Editor’s Note: There are times when a wealthy retirement – much less a million-dollar net worth – seems inaccessible. Sometimes, when we don’t see the gains we’re expecting, our goals seem just out of reach.
The best-selling book The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley, Ph. D., points out that our goals may not be as far away as we think. In fact, often all you have to do is look next door.
The Millionaire Next Door has helped thousands of readers learn how to build wealth and manage it wisely by unraveling this exact misconception: that becoming a millionaire depends on perfect circumstances.
Now, Stanley’s daughter, Sarah Stanley Fallaw, Ph. D., is continuing his legacy with the sequel The Next Millionaire Next Door. This new release debunks myths and stereotypes surrounding wealth in the spirit of the original book while also offering valuable, specific insight into the wealth-building strategies by which you can become a millionaire in today’s environment.
If you’re not ready to give up on your goals, check this book out on Amazon.
The circumstances don’t have to be excellent – we just need to make excellent use of them. Let this father-daughter team show you how.
– Mable Buchanan, Assistant Managing Editor
From The Next Millionaire Next Door: Enduring Strategies for Building Wealth:
What explains happiness in life? I don’t have all the answers. But, as a review of both my books and blogs, happiness in life has little to do with the brand or price of the watch one wears, the stores one patronizes, the make of car one drives, or the brand of vodka one consumes. One’s overall happiness in life has nothing to do with the overall price one pays for wine, the size or market value of a home, not even the price one pays for a haircut.
If you’ve decided that being frugal isn’t for you and you want to consume with abandon, can you still build wealth? Ah, the ultimate question of the income statement affluent. The trouble is that most average- to high-income-producing Americans burden themselves, their households, their children (and most importantly, their adult children) with expectations for a lifestyle that perpetually requires a high income, heavy amounts of economic outpatient care, or debt.
… The original title of The Millionaire Next Door was “That’s Why They’re Wealthy” until the editor, Suzanne DeGalan, suggested the new title. One of the main reasons that the “they” are wealthy is because they live below their means and shop for value. Those who are successful accumulators of wealth approach spending and consumption with consistent discipline, training for financial Independence Day, transaction by transaction. This allows them to build wealth in good economic times and bad. They research, evaluate, and scrutinize their purchases over a lifetime.
As my father wrote in The Millionaire Next Door, “How did the wife of a millionaire respond when her husband gave her $8 million worth of stock in a company he recently took public?… She said, ‘I appreciate this, I really do.’ Then she smiled, never changing her position at the kitchen table, where she continued to cut out 25- and 50-cents-off food coupons from the week’s supply of newspapers.”
Ignoring trends, being indifferent to the views and influence of the herd, and living below their means are the hallmarks of those who are good at transforming income into wealth. As a result of this lifestyle, they have greater freedom and security to change jobs, start their own businesses, and take chances. In essence, a consistent and disciplined pattern of consumption behaviors is the marker of those who can be wealthy on their own, and those who are wealthy today.
Many people in this country are ambitious, and they want to emulate those who are economically successful. Marketers spend billions of dollars trying to convince people that most successful and rich people own a large portfolio of so-called upscale artifacts. This is as much a myth today as it has been throughout the history of our economy.
The financial professionals who will attract the next millionaire next door realize that it requires certain behaviors, not cars, accessories, or even job titles, to build wealth. Those who want to succeed in the long-term game of wealth-building will seek out advisors who view themselves more as coaches in the long-term game of economic success.
There are opportunities to succeed financially for those who make choices based on tried-and-true methods of building wealth. If you had positive experiences growing up related to all things financial, you may have developed a pattern of behaviors that will allow you to stay on the economic independence highway more easily than if you had the opposite experience. Taking responsibility for our financial decisions, regardless of our upbringing, relates to net worth. And the choices we make today and tomorrow about with whom we share our lives, choices that at least in this country we have the free will to make, will also impact our trajectory. Choose carefully.
To read the full book, click here.
