I didn’t know I needed a millionaire mind. My parents may be millionaire’s, I don’t know. Our money was one thing we didn’t talk about at home. Sure we got the basics: give a tithe, save for college and then for retirement. I didn’t know what we needed or used to live. I do remember one point after I went to college and the rest of the family was going to Mexico. Shortly after that, mom said something about maybe having been “too frugal”. The thing I do know is my parents have the millionaire mind.

Normal family at sunset

I’m going to say again, “My parents may be millionaires, I don’t know.” because although rare, there are plenty of millionaires around. According to CNBC there are 10.4 million millionaires in the US. With our population of 330 million that means 3% of the US population is a millionaire (I’m not sure if that includes children but I think so–not as the millionaires but as the population). 1 in 33 people are millionaires! Chances are you know more millionaires than you’re aware of.

Spectrem Group defines a millionaire as a person with $1 million or more in investable assets, excluding the value of their primary residence. They don’t necessarily bring in $1M each year but have a net worth of over $1M.

I read The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy but I’m not doing a book review. I’m sharing good information.

Living on less than you earn comprises the simple math of becoming a millionaire. While we’re talking about simple, most millionaires don’t look like a stereotypical millionaire. They lead simple lives, live in paid off homes in middle-class neighborhoods. One correlation that comes from the statistics is most millionaires (75%) are self-employed in normal down to earth business: farmers, cleaners, contractors.

Almost two-thirds of millionaires are self-employed, even though only twenty percent of the population is self-employed.
–Vincent Pugliese, Freelance to Freedom to be published soon.

Probably the biggest myth to bust for yourself in order to become a millionaire is that everyone has a car payment. Sure it’s common in the US to have a car payment but not everybody has one. In fact, most millionaires drive a vehicle a couple of years old and older and they don’t make payments.

Here are some more statistics that I pulled out of Vincent’s coming book: Millionaires Are…

  • 97% home owners
  • have a home valued on average at $320,000
  • 88% first generation never receiving an inheritance
  • 80% college graduates
  • working 45-55 hours per week
  • 17% attended private elementary or high school
  • less than 1% celebrities

Getting out of debt is the greatest advantage to building wealth. You need to budget, live frugally, clear your debt and save and you too can be the millionaire next door. I never thought it was possible until I read this stuff. I just needed a change in mindset or as Stephen Covey says, a paradigm shift. We are going to be millionaires! We budget. We live on less than we earn. We rarely eat out. We shop at Goodwill and the thrift store. Did you know they have Guess and Levi jeans there for a couple of bucks. We make nice coffee at home. We have an emergency fund. We avoid debt like the plague. As Dave says, “Live like no one else now, so that later you can LIVE LIKE NO ONE ELSE!”

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