I just finished reading the book "The Millionair Next Door." It's n0t a knew book but I've been hearing about it for several years now so I bought it used (of course) on Amazon.com.
The two guys who wrote this wanted to discover who the millionaires in the United States were and how they got rich. The book outlines what they discovered.
They began looking in the same places you probabbly would look - upscale neighborhoods. They found that many of the people who live in upscale neighborhoods actually aren't wealthy. Then they were shocked to find that most of the people who are wealthy live in rather "modest" neighborhoods. They made a statement that reminded me of my dad, "Most people have it all wrong about wealth in America. Wealth is not the same as income. If you make a good income each year and spend it all, you’re not getting any wealthier. You’re just living high. Wealth is what you accumulate, not what you spend.”
Here are some of the things they learned you might find interesting.
- Eighty-percent of the people were millionaires did not inherit wealth they earned it.
- Most had good but modest household incomes. Most didn’t make more than $110,000 a year. Many had a household income of $75,000 to $80,000 a year.
- They didn't become millionaires by having a dual income family. About half of the wives didn’t work outside the home. The #1 occupation for wives that did work was a teacher.
- Most of them have jobs that many would consider dull — welding contractors, auctioneers, rice farmers, owners of mobile park homes, pest controllers, paving contractors.
- The average millionarie they found drives a late model Ford truck.
- They use budgets meticulously. They became millionaires because they were meticulous budgeters. They maintained their wealth because they were meticulous budgeters.
- They redefine the American defination of wealth. For these millionaries wealth = net worth, not lifestyle. Wealthy is not the way I live it's the amount of money I have left over after I pay my bills.
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