Essay - The Millionaire Next Door: the Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy'...

The Millionaire Next Door:

The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy"

When most Americans think of millionaires, they ***** likely conjure images of flamboyant characters leading exciting lifestyles. Most people probably believe that the majority ***** millionaires inherited their money and ***** few have put in an honest day's work in their lives. Millionaires are imag*****ed shopping at designer stores ********** would easily be picked out in a crowd. Moreover, most believe that millionaires drive expensive cars and live in posh homes in upscale neighborhoods. Common belief is ***** millionaires would never shop at WalMart or barga***** hunt at the local flea market. This is the stereotype image of the American millionaire. Far from it according to Thomas Stanley and William Danko, authors of "The Millionaire Next Door: ***** ***** Secrets of America's Wealthy." Their research found that these ***** images ***** far from reality.

***** and Danko focused on individuals with wealth of at least $1 million and d*****covered th***** *****eir lives are quite different from the stereotype American millionaire and moreover, possessed qualities that seem at odds with the average earn and consume culture of most Americans. ***** findings reveal that eighty percent of American *****s are first generation, self-made, with only nineteen ***** receiving any outside income from an estate or trust fund and another twenty percent inheriting roughly ten percent of their *****. More than fifty percent never inherited even a $1 inheritance ***** ninety-one ***** never received as "much ***** $1 of the ownership of a f*****mily business" (Stanley 1998). According ***** Stanley and Danko, their ***** ***** not unlike those of Stanley Lebergott in 1892, who reported ***** eighty-four percent of ***** millionaires were self-made, first *****.

The authors' findings revealed neither luck nor inheritance, nor advanced degrees or intelligence is the key to accumulating wealth, but rather hard w*****k, d*****cipline and sacrifice. From ***** research, Stanley and Danko compiled a typic*****l pr*****ile of an Americ***** millionaire. He's married, ***** under his means, in a modest home that he has owned for over *****-five years and drives an older car. "His neighbors were postal clerks, firemen, and mechanics" (***** *****). They are ***** owners of small factories, chain stores, ***** service companies, or they may be "welding contract*****s, auctioneers, rice *****mers, owners ***** mobile-home parks, pest controllers, coin and stamp dealers, ***** paving contractors" (Stanley 1998).

***** and ***** also discovered that ***** millionaires are well educated and hardworking. "Only about one in five are not college graduates...eighteen percent have master's degrees, 8 ***** law degrees, 6 percent medical degrees, and 6 percent Ph.D.'s" (Stanley 1998). Although, only seventeen ***** attended a private school, fifty-five percent of their children do. Roughly two-thirds work forty-five to fifty-five hour weeks.

*****, the authors ***** that the average millionaire ********** nearly twenty percent ***** realized yearly income. The members of this group are avid savers ***** the dollar. ***** have a 'go-to-hell-fund,' meaning ***** they ***** "accumulated enough wealth to live without *****ing for ten or more years...with