Yu Youzhen (pictured), who hails from Wuhan City, China, is a millionaire who still manages to get up every day at 3 a.m. to hightail it to her job as a sanitation worker, where she spends six hours a day sweeping, picking up garbage, and going through trash cans six days a week. Why is this wealthy woman putting herself through such a grueling occupation for a monthly paycheck of 1,420 yuan a month? Youzhen wants her children to understand that the virtues of hard work as an essential part of life and know that being idle will lead to a wasteful lifestyle, reports South China Morning Post.
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The 53-year-old middle-aged woman earned her fortune through — what else — hard work. Youzhen and her husband reportedly toiled from dawn until dusk as vegetable farmers in the ’80s in Donghu Village Huojiawan. They saved every dime they made and soon they were able to purchase a three-story home in their district.
The always-entrepreneurial Youzhen began renting rooms in her home. The monies from the rent allowed Youzhen and her husband to purchase even more properties, and soon they owned five three-story buildings with apartments for rent.
Today, Youzhen and her husband reportedly own 17 buildings that are valued at around $12 million.
But Youzhen wasn’t alone in her entrepreneurial thinking. Soon neighbors also began building homes as well, but there was one main difference: they weren’t disciplined with their money. Youzhen reportedly observed how their hard-earned fortunes disappeared through frivolous vices, such as big spending, gambling, drinking excessively, and recreational drug use.
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