5 Myths about Millionaires - they may surprise you!

[healthy11]

finance.yahoo.com/news/5-millionaire-myths-201534838.html?vp=1

The article starts off:
Jaime Tardy, author of "Eventual Millionaire," spent more than three years interviewing over 130 millionaires from all walks of life to find out what makes them tick and what makes them different from us non-millionaire folks. She identified a few misconceptions most people have about millionaires -- Myth #1: Millionaires are smarter
“One of the millionaires I interviewed actually got a note on his report card that he had all Cs and the teacher said that he was a daydreamer and wouldn’t make anything of himself. So it doesn’t necessarily matter whether you’re book smart or not. A lot of people also have ADD and dyslexia that I’ve interviewed. They pride themselves on really pushing past the limits, seeing opportunities where a lot of other people don’t, being really creative -- those things that aren’t really measured in school.”

[shawbridge]

Interesting. As we know here, having LDs does not make one not smart (though they may make being book smart harder).

Also, having a $1 million in assets if that includes one's residence does not make one anywhere near rich in the Northeast or California. In many towns with good schools, that would be an entry-level house and one could really struggle to get by. In NYC, that would be a closet and you'd likely have to fund private school. I think the threshold has to be somewhat higher or at least be regionally adjusted.

I read a very good pop business book called The Millionaire Next Door whose breathless prose at the end of each chapter promising me the key to life happiness could be summarized in a few simple conclusions that were very useful: 1) the people who accumulate assets are not necessarily the people who have high incomes but the people who save (typically those who spend less than their incomes); 2) your spending levels largely come from your surroundings (if you live in an area where everyone has landscapers and Mercedes and sends their kids to private schools, you will probably end up doing so also without really thinking about it); and 3) funding children who have lower incomes doesn't is a bad idea as it teaches them that they do not have to adjust their expenses/lifestyles to their incomes.

[healthy11]

Shawbridge, your summary of The Millionaire Next Door book gives useful advice, and it reminded me of something that happened when we first moved to the house we now live in. At the time, my husband and I were recently married, and had no children. We were used to doing our own housework and yardwork, and that included grass cutting. In fact, because my husband has seasonal allergies, I would often be the person mowing the rather large lawn. I looked at it as another form of exercise, and not a huge ordeal.

A couple of months after we moved in, I was approached by a neighbor two houses away, who actually said words to the effect of, "Why are you mowing yourself? My husband sees you doing it, and wants me to try. Why don't you just get a landscape service like the rest of us?" Truthfully, the woman got divorced a year or two later, so I suspect mowing the lawn wasn't the only disagreement they had in their marriage, but it highlights the statement about people who automatically do what everyone around them does. As the economy has declined, we see more of our neighbors mowing their own yards now, like we still do.

It will be interesting to see how our son develops...He doesn't mind buying used cars, or items on Craigslist, and he definitely seems less motivated or concerned about money matters than my husband and I were at his age. In fact, on a recent visit, our son mentioned how several of his co-workers mentioned that "they'll be happy to get their annual 3% raises" so long as they still have their jobs. Since my son appears to be able to manage his current household expenses on his current salary, he figures anything more is just "a bonus." (Hopefully, he can start saving more. Obviously, should he ever get married/have children, he will likely realize that even an entry-level engineer's salary isn't that much, but for the time being he's content.)