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Excellent point. On the other hand, I know plenty of millionaires who never could have made a post like Jason's. Why? Because of how they became millionaires.

• jseliger 16y ago
  Most people don't become millionaires through inheritance, extreme income, and so forth; they become millionaires because they save more than they spend, usually by a substantial amount, invest widely, buy a house and keep it, and marry and don't get divorced. Stanley and Danko's book The Millionaire Next Door describes this phenomenon: http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Thomas-Stanley/dp/0671015206/ref=thstsst-20 http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Thomas-Stanley/d... and what wealth in America actually looks like.
  • kiba 16y ago
    That's a slow way of becoming a millionaire. People want to become millionaire the fast way. It's still hard work though. However, you can probably combine the advice in that book and speed up the process of becoming a millionaire. Once you get to that, I think you can live off a 3 percent interest. That's 30,000 dollars. I am pretty sure you can manage that if you live like a college student.
    • GFischer 16y ago
      30.000 dollars is enough for middle-class living in the Third world :) I'd spend part of the capital though, or invest on something with a better interest rate (like living off real-estate rent - my grandparents do that).
  • dabent 16y ago
    As good as that book was, I liked Stanley's "The Millionaire Mind" even more: http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Mind-Thomas-J-Stanley/dp/0740718584/ http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Mind-Thomas-J-Stanley/dp/0... There were two groups that stood out in the book: 1. Professionals who did well and invested wisely. He noted that most professionals who do well, spend all of their income and often even more. 2. Business owners. Both groups became millionaires through one means: business ownership - through stocks in case 1 and directly through case two. I know several people who've done very well and it's because of their businesses. A junkyard owner, an owner of an electrician company, an owner of a used tire business are among those who have little or no post-high-school education. They all have far more in the bank than I do. Note that all of these are all what the blog post calls "unsexy" businesses. They provide a product or service and charge for it. The first million didn't happen for them in 3 years. But it did happen and for at least two of them (I lost touch with the junk yard owner) the money just keeps coming in.
  • pfedor 16y ago
    The book Fooled by Randomness on the other hand argues that the picture painted by The Millionaire Next Door is skewed by a double survivorship bias: it describes people who not only saved more than they spent, invested, etc. but also (a) Happened to pick the stocks that outperformed the market, and (b) Invested during one of the strongest bull markets in history. (Not to say who's right or wrong, just wanted to bring up an interesting counterpoint.)
• MaysonL 16y ago
  Better yet: have you earned that million by creating many millions in value for your customers.
• soyelmango 16y ago
  It sounds like you're saying that these millionaires who became millionaires through inheritance, hard work, and chance can't write a post like Jason's because of how they got there. The reason they couldn't have made a post like Jason's might well be for many reasons, maybe they... - don't want to share their experience and knowledge widely and freely - think they're too busy to do the above - hadn't considered blogging it - are not as eloquent in distilling and expressing it. I think there would be interesting and valuable lessons to learn from any of the millionaire types you mention - even from those who've done it only once, and from those who've failed trying.