Rating: 
Summary: A Waste of Time
Review: The whole book can be summed up in one phrase: save your money, be frugal and you too can be a millionaire. Really?!?! Although the studies are somewhat interesting the whole book seems to be a bunch of numbers that prove the same point in fifty thousand different ways. So, save your money. The authors do bring up a valid point when they say that most millionaires do not look and act the part of the "Hollywood millionaire," but isn't that obvious? If you spend all of your income on expensive, frivolous, luxury items, of course you are not going to have enough left over to qualify as a millionaire. I guess the book is good to read if you are one of those people that are given everything from your parents. If you don't have a budget plan and are constantly buying the most expensive items, then maybe this book will "change your life." However, I would hope that what is mentioned in the book is common sense to most people. Save your money and save your time.
Rating: 
Summary: VERY Interesting..maybe in 5 years
Review: This book was actually very intersting. It had a lot of information, and I, at times, found myself, overwhelmed, but it never once got boring. On every page there was a new fact, something cool or interesting about the millionaires of our country. Whoever knew that the people who spend the most on cars aren't actually the richest people. According to the book, most millionaires aren't austentatous about their wealth. Lots of them drive not BMWs or Mercedes, but Fords and Volvos. It's very intersting how you really can't judge a book by it's cover, even when money comes into play. I really liked this book, but I found a lot of it to be repetitive. In the first chapter, it's all broke down for you-how to become a millionaire. And it's simple-spend money wisely, and be sure to save it. That's what will get you there, keep you a PAW, instead of a UAW. It gives good tips on how to treat your children, how to play the stock market, how to buy a car etc., but it really kind of passed me over. THus stuff doesn't really mean anything to me, especially in high school. However, in a few years, I will defintely pick this book up again and make sure I pay attention. But for now, it's just interesting and fun. Great book!
Rating: 
Summary: I knew the Millionaire Next Door...
Review: The book is a kind of research paper. The authors are, after all, academics. They have attempted to provide a "composite" picture, based on extensive research, of the average American Millionaire. What they have found is that such an individual is difficult to identify. In general, though, they are self-employed, hard-working, thrifty, etc. They do not drive expensive cars, live in mansions on golf courses, and wear a Rolexes.
One of the biggest contradictions in the book is this: The authors have found that most millionaires will die rich. But they have also found that most people who inherit great wealth end up as good-for-nothing parasites, rarely accomplishing much in their own lives. My tongue-in-cheek analysis, then, is that these millionaires shoud try to die broke.
The book is filled with statistical information about the habits, professions, and lifestyles of millionaires. At times, the reader will feel somewhat bored as a point is driven into the ground. Overall, though, the book is worth reading. We can all benefit by adopting some of the implied suggestions of this book. Work hard, plan for your retirement, live within your means. Just don't get carried away. Stop and smell the roses from time to time; strive to be rich in experience. When you're on your death-bed, I seriously doubt that you will say, "Gee, I sure wish I'd spent more time at the office." Ask a dying person what they would give for another year or two of life. The answer: everything they have. The sunset on Maui is beautiful. Life is short and precious; enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: Solid Theory but Too Detailed at Times
Review: The Millionaire Next Door makes some excellent points about the way people utilize money. Basically it boils down to a question of whether you want to have a lot of money or look like you have a lot of money. The differences between "new money" and "old money" are interesting as are most of the stories describing the frugal millionaires vs. those concerned with status at any cost.I did find portions of the book too number-intensive. Often after a point is made, scores and scores of charts, figures, and analysis will follow. It makes for some pretty dry reading. The bottom line is that this book can be utilized as an excellent resource for pulling your personal finance goals together. However, skip ahead when the numbers really start flying!
