I love the Millionaire next door as a book and it is great advice. But it, and The Millionaire Mind, are based on self-reported data. That is really useful, b

I love the Millionaire next door as a book and it is great advice. But it, and The Millionaire Mind, are based on self-reported data. That is really useful, because you can learn good habits from it. But you have to be aware that there is a natural bias of people to downplay how much of their success comes from other people and how much is due to our own good works. Economists often look at the income of families from tax returns or census data. Neither is perfect. That's how you can get some people quoting studies that most millionaires are self made and some people quoting studies that most wealthy people got an inheritance. They are quoting different kinds of studies (and probably with different wealth cutoffs too btw). For your personal habits and plans it is good to keep in mind that most millionaires are self made and you can be one too. For policy purposes, understand that wealthy people tend to have wealthy children.