What is it like to be discreetly wealthy? I’m low-end wealthy with a net worth of over four million (USA) dollars. That's not "rich" to many people, but it suits me.

I love being a stealth millionaire. I live in a home that I purchased for $240,000 cash. My neighborhood is very middle-class. I drive a Nissan, and my wife drives a Honda. We buy our cars new (also with cash), but we keep them for approximately ten years. Not a soul, other than my wife, knows what we have. When we die, our children will very likely be quite shocked.

I fix virtually everything that breaks. I rotate my own tires. I have a garage full of tools, because over the years, I always bought the special tools to repair things, rather than paying someone outrageous prices to “fix” it. The tools have saved many, many thousands of dollars.

We shop at the Dollar store for things like detergents and cleaners. Our favorite restaurant is In-N-Out. Ninety percent of the time, I wear jeans and a black "polo" shirt (non-branded). People have actually commented on my limited wardrobe (shockingly rude), but I don't care -- because a couple of these commentators likely had a negative net worth!

OK, now here's the fun part. I never worry about money. I can buy anything I want (except jets, yachts, and ridiculous houses, I feel). Luckily, I enjoy a $10 purchase as much as many people enjoy their $10,000 purchases -- probably a lot more, because I'm not worried about making payments. Everyday expenses, utility bills, insurance, gasoline costs, and medical bills don't concern me. Though I do carefully compare prices - even on things like toilet paper.

I have never worried about whether I could pay a bill. If I need $500,000 in cash tomorrow, I can literally get it out of the bank. I enjoy walking into a car dealership every ten years, and writing a $27,000 check for a middling car. Their jaws drop, their eyes get wide - because they don’t think I have twenty bucks in my Walmart jeans, and they see my ten-year-old compact car sitting outside…(the one I'll sell myself, not trade in).

Travel costs don't concern me - and we travel a lot. We might sometimes splurge up to a “Premium Economy” seat. People wonder "where-do-you-get-the-money-because-you-don't-look-rich."

Luckily, I don’t have a thing for Maserati’s, wooden yachts, or jewelry. In addition to travel, I spend money on guitars, sound equipment, books, computers, and decent transportation. My wife likes needlework, not Dior. Our hobbies are inexpensive, in the overall scheme of how much money we’re talking about.

I grew up in a lower middle-class family, delivered newspapers for five years, and enlisted in the military (E-1) after high school. So much for my “privilege.” I achieved my wealth by working in non-managerial positions (as a scientist) in corporations for 29 years. While I was paid well, I never made more than $130,000 until the last four years of my career (I'm retired now). I used the tortoise approach to accumulate wealth.

I read so many questions where people ask how to "get rich quick." The key for me was frugal living, a decent education, careful saving and investing, and total avoidance of get-rich-quick schemes. All very boring, but it can work for you too.

There is a contingent of people (not usually nasty - but sometimes snarky) on Quora who believe you have to inherit money, or "get lucky" in some way in order to become financially independent. Or, being greedy, they spend their time scheming about a quick billion, when a million or so might work (almost) as well. They think all rich people live like basketball stars, when in fact, the vast majority of self-made millionaires don't live anything like that.