The Millionaire Next Door
The book, “The Millionaire Next Door” aims at informing the general public of who a millionaire is and how to become a millionaire. This eventually contributes to determining the “real” meaning of being wealthy. The book explains the meaning of a millionaire to being a household who is in possession of a net-worth that is more than a million dollars. This contradicts the commonly perceived definition of a millionaire that is widely associated with high amounts of income. Additionally, from the book’s concept, high-income earners are not considered to be wealthy since the majority of these people do not engage themselves in long-lasting wealth accumulation. This is a result of expensive lifestyles led by these personalities which deplete their income as soon as it is earned.
Through the book, it is evident that for one to effectively accumulate wealth and be considered wealthy, he or she needs to spend a relatively less amount of money than what he or she earns as income. Additionally, the earned money should be more with very few amounts of wealth being inherited. This idea is supported by a collected showing that about 80% of existing millionaires obtained their wealth through personal effort rather inheritance. This illustrates the urge for the idea of wealth accumulation rather spending it. Millionaires are also described to be living relatively below their potential. This concept is achieved from their economical spending habits which focus on saving more money than they spend. The book describes millionaires as quality goers rather than image seekers.
According to research conducted by Thomas and Danko (1996), many millionaires were not previously exposed to adequate financial upbringing. This is evident from the findings that many of them did not benefit from economic outpatient care. This implies that comfortable parental care contributes to poor habits of wealth accumulation by the children as beneficiaries. Nevertheless, most of the millionaires come from wealthy families which act a motivation to hard-work as they want to maintain their way of living. The book also insinuates that the children of the wealthy are economically independent which appears to be logical as direct giving of money to an adult contributes to making them lazy and not to understand the dollar value.
Millionaires are also described from their habits of efficient allocation of energy, time and money with a focus of generating more wealth. All of the above characteristics are guided by an adequate budget and investment plan. Additionally, these individuals are good schemers of money-making opportunities and are mostly self-employed. In conclusion, this book provides clear guidance on how to become a millionaire. It also educates us on the absolute meaning of a millionaire that is away from expensive lifestyles. Finally, to be a millionaire, we must be ready to adopt economic, saving and hardworking lifestyles that are focused on wealth creation.
Works Cited
Thomas J, Stanley, and Danko William. “The millionaire next door.” (1996).