The Millionaire Next Door Full Free Audio Book Summary

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The Millionaire Next Door Full Free Audio Book Summary

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This book is a comprehensive first-hand research conducted on America’s millionaires. The authors explain simple spending and saving habits to attain financial independence. They debunk the myths about the millionaire lifestyle, showing us that most times we are misinformed about what actually means to be rich. The key to this book shows that the millionaire next door is usually frugal, saves regularly and invests wisely.

Overview | Chapter 1

Hi, welcome to Bookey. Today we will unlock the book The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy.

After years of research, in this book Stanley and Danko share strategies or secrets of ordinary American people that have accumulated wealth to the point of becoming millionaires.

Its main premise is that people who look rich may not actually be rich, they overspend often on symbols of wealth, but actually have modest portfolios and, sometimes, big debts. On the other hand, actual millionaires tend to live in middle-income neighborhoods, drive economical cars, wear simple watches and buy suits off the rack.

Let me ask you a question, what is your impression of millionaires? Do they go to high-end venues; wear luxury watches; drive exotic cars; buy yachts; live in mansions; build wine cellars; and enjoy luxury brands?

If your answer is yes, chances are you’ve been duped by the carefully created image of the rich in the media. Real millionaires don’t look like this. They don’t splurge. They’re frugal and low-key. They may even be living next door.

Those who wear gold and silver are the “typical rich”; illusion created by the consumer market, which poses two problems. First, it makes us feel that the kind of life wealthy people have is unattainable to us, which means is far away from us and no matter what we do we wouldn’t be able to keep up with that. Second, it induces us to imitate the “typical rich” model deliberately, and embark on the road of high consumption as the “pseudo rich”. Once falling into the consumption trap carefully arranged by the consumption age, a person can hardly rely on their own consciousness to get out.

The Millionaire Next Door also reveals the truth about the pseudo rich. What is a pseudo rich? It’s someone who has high income but also high consumption of their made-up needs making it difficult or nearly impossible to save and accumulate wealth regardless of what he or she does. They cater to the “typical rich” illusion of the age of consumption. As a result, they may seem to have a high standard of living but will never achieve financial freedom. In contrast, true millionaires do not get caught up in the lifestyle of appearances.

The book is a highly statistical exploration of America’s millionaires, which consists of households who have a net worth of 1-10 million dollars. The authors, both of them being scholars, were studying and researching the profiles of the wealthy and accidentally found a very interesting pattern of consumption, investment and savings within them, what they like to call ‘the hidden secrets of the wealthy’.

As a result, Stanley turned these observations into a series of best-sellers of wealthy people, the most influential of which was The Millionaire Next Door. After it was published in 1996, it stayed on the New York Times best-seller list for 88 weeks and sold for more than a million copies.

He explains that the public’s view of wealth is wrong. Income and wealth are not the same. Both the rich and the pseudo rich have high incomes, but the rich accumulate much more wealth than the pseudo rich. Second, one can hardly become a millionaire through luck, inheritance, high social status, or even high intelligence. Still, one can accumulate wealth through self-restraint, frugality, and hard work, eventually becoming a real millionaire.