"Why aren't I as wealthy as I should be?" Many people ask this question
of themselves all the time. Often they are hard-working, well educated
middle- to high-income people. Why, then, are so few affluent. For
nearly two decades the answer has been found in the bestselling The
Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy,
reissued with a new foreword for the twenty-first century. According to
the authors, most people have it all wrong about how you become wealthy
in America. Wealth in America is more often the result of hard work,
diligent savings, and living below your means than it is about
inheritance, advance degrees, and even intelligence. The Millionaire
Next Door identifies seven common traits that show up again and again
among those who have accumulated wealth. You will learn, for example,
that millionaires bargain shop for used cars, pay a tiny fraction of
their wealth in income tax, raise children who are often unaware of
their family's wealth until they are adults, and, above all, reject the
big-spending lifestyles most of us associate with rich people. In fact,
you will learn that the flashy millionaires glamorized in the media
represent only a tiny minority of America's rich. Most of the truly
wealthy in this country don't live in Beverly Hills or on Park
Avenue-they live next door.