In fact, only 18 percent of us disagreed with the statement "Charity begins at home." Most of us will tell you that our wives are a lot more conservative with money than we are. * Most of our wives are planners and meticulous budgeters. Only a minority ever lease our motor vehicles. Only a minority of us drive the current-model-year automobile. We wear inexpensive suits and drive American-made cars. About 80 percent of us are first-generation affluent. * Most of us have never felt at a disadvantage because we did not receive any inheritance. Thus, we have enjoyed significant increases in the value of our homes. About half of us have occupied the same home for more than twenty years. We live in homes currently valued at an average of $320,000. * Most of us (97 percent) are homeowners. In other words, we live on less than 7 percent of our wealth. * On average, our total annual realized income is less than 7 percent of our wealth. Millionaire household has a net worth of $1.6 million. Again, these people skew our average upward. Nearly 6 percent have a net worth of over $10 million. Of course, some of our cohorts have accumulated much more. * We have an average household net worth of $3.7 million. More category (5 percent) skew the average upward. Note that those of us who have incomes in the $500,000 to $999,999 category (8 percent) and the $1 million or * Our household's total annual realized (taxable) income is $131,000 (median, or 50th percentile), while our average income is $247,000.
The number-one occupation for those wives who do work is teacher. * About half of our wives do not work outside the home. We are welding contractors, auctioneers, rice farmers, owners of mobile-home parks, pest controllers, coin and stamp dealers, and paving contractors. * Many of the types of businesses we are in could be classified as dullnormal. Most of the others are self-employed professionals, such as doctors and accountants. Of four of us who are self-employed consider ourselves to be entrepreneurs.
Interestingly, self-employed people make up less than 20 percent of the workers in America but account for two-thirds of the millionaires. About two-thirds of us who are working are self-employed. About 70 percent of us earn 80 percent or more of our household's income. * I am a fifty-seven-year-old male, married with three children. Who is the prototypical American millionaire? What would he tell you about himself?(*) Guy of the group said, "Oh, we forgot we were in Texas!" I don't own big hats, but I have a lot of cattle. They looked all over my office, looked at everyone but me. When my British partners first met me, they thought I was one of our truck drivers. His neighbors were postal clerks, firemen, and mechanics.Īfter he substantiated his financial success with actual numbers, this Texan told us: He lived in a modest house in a lower-middle-classĪrea. But he drove a ten-year-old car and wore jeans and a buckskin shirt. He owned a very successful business that rebuilt large diesel engines. We first heard this expression from a thirty-five-year-old Texan. This concept is perhaps best expressed by those wise and wealthy Texans who refer to our trust officer's type as Officer leases, while only a minority of millionaires ever lease their motor vehicles.īut ask the typical American adult this question: Who looks more like a millionaire? Would it be our friend, the trust officer, or one of the people who participated in our interview? We would wager that most people by a wide margin would pick the trust An even smaller minority drive foreign luxury cars. Only a minority drive a foreign motor vehicle. Most millionaires are not driving this year's model. Our friend also drives a current-model imported luxury car. We know from our surveys that the majority of millionaires never spent even one-tenth of $5,000įor a watch. We have found this is not the case.Īs a matter of fact, our trust officer friend spends significantly more for his suits than the typical American millionaire. They think millionaires own expensive clothes, watches, and other status artifacts. His view of millionaires is shared by most people who are not He made these comments following a focus group interview and dinner that we hosted for ten first-generation millionaires. The person who said this was a vice president of a trust department. The millionaires who look like millionaires?
These people cannot be millionaires! They don't look like millionaires, they don't dress like millionaires, they don't eat like millionaires, they don't act like millionaires-they don't even have millionaire names. The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of American's Wealthyīy THOMAS J.