Uninteresting. This popular book that propounds to tell you the 'secrets' of real millionaires, and especially how they got that way, can be summed up in one phrase: spend less than you earn.

There; I've saved you the couple of hours you'd otherwise need to skim through this one. ( )

http://allbookedup-elena.blogspot.com... ( )

In this now-classic study, Stanley and Danko survey and interview Americans with a net worth of at least one million dollars during the 1980's and 90's. To their surprise, they found that the majority did not inherit their wealth but were business owners and professionals who had worked hard to make a good income, been frugal with their spending, and been wise with their savings. For this reason, most of them were in their late middle ages or early retirement years: reaching millionaire status takes a lifetime of work. Meanwhile, many of those who look well-off have saved very little for such niceties as retirement.

Along the way, Stanley and Danko learn that there are multiple strategies and styles that millionaires use to get there. For example, they list six different ways millionaires buy cars. Some are more frugal than others, but the point is that they are all successful. They all lay great importance on planning (spending an hour a week on planning their finances) and value (choosing good quality but more affordable clothing, cars, etc. than their peers). They also are loving parents. Convinced of the importance of education, they often provide college funding to their children, which means that their children are often very well educated. They also may be caught trying to help "too much"; they can best help their children to be successful by instilling independence on them and not giving them large cash gifts throughout their lives.

Stanley and Danko do a compelling job of combining quantitative and qualitative description. At this point, I take most of the results for granted, but they are inspirational, and there are many juicy tidbits in this book. It does not have an index, but it does have a list of the tables. If you plan to refer to this book again and again, I suggest taking notes with page numbers or leaving post-it's or annotations in the text. ( )

Here is a couple of researchers that set out to find out how the "typical" millionaire got that way. By their admittance, there was a lot of trial and error in their research. But over 20 years, they believe that they figured out how they got that way.

And some of their findings were quite surprising. For example, 88% of all millionaire households are 1st generation rich! These are people that did not inherit their wealth (think Paris Hilton).

More importantly, they compared these high net worth households to high income households. And they followed these groups to see what happens to their children.

This a must read book because once you understand how these households became wealthy, you'll realize that there is no reason why you couldn't join their ranks as well... ( )

Interesting ideas about what it takes to get rich. The case studies--after the first few--get a little tedious, but still not a bad read for the financial novice. ( )