Both of the janitors in my high school (small town) were two of the most prominent businessmen in town. One was worth half a million from an HVAC business, the other had owned three stores, a bar and a bowling alley before retiring to the janitorial position.

The speech at our graduation was given by our janitor!

After grad school, my wife took a short-term minimum wage job in a thrift store. One of her coworkers, who had been there for years, was an older lady from India who (along with her husband) owned several houses and factories, after a life of thrift and savings and careful investment.

She sorted thrift store donations because she liked it.

so why be a janitor, of all things? certainly it wasn't for the job?

Rockefeller also was a janitor at his Baptist church.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller#Beliefs

It was to give back to the community.

I've been a janitor, and it's not such a bad job at all.

Perhaps to keep themselves busy?

Just curious, how did he end up spening all that money? Did he go on extended vacations? Did he eventually buy a large house? Was he just working mainly so his family, children, extended family could have a better life?

I guess I understand that saving and living frugaly is in generally something that is desirable, but what is the point of keep saving, if one is not really planning on using it. It then might as well be a number on a bank statement, or a wad of green paper under the mattrass. One can accumulate all that, then die from over-exhaustion from accumulating it, then it might as well never existed as far as that particular person is concerned, if they never really got to enjoy it (Now perhaps some derive a large enjoyment just from the process of accumulation and knowing they have access to large sums of money, it is just what makes them happy, but that sounds a little to strange to me).

Think of it this way.

Imagine you have more money that you will ever spend in your entire life. You've bought everything you want, go anywhere you want, etc. and still have billions left over.

Is this really any different from having a $1M in the bank, being perfectly happy, and not spending any of it? In both cases you have more than you need and you're happy.

For many people saving and living frugally isn't a means to an end, it is the end. It's how they like to live their life, and being able to do so while keeping the bills paid makes them blissfully happy. That there may be millions of unused $$$ in the bank is irrelevant to them.

I don't know how he spent his money, but he did have a great home and could afford to have his family live there comfortably. He hired quite a lot of his family members, and I remember some of them along with other workers made good salary.

What I gathered and what I heard from others that have been associated with this company, is that workers were happy and quality of work was above average for this type of industry. As a young lad, it showed me that the employee/employer dependance is a two way street, which is not always the case in many companies.

Thing that tied it all together seemed to be a good work ethic and not necessarily working harder to exhaustion.

Stress reduction. Imagine if his car broke down. What could be a major financial crisis for many would be a drop in the bucket for him. He could fix it and move on with his life.

Having more things leads to more potential points of failure and less means to repair things in the case of multiple failure. It's a balance for everyone but I suspect that possessions were less important to him than security/simplicity.

For many, the principle purpose of money is a safety net. Once that is achieved (I dunno, ~5 million?) further accumulation is a side effect.

One reason to save money is to have enough to live off the interest when we are too old to work i.e. retirement. Usually, the plan is to not spend the capital in order to preserve the annual earnings from that capital. A couple million dollars in capital is what it takes to live a comfortable middle class retirement these days.

Maybe he doesn't keep any of it and gives it all away.

The first millionaire I met drove a beat up white Ford Pinto, and used it to pick up two bales of hay a week - for his prize-winning Arabian show horse.

From him I learned to be extravagant about my passions, and parsimonious with everything else.