The Millionaire Next Door

By Thomas J. Stanley, William D. Danko
This is a fascinating, if slightly outdated (it was written in the mid 90s), look at millionaires in the US: what makes them tick, how did they get so rich, how do they pass on (or fail to pass on) their values to their children. The authors learned a lot while researching this book and they pass it on without much in the way of judgment. The section on passing millionaire-making values on to kids was really interesting. Many millionaires have children who can’t live within their means, and it’s fascinating to look at how that happens.
The one thing that kind of does stick out is the unspoken bias against going to college — accumulating debt when you can’t pay it off quickly is not a sign of a millionaire in the making, according to them. I think this may be a product of the times. I hope the authors do an updated version — I strongly suspect that becoming a millionaire without at least a bachelor’s degree is very difficult in the modern age.