The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko - Book Review

Title: The Millionaire Next Door
Authors: Thomas Stanley and William Danko
Pages: 258
Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing (New York), 1996

Millionaire. Guy inherited his money and lives high on the hog at the expense of everyone else. Drives in a fancy car, lives in a big house and flashes a lot of bling. Greedy and selfish, right? Not according to this book which chronicles the research results of the two authors who studied millionaires and their habits and discovered a few things that blow the above out of the water.

1. 85% of millionaires are first generation. The majority of them are self made and didn't inherit a dime.
2. Most of them worked hard to get their money and work even harder to keep it.
3. Most of them do not own expensive cars or bling and live in middle- upper class neighborhoods in $250,000 homes or less.

The Millionaire Next Door paints the picture of the millionaire of today and shows how wrong those people who envy them are on two counts: They are not greedy and they are not hurting anyone. They just have some really boring habits that they keep doing over and over and by the end of the day they come out ahead of everyone else.

Those habits are the central core of this book and they take on the whole gambit: living well below their means, they are efficient, they believe in financial independence, they did not get help from their parents, they raise their children to be economically self sufficient, they target opportunities well and the chose the right occupation. The book takes a chapter on each of these qualities and digs up the real story of millionaires and boy are they dull. In fact, they could be living right next door to you and you would not really know it. Thus the name of the book.

Stylistically, this book has case studies, charts and stories as well as hard conclusions based on facts. It is well written and has some good but dry humor. I loved it but I am a little bit of a nerd but it is also good if you like understanding money and how it affects your life.

The one thing you do come away with very strongly in this book is that there is no real reason to be envious of millionaires or think they came about their money unfairly, they simply are hard working people who know the value of money and use it to make more. They also play economic defense really well by being frugal. Anyone could do this if you had the desire and were willing to develop the self discipline over the rest of your life.

Rating: Four stars. The information alone is worth one star and the gut check worth another. The rest of the book is good solid stuff. Definitely worth the reading time.