The Millionaire Next Door 
asked by benzdrives on November 6, 2006 5:52 PM
How can you join the ranks of America's wealthy (defined as people whose net worth is over one million dollars)? It's easy, say doctors Stanley and Danko, who have spent the last 20 years interviewing members of this elite club: you just have to follow seven simple rules. The first rule is, always live well below your means. The last rule is, choose your occupation wisely. You'll have to buy the book to find out the other five. It's only fair. The authors' conclusions are commonsensical. But, as they point out, their prescription often flies in the face of what we think wealthy people should do. There are no pop stars or athletes in this book, but plenty of wall-board manufacturers--particularly ones who take cheap, infrequent vacations! Stanley and Danko mercilessly show how wealth takes sacrifice, discipline, and hard work, qualities that are positively discouraged by our high-consumption society. "You aren't what you drive," admonish the authors. Somewhere, Benjamin Franklin is smiling.
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Practical, sage advice from Stanley. Not as good as his follow up, "The Millionaire Mind" this book is somewhat pedantic. It also suffers from the fact it's extremely dry. The author's writing is much more engaging in his followup, and that's a much faster read.
In addition to offering some practical tips "The Millionaire Next Door" also lends itself to parody in books like dave Barry's Money Secrets, a book called "Maybe Life's Just Not that Into You" and something from Andy Borowitz, the name of which escapes me.
If you have to choose between "The Millionaire Next Door" and "The Millionaire Mind" go with the latter.
In addition to offering some practical tips "The Millionaire Next Door" also lends itself to parody in books like dave Barry's Money Secrets, a book called "Maybe Life's Just Not that Into You" and something from Andy Borowitz, the name of which escapes me.
If you have to choose between "The Millionaire Next Door" and "The Millionaire Mind" go with the latter.
reviewed by webin on November 9, 2006 5:16 AM
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This is just a good basic theory book about saving more, spending less on frivolous items. Basically, that most millionaires don't live these high spending lifestyles, they buy used cars and pay cash for everything. Which is great, these guy live like blue collar America. If that is the case then why bother having millions to begin with the ex-wife is going to take half anyways. I think you should live a little never know when you can get run over by a bus. This book offers little to no financial advise just general themes. If I wanted to live like middle america I don't need to read a book about it instead I have a feeling the money I spent on this book will be going into the authors millionaire account.
reviewed by bigwinner on November 18, 2006 12:21 PM
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The sub-header to this book could very well be: "All Work & no Play makes Jack a Dull Boy".
Basically, Tom Stanley's scholarly treatise on American wealth comes down to this mind-ripping, continent-blasting conclusion:
Millionaires, you see:
1) Save more than they spend;
2) Don't spend anything.
That's it. Page after page, chart after chart, graph after graph, anecdote piling up on anecdote, all of it boiling down to the same conclusion: don't spend more than you save. Clip coupons. Hang on to your wife `til Death you do Part. Buy a rambler for 80 grand, and cling to it like a rat clutching a Big Mac in a hurricane.
To wit: if you're a good little Bob Cratchit, and burrow down in your suburban Dacha, drive the Civic, eat Top Ramen, and take your vacations at the State Museum of Knitting & the Fine Arts, you'll die loaded!Sound like fun?
Didn't think so. Look: you've got one life, and after death all bets are off. Sure, you could be hauled up by the angels to Paradise, or it could just be one plate of linguini too many, a nasty flatline and one vast inky void of non-consciousness. Either way, you're looking at one single trip on this not-so-flat Earth, so you might as well live large.
It's true, now: you can haul in major bank in whatever profession you choose: eremetic horror-writer, Wall Street tycoon, Railroad baron, small-town librarian, legal eagle defender of the Criminally Insane, whatever. And you can always outspend it. That is the source of endless tragedy and Dickensian woe throughout the ages, without a doubt.
But there pitfalls at the other extreme. Listen: I live next door to one of these McMillionaires. The guy is this enfeebled little wizened gnome of a critter, used to be a bank Vice President and got bought out because he was a dingus. Total skinflint. Miser. Goes on his own hunting trips and brings back venison, deer meat, which he forces his family of---jesus, I think 12---to eat for months. Lives in a shacky little rambler, buys used Crown Vics from the local police department and bargain basement prices.
The guy, no doubt, is high net worth. But he's also a loser.
This is a guy who didn't want to cough up a few hundred bucks to help build a joint fence between our properties---so there's a fence, even a fence that abuts his property---but beyond my house and demesne, he elected not to build a fence. Instead, he got a plastic Jersey Barricade (orange and white) and went with that. Is that any way to live? Is that really what it means to be a `millionaire'?
I think not. Half the glory of the Age of Great American Consumption is buying stuff you don't need, but want. Desire. Demand. What else is work for? Find a way to creative bliss, work at something you're good at, that you have a real passion for, and the money will follow.
But for the Love of God, it's only Money: spend it! What is money for, if not to indulge yourself?
Sure, get a pace---plan to the end---set a budget. But how many of you want to be that newspaper column on page A3, the 95 year old dowager pauper who begged for alms on the streetcorner, ate catfood out of a tin, and scrounged for quarters by the bus stop, then was found rigid and cold in the urine-stiff sheets of her dirty bed, sprawled atop a fortune estimated at 20 million bucks? Sound like a plan? I think not. Money may not buy happiness, but it sure as hell can get you a Rolls-Royce Phantom.
