The Millionaire Next Door

Book excerpt: How do the rich get rich? An updated edition of the “remarkable” New York Times bestseller, based on two decades of research (The Washington Post). Most of the truly wealthy in the United States don’t live in Beverly Hills or on Park Avenue. They live next door. America’s wealthy seldom get that way through an inheritance or an advanced degree. They bargain-shop for used cars, raise children who don’t realize how rich their families are, and reject a lifestyle of flashy exhibitionism and competitive spending. In fact, the glamorous people many of us think of as “rich” are actually a tiny minority of America’s truly wealthy citizens—and behave quite differently than the majority. At the time of its first publication, The Millionaire Next Door was a groundbreaking examination of America’s rich—exposing for the first time the seven common qualities that appear over and over among this exclusive demographic. This edition includes a new foreword by Dr. Thomas J. Stanley—updating the original content in the context of the financial crash and the twenty-first century. “Their surprising results reveal fundamental qualities of this group that are diametrically opposed to today’s earn-and-consume culture.” —Library Journal