Rating: 
Summary: Discipline and time may make you wealthy
Review: Stanley and Danko have written an excellent book based on hard-nosed research about who are the real rich in America. They define rich as having $1,000,000 in net assets, and then examine how they got rich. They find that the rich person is quite oppposite to the rich stereotype portrayed in media. The rich stereotype is a prodigal spender, while the rich person is a judicious spender (they do reward themselves occasionally for their hard work). The rich stereotype has all the visible signs of wealth, while the rich person deliberately choosed a lifestyle that minimizes peer pressure to spend and "keep up". The rich stereotype is more concerned with image, the rich person values financial indenpendence (both current and in the future). The authors laud starting early, and say that the lure of a financially independent retirement is more important to the rich than the here-and-now envy/adulation of one's peers and neighbours. The book is readable for the most part, but I suggest you pay close attention to the data that the authors present - there may be insights there that they have chosen not to highlight. While the authors study the rich, who are mostly self employed, they also do admit that becoming self-employed is very risky. The most telling part is that most of the self-employed rich want their children to become professionals. They conjecture that this may be due to the parents wanting a higher prestige for their children than they (as self-employed) have, but I wonder whether it is not also due to the fact that the parents recognize how high a risk self-employment actually is, particularly given that their affluent children may not have the drive they had to succeed. Finally, I personally find the most revelaing part of their research to be the section on how parents shape the wealth proclivities of their children. The examples of well-meaning wealthy parents crippling their children's abilities may be the most important contribution of this book. You will find a lot of information in this book from which to shape your own savings strategy. Even if you are too far down the road to get to a million, you can certainly learn about how to help your children get there.
Rating:
Summary: Good info but too dry for me
Review: This book is just as advertised but very boring to me. I was amazed by many of the little factoids sprinkled throughout the book. However, I quickly lost interest and never could bring myself to finish it. I think the information is valuable but I had a hard time staying intterested once I decided that I did not accept the authors definition of wealth. I found "wealth" in the authors view, to be very stringent and constricting and it flew in the face of one truly enjoying life. But if you are interested in seeing into the mind of an owner of local pizza shops, who drives the same car he drove in 1972, then this is the book for you.
Rating: 
Summary: I was robbed!
Review: I was robbed! - and don't mean by Amazon. I bought this book in hopes of gaining some insight on how the wealthy became so. The book has one exhaustingly repetitive point. That point is that if you never buy anything nice for yourself, you could be "rich" [standard set by author] while only flipping burgers and dipping fries. This makes sense, but I disagree with the good doctor's contention of wealth. Furthermore, if you followed the preachings of the book, you wouldn't buy it anyway... It would be a $... luxury you simply couldn't afford if you wanted to stay on track to a wealthy life.
Rating:
Summary: Get rich the old fashioned way
Review: Very interesting study of the millionaires in America. I listened to the audio version of this book while travelling to and from work. I found it to be very entertaining and well done. I've learned a great deal and would recommend this book to anyone who's wondering 'when am I going to be a millionaire?' or 'what does it take to become a millionaire?' in America.
Rating:
Summary: Good general study of millionaires
Review: If you enjoy in-depth demographic studies or just really want to know what makes a person wealthy, this is the book for you. For the most part the book is an easy read that uses disguised real-life case studies to show how people become rich and how some people with high incomes never accumulate wealth (net worth). The authors are professors and have done a great deal of quantitative study on the subject. To that end the book is packed with tables of numbers to help the reader understand the subject. The tables have a lot of good data but sometimes you feel like you are reading a thesis. If you spend the time to really understand the numbers it will help you get a much more in-depth understanding of people with a net worth of one million dollars or more. If you gloss over the tables and concentrate on the personal stories you will still get a pretty good idea of the type of person they are talking about. At the end of the book is a chapter with a few hints on how to target market wealthy people. These are high level ideas and not a "how-to" section. The authors sell that advice as consultants and are not about to give away all of thier valuable secrets. Also, there is a discussion of what type of work millionaire's do. This part is very wishy-washy, as the authors explain that millionaires do all types of work.
Rating:
Summary: Who Are the Affluent?
Review: During the first 150 pages of this book, I kept saying, "How did they sell so many of these books? This book has too many grammatical errors, and too many statistics!" I was reminded of a passage in Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren's book, "How to Read a Book" -- "Good books are over your head; they would not be good for you if they were not." Then, I noticed, as I really pondered the messages of this book on frugality, that I had been writing 101 goals, in a notebook, while reading this book. This book has been and is good for me. Also, because I was raised with status symbols, with no education on how to be wealthy, I learned, while reading this book, that when I slow down, and really do what I love to do, when I really focus upon thinking like someone whose net worth is at least $1 million, I am free to appreciate all that I have, and all that will come to me, in due time. I am grateful to these authors, because I no longer look at other people's status symbols, and decide to feel pain --- I have created a vision for myself, based upon what is right for me, as opposed to external measurements of what I should have to prove who I am. Reading this book has definitely lifted a burden from my shoulders. Thank you. I will definitely read other books written by these authors, because I want a net worth that comfortably places me in the millionaire club, while I make a difference.
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