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.
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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.
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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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Summary: Common sense isn't all that common
Review: What you learn is this book all seems simple common sense--don't spend money you don't have, live within your means, don't expect Mom & Dad to underwrite your lifestyle into your forties. But the authors provide extensive (and sometimes scary) data supporting their arguments that make this more than your usual financial self-help book. It isn't unusual to read about some (apparently) rich and famous person declaring bankruptcy out of the blue. And then you hear about the $5.1 million dollar home and the $1.3 million condo in Hawaii and the fleet of Ferraris and the bizarre investements that didn't pan out...It seems easy to say "live within your means" but money problems plague people from all tax brackets. This book shows that these problems come more from a person's approach to money that the pile you actually have. Trouble is, in these days of unparalleled economic growth and stocks trading at like 250 times earnings, folks aren't thinking too hard about managing their money for their future. This book is a good way to get your financial head on straight, be ye a prince or a pauper.
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Summary: To me the authors' findings were so true!
Review: Coming from a wealthy family, I found the authors' findings so accurate. I was born and raised in Asia, but moved to the US many years ago. My father --back in my home country--is a highly successful businessman. He has very little education due to limited resources; however, he built his own business (from the ground up), where everyone in our family works for. It's so amazing that what the authors found as characteristics of the rich in the US also apply to those in the opposite side of the world. Everyone in my family is frugal, very frugal. When I was a kid, I was always taught to save, save and save. My parents did not buy luxuries. I never realized how much of their lifestyle and esp. their attitudes toward money I absorbed from them until I grew up and looked back. Since I was a kid, people always said I was frugal (with a sneering tone). I can confirm one rule that was mentioned in the book as how the rich raised their kids: "Never tell children that their parents are wealthy." I never realized how affluent my family (or at least my parents were) until I was 13 or 14 because we normally didn't even think about luxury and everyone was always told not to spend too much and to take good care of one's belongings so that they lasted for a long time. My father is very strict and he instilled in all of us high discipline. It is very true that children of the affluent who rely on their parents' finances are controlled. The money does not come with no string attached. Actually it comes with a thick tie on it. How accurate the statement, "Nothing is free." is applied esp. in this situation. In all, I think the rich, no matter what part of the world they came from, all share the same values that make them rich. I truly enjoy reading The Millionaire Next Door. In several ways it makes me more fully understand myself and my family.
Rating: 
Summary: A Good Reminder
Review: The writing is dry, sometimes difficult, and the charts and tables nearly impossible to understand. Practical advice is nowhere to be found. Yet everyone who isn't a millionaire and never believed they could be should read this book. I grew up in a working class home, often feeling inferior to those who had more than me. Now I find out that my background can actually tip the scales of wealth in my favor. It's good, too, to see in print evidence that many of the people I'm trying to keep up with on the way to the bank probably didn't earn their status the way I've had to; it was given to them instead. Highly motivating.
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Summary: Should Be Required Reading in High School and College
Review: This book really helped me begin to re-orient my priorities with regard to finance and being self-sufficient. My pre-disposition is definitely to be more on the UAW side of things - it's amazing to me now to look back on the five years (post-college) that I have spent in the work force and realize how little wealth I have in terms of money saved, investments, etc. I realized while reading this book how much money that I have spent and even wasted on high-priced clothes, expensive restaurants, etc. (where does it all go?) I recently got married to someone who is definitely more pre-disposed to be a PAW (of course he's the one who bought the book!) and we agree that this is the most valuable ever spent for financial advice in terms of what you're getting for your money. We are now working on creating a monthly budget (something that this book highly recommends) and investing each month into direct stock plans and Sharebuilder.com so that we don't have to pay excessive brokerage fees. Can't wait until they come out with a sequel!
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Summary: Not too impressive
Review: This book presents some interesting facts and ideas, but not very detail and not too practical at all.
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Summary: The Millionaire Next Door : The Surprising Secrets of Americ
Review: A cluster of statistics and not much else. Very disappointed
Rating:
Summary: Surprising Stuff
Review: Its scary reading this book. I love knowing that a lot of people are rich, but it bugs me that to be rich youve gotta be cheap. I dont like the idea of scrimping and saving, but I guess it works. Anyway, its got a bunch of good info in it.
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