Something doesn't quite add up for me. To get to 8M from 0 it roughly means "investing 300 a month at an 8% rate over 65 years".
It also implies he had ~$1 million 30 years ago on a janitor's salary for 40 years (assuming worked from 20 to 60).
I have no clue what a janitor's salary was in 1950s to 80s, but I would guess it was in the neighborhood of 5k-10k/yr (edit, 10k-25k is way too high). Our office cleaning lady made about 35k a year in 2014. Given all of the above, I doubt very much he had earned a janitor's wage all his life, and he probably had some sort of income that we are not aware of.
Then I found these:
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/05/us/vermont-frugal-man-donates-millions/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/04/man-leaves-millions-to-library_n_6616416.html"Read was in the Army during World War II before working as a mechanic with his brother for many years. After the garage was sold, Read could have taken some time to relax, but "he didn't take to retirement very well," Rowell said."
Well, that solved the mystery for me. Mr. Read retired from his part-time janitor position in 1997. This would mean he had worked as a mechanic after 1945 to likely 70s or 80s, the biggest boom period America had ever seen. I believe that is how he was able to be a millionaire by the 1980s. Mr. Read was married but his wife died in 1970s and I could not find any mention of children.
So now we have a much clearer picture of his life:
1. Mechanic (perhaps even gas/service station co-owner) for 25 years
2. Invested in Stock Market
3. No children
4. Then worked part-time as a janitor as "he didn't take to retirement very well".
Sure his frugal ways played a major role in becoming wealthy, but I would argue that 1 and 2 (and maybe 3) played a even bigger role. And 4 is just a headline grabber, all of these has nothing to do with his part-time job as a janitor.
so no, his story is not as amazing as the media would like us to believe, but hey, who wants to read a boring story? If anything this is an advertisement for the financial industry to get people to invest. It's funny that the avg/overall market rose more than the ones mentioned in the article over the last 30 years.