From a pensioner to a millionaire: how to earn €3 million on the stock exchange at the age of 75

Ingeborg Mootz became a millionaire at the age of 75 after starting to trade on the stock exchange. The woman drew information for decision-making from newspapers and kept notes in a copybook. She did business over the phone, since she wasn't very computer-savvy. The millionaire got herself a laptop only a short while ago, when she turned 90 and withdrew from business.

Mootz was born back in 1922 in a German town called Giessen. The girl knew from the very childhood what penury was: there were a lot of children in the family and they had a very modest living. After getting married at the age of 17, Ingeborg began to run her own household. Since the husband was not very generous, the young wife was forced to save money and asked her husband for money to pay for the weekly expenses, secretly dreaming of earning her own money. It was at that time that the girl got interested in investments. Since the head of the family was against his wife working considering her to be too silly, the housewife made her dream of playing on the stock exchange come true only when she turned 48 years old.

At that age, Ingeborg finally decided to take a training course and became a specialist in financial consulting. She soon began earning more than her husband who was a trading company agent, but she had to quit her job due to some health issues. The next attempt of trading on the stock exchange was made by Mootz after her husband's death, when she was 75. The elderly frau faced financial difficulties: a small pension was not enough for a decent living, so she again started considering additional opportunities to earn money.

A stroke of luck became an incentive to make a long-held dream come true: Ingeborg accidentally found the shares of the German energy company VEBA bought by her husband. In 2000, VEBA took over a competitor, the VIAG industrial group, and became the leader of Germany's energy industry.

This thousand shares was a gift of fate and the starting capital which Mootz used to enter the stock market. Back then, in 1997, the woman promised herself to make a million out of a thousand. After successfully selling her husband's securities, she bought the assets of two banks. Despite the global crisis of the late 90's, she managed to sell the shares profitably in a year making a 130% profit. Over the next eight years, almost all of Ingeborg's deals were successful, and the German pensioner's fortune exceeded − 3 million. Mootz became known as the "Million-dollar Granny."

Ingeborg earned money not only for herself: after taking over the management of her niece's finances, she was able to turn them into − 100 thousand that was later used to pay for the happy relative's house.

Apart from the stock exchange transactions, Ingeborg gave lectures, consulted on the phone charging her customers − 23 and even wrote a book "Stock Market Detective" about her passion. Frau Mootz, being over 90 now, has taken a back seat. The dividends she earned give her an amazing opportunity to pay any bills, buy new outfits and travel.