Lots of information that made me think differently. It also went in some direction that I wasn’t expecting. Very good.

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Save and Invest
Most of the ideas in this book are explained rather well with a lot of good Case Studies.
However, I did not like the idea that we should not give to charity, we all need help, other than that its a real good book

As I read The High-Beta Rich: How the Manic Wealthy Will Take Us to the Next Boom, Bubble, and Bust, this book comes back to me. I read it while my son was in college as a "pre-business" (really "I don't know what I want to do") major. I feared he was developing an unrealistic get rich quick attitude so was pleased to discover this book and give him a copy for Christmas. I wouldn't say it changed his life or mine, but it gave us a framework to talk about work and planning which I found useful.

Writing this review more than a decade after reading the book, I don't remember all the details, but I do remember one central point--live below your means. Also I recall that Stanley entertained me with stories about a number of individuals and families to illustrate his points making this a very accessible financial planning book.

Most millionaires live well within their means, which means they're able to accumulate wealth... and thus become millionaires. So millionaires don't look like how media portrays millionaires (Fancy cars, watches, and clothing... those people have credit card debt). In fact many people with expensive houses and cars have more debt than wealth. A wealthy person waits until they're already wealthy to buy the car/house of their dreams.

The first couple chapters just beat you over the head with the fact that you need to save money (be FRUGAL!) in order to become wealthy. In America it's easy to make money (have good offence) but hard to keep it (have good defence). I actually liked the fact that living in a cheaper neighbourhood not only saves you money on a house/mortgage but also makes you likely to spend less to keep up with the joneses. Living in a fancy neighbourhood, you'll see your neighbours nice car and RV every day and may want to join in.

The authors also go through different ethnicity's affinity to being frugal. I have my Scottish mum to thank for my frugalness. Scots and people from Israel have high propensity to become millionaires due to wealth accumulation... so some stereotypes are true?

Most of the data from this book is dated, but the general concepts all hold up (and really the data is questionable anyways... perhaps only frugal millionaires are going to spend the time to fill out a survey).

Besides saving/frugalness another big factor of millionaires is being self-employed. Not just because they make more money, but being self-employed teaches you how to handle money (and handling your personal finances can happen during work hours... personal finance is just an aspect of your job whereas employed people have a strong separation between work and personal finance).

Anyways, this book is certainly worth a read.

People who accumulate personal wealth tend to have a need to achieve, to create wealth to become financially independent, to build something from scratch. Low accumulators more often tend to have a need to display a high-status lifestyle.