"Millionaire Next Door" might have it right in its sociology---and for what it is, Stanley's thesis is meticulously researched, mustered like a well-trained army, and capable of marshalling its teeming forest of facts like a well-drilled martinet---but it's off the map when it comes down to the point of the whole thing: if you've got it, flaunt it.
"Millionaire Next Door" isn't a bad book: it's scholarly, and plods along its own hand-me-down lodestar towards its prophesied conclusion (be cheap! Die loaded!), and perhaps some folks will be astounded to discover there are some real richies down the block who in another day would have been called skinflints.
But as a map to your stars, this one is a little cramped, cribbed, dank, and stinks of mothballs. I think I'll take first class---scratch that, how much did you say that Learjet was going for, again?
JSG
Basically, Tom Stanley's scholarly treatise on American wealth comes down to this mind-ripping, continent-blasting conclusion:
Millionaires, you see:
1) Save more than they spend;
2) Don't spend anything.
That's it. Page after page, chart after chart, graph after graph, anecdote piling up on anecdote, all of it boiling down to the same conclusion: don't spend more than you save. Clip coupons. Hang on to your wife `til Death you do Part. Buy a rambler for 80 grand, and cling to it like a rat clutching a Big Mac in a hurricane.
To wit: if you're a good little Bob Cratchit, and burrow down in your suburban Dacha, drive the Civic, eat Top Ramen, and take your vacations at the State Museum of Knitting & the Fine Arts, you'll die loaded!Sound like fun?
Didn't think so. Look: you've got one life, and after death all bets are off. Sure, you could be hauled up by the angels to Paradise, or it could just be one plate of linguini too many, a nasty flatline and one vast inky void of non-consciousness. Either way, you're looking at one single trip on this not-so-flat Earth, so you might as well live large.
It's true, now: you can haul in major bank in whatever profession you choose: eremetic horror-writer, Wall Street tycoon, Railroad baron, small-town librarian, legal eagle defender of the Criminally Insane, whatever. And you can always outspend it. That is the source of endless tragedy and Dickensian woe throughout the ages, without a doubt.
But there pitfalls at the other extreme. Listen: I live next door to one of these McMillionaires. The guy is this enfeebled little wizened gnome of a critter, used to be a bank Vice President and got bought out because he was a dingus. Total skinflint. Miser. Goes on his own hunting trips and brings back venison, deer meat, which he forces his family of---jesus, I think 12---to eat for months. Lives in a shacky little rambler, buys used Crown Vics from the local police department and bargain basement prices.
The guy, no doubt, is high net worth. But he's also a loser.
This is a guy who didn't want to cough up a few hundred bucks to help build a joint fence between our properties---so there's a fence, even a fence that abuts his property---but beyond my house and demesne, he elected not to build a fence. Instead, he got a plastic Jersey Barricade (orange and white) and went with that. Is that any way to live? Is that really what it means to be a `millionaire'?
I think not. Half the glory of the Age of Great American Consumption is buying stuff you don't need, but want. Desire. Demand. What else is work for? Find a way to creative bliss, work at something you're good at, that you have a real passion for, and the money will follow.
But for the Love of God, it's only Money: spend it! What is money for, if not to indulge yourself?
Sure, get a pace---plan to the end---set a budget. But how many of you want to be that newspaper column on page A3, the 95 year old dowager pauper who begged for alms on the streetcorner, ate catfood out of a tin, and scrounged for quarters by the bus stop, then was found rigid and cold in the urine-stiff sheets of her dirty bed, sprawled atop a fortune estimated at 20 million bucks? Sound like a plan? I think not. Money may not buy happiness, but it sure as hell can get you a Rolls-Royce Phantom.
"Millionaire Next Door" might have it right in its sociology---and for what it is, Stanley's thesis is meticulously researched, mustered like a well-trained army, and capable of marshalling its teeming forest of facts like a well-drilled martinet---but it's off the map when it comes down to the point of the whole thing: if you've got it, flaunt it.
"Millionaire Next Door" isn't a bad book: it's scholarly, and plods along its own hand-me-down lodestar towards its prophesied conclusion (be cheap! Die loaded!), and perhaps some folks will be astounded to discover there are some real richies down the block who in another day would have been called skinflints.
But as a map to your stars, this one is a little cramped, cribbed, dank, and stinks of mothballs. I think I'll take first class---scratch that, how much did you say that Learjet was going for, again?
JSG
reviewed by csean85 on November 24, 2006 5:46 PM
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I borrowed this book on CD from the library and half way through, ordered the book so I would have it to refer to. Excellent book, highly recommended. Helps to put a realistic perspective on millionaires.
reviewed by work on November 26, 2006 5:03 PM
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While this book is rather dry at parts, if you're truly interested in making the most of your money, you'll benefit from its insight. There are several things I keep in the back of my mind whenever I'm tempted to overspend: most millionaires drive regular cars, not new, fancy ones; and most don't live extravagantly, they work hard, spend wisely and let the majority of their money grow. Essentially, most millionaires live like middle class folk, they just know how to live within their means.
reviewed by jrivera on November 28, 2006 11:34 AM