting at age 30 and retiring at 70, even the S&P 500’s historical inflation-adjusted returns get you 16X your money.

Dividend growth blue-chips get you 66X, about four times more.

While combining yield and hyper-growth hands you 145X your money.

With those kinds of returns, you don’t have to invest a lot of money today for it to compound into massive returns.

And here’s the best part…

We’ve just put together a portfolio that can help you do just that.

Build Your Own Fortress Portfolio

It’s diversified across various assets to withstand market crashes. That makes it 85X less likely to experience a bear market than the S&P 500. And 790X less likely to see a major crash – of 40% or more – in any given year.

In other words, it expects to see a severe bear market once every 40,000 years. While the broad market sees one every 50 years.

For that reason, we call it Fortress Portfolio. And it doesn’t sacrifice millionaire-making returns for safety.

We ran the calculations, and here’s how much it’s expected to return based on a monthly investment.

(Source: FactSet, Dave Ramsey Investment Calculator)

You don’t need to have 50 years ahead of you to reach your retirement goals.

If you can save anything more than $53, then even if you start investing at 30, 40, or even 50, you too can retire a “secret millionaire” just like Ronald Read or Anne Schieber.

You don’t have to live like a monk and save every penny to retire rich. You need the world’s best companies working hard for you; so that one day, you won’t have to.

To find out more details about Fortress Portfolio, click here to watch a special presentation Intelligent Income Daily editor Brad Thomas and I put together. We’ll share how we’ve used it in our own lives and for close friends and family.

Even if you’ve made financial mistakes that torpedoed your retirement portfolio, Fortress can help you make it all back – and then some.

Safe Investing,

Adam Galas
Analyst, Intelligent Income Daily