Rating: 
Summary: Good but somewhat contradictory message
Review: I enjoyed the book because it emphasized methodical wealth creation. However, I really wanted to ask the tightwads in the examples "WHY?" they were so focused on net worth at the expense of everything else. Building security and/or wanting the option of retiring early are good goals, but what is the point of all the painful saving & thrift to accumulate money that these same traits will never allow them to enjoy? This is particularly interesting when the author later shows that leaving a big estate is self-defeating if your goal is to improve your descendants' lives. This dicrepancy is staring the author in the face but he never addresses it. I think Stephen Pollan's "Die Broke" is a more interesting take on some of these issues.
Rating: 
Summary: Old Truths But No New Answers
Review: I enjoyed the ancedotes put forth in this book but it is certainly not a guide or how to manual for anyone wanting to get ahead. Also it is useless for very low income people who can scarsely cover the basics with thier tiny paychecks. The message is timeless: Avoid debt, be frugal and save. If your wages are minimal then your in a situation that this book does not address. The authors even say that "this book isn't for economic dropouts". I guess that means anyone making less than $25,000 to $35,000 per year. Oh.
Rating:
Summary: Dose of reality
Review: Anyone wanting to get rich should read this book. It has one sure fire way of getting rich: hard work and thrifty.
Rating:
Summary: REFORMED OUTPATIENT
Review: THIS IS A BOOK THAT I WAS MEANT TO READ. AS I READ IT TO MY WIFE ALOUD, SHE THOUGHT I WAS MAKING UP A FEW LINES TO MAKE IT SOUND LIKE IT WAS ABOUT US. I WAS READING CHAPTER FIVE. THIS BOOKS VALIDATES EVERYTHING I HAVE FELT FOR THE LAST FIFTEEN YEARS OF MY MARRIAGE AND I AM SURE THAT IT WILL AFFECT THE FUTURES OF MY WIFE AND THREE SONS IF I CAN PUT INTO PRACTICE THE TRUTHS AND LIFESTYLE HABITS PUT FORTH IN THIS BOOK.
Rating: 
Summary: Millionaire Next Door
Review: I had heard so much about this book that I read it with a lot of anticipation and I was really disappointed. The book is interesting and relatively informative about millionaires. However, it is more anecdotal than anything else. There are some statistics, charts and graphs, but there are no "real life examples". If you are looking for help, say, a "how to" or "guide to becoming a millionaire" this is not the book. The other thing that turned me off about the book is the author's writing style. At times I found it preachy and at other times condescending. There are much better books about money management, making money work for you and becoming financially secure.
Rating: 
Summary: Informative
Review: As a Certified Financial Planner, this book is essential to the process of gaining and sustaining wealth for everyone!
Rating:
Summary: A Motivational, Goal-setting Book
Review: If you intend to read this book to discover the "get rich" secrets for becoming a millionaires, you are reading the wrong book!If you are searching for a book that helps you define your goals for saving and investing for retirement, children's education, etc., this is the right book. Before you can sit down and develop a savings plan, you must have goals including an idea of what you are willing to sacrifice to obtain those goals. Exactly how you will aquire wealth is between you and your accountant, banker, financial planner, broker, or whoever you trust with these matters. Everybody's formula will be a little different. This is not a "how-to" book. It is a book that gives you the courage to save through illustrations of what you can accomplish by saving and what you loose by spending every dime you earn.
Rating:
Summary: Show boys the money!
Review: If you belive in using role models to acomplish your goals this will become an excellent tool. The book is packed with detective-detailed facts that are almost emabarrasing to read. But the best starts when the authors chunk these data at the second half of the book. There you will start wondering how to change your live towards making a fortune. But not everything is a bed of roses. The book can be misleading for young women. The authors don't minimize the millionaires maleism in several chapters of the book. This parts aren't too long but are very strongly stated. My Advice: take advantage of Amazon's great price, don't even read the cars chapter, and change your lifes! And don't give this book as gift to any young women.
Rating:
Summary: Authors should add a few items to the book's message.
Review: This is a good book for all people to read. Another good book is Money by Andrew Hacker printed in 1997. The authors should include in the introduction that having accumalated 1,000,000 dollars of net worth does not make one wealthy or rich. This is the year 2000 and the last half century of inflation has changed the concept of what is wealthy or rich. Today one million in net worth ranks you only in the comfortable middle class, not rich. Back in 1996 about 112,000 families filed Federal Income Tax Returns with incomes of one million dollars or more. I have read that in 1972 there were only 200,000 millionaires in the USA. Back in the middle 1940's some one with one million net worth had the same purchasing power as ten million today, and that was one million, if they had two million back then, today thats twenty million. One million dollars just isn't what it once was, today its just comfortable middle class. Once one realizes this fact, the books story line, the actual life style of real millionaires, diminishes the intensity of the term "he's a millionaire". Now you know he's just middle class. Yes he's got more then the average person, but with the scale of todays wealth, he's not a rich person and he's not wealthy. Realize the million dollars net worth is not cash money, its the value of a small business and a home and other assets, very little is cash spending money. I think that the authors should have communicated that there is an income level where their concepts of what wealth a person should have given age and income do not apply. A low income family that does not have the disposable income to meet the basic living expenses, lodging, food, clothing, medical etc, does not have the funds to put aside 15 to 20 percent of pre tax income for wealth accumlation. The concepts presented in this book do not apply to all people. In 1995 40 percent of all USA households had incomes of less then 27,000 dollars, yes that includes retired people and young people just starting to work, but it also includes a vast population of adults working for a living. The ideas of this book are not universally applicable to the American population. For those families that have disposable income this book has the real potential, to assist them with putting them on solid financial ground by showing them how they are living today prevents them from acquiring a financial cushion for future rainy days. A good read, I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Much hyped book.
Review: The book does come up with lots of numbers and statistics to follow up that most of these such millionaires are either of the higher professional level like doctors or self employed individuals. There are major flaws to the reasoning and methodology. Let us say that if you are among the majority of those that make less than $50K and payed for your own education, you will have learned all that is in this book already. Since I cannot reveal what the book contains, I cannot note the flaws. This book does not offer specific advice to be a millionaire but rather like Robin Leach's show where the Rich and Famous are profiled. You get an statistical account of a general profile. For a book that is current, there is little mention or case profiling of those that are in the lower to middle class. And frighteningly.. no mention of technology as it affects us as it does today. The biggest note is that such millionaires should not spoil their children. But this observation is clearly lost to such millionaires. Observing once the son of the owner driving his father's suburban into an employee's volvo on the lot, you would think that with all the money there is, the son would be honorable. To my surprise at this family company, no word was ever said and the employee had to discover her car damaged. Truly, spoiling one's children as the book implies does affect behavior as I have observed. A book of light reading.
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