"Bob" <bob[at]nospam.com> wrote in message
news:zYcAb.311048$9E1.1563374[at]attbi_s52...
- quote -

fun. As a wise man once said, those who work for the purpose of getting
rich rarely get rich. Those who do as lifestyle/passion do.

I have read the book and have discussed it with several other friends
who have read the book. I would encourage you to finish the book
because of the following additional info in the book:

-they have good general formula you can use to compare your net worth
against your age and salary......which gives you good
feel where you stand on accumulating net worth.
-the "all hat and no cattle" saying is interesting......and you probably
know a lot of people who fit this category
-buying cars/trucks by the pound is a new concept to many
people........I buy F150's and they rate well on a $/lb basis

Dale

Bob wrote:

- quote -

- quote -

Reading a book like this is like reading a diet book. Most people who do
won't follow the ideas for a lifetime which is what needs to be done in
order to succeed. In order to lose weight you need to eat less calories and
exercise. As simple as that is, people invent elaborate schemes to get to
the same answer. The same is true with financial success. To become rich
you need to spend less money than you make and invest it wisely. If you can
figure out what saving $1 per month at a given interest rate will accumulate
to in 5, 10, 15, and 20 years, you will be able to set your plans on
accumulating wealth. Then you have to put your plan into action. Reading
about push-ups isn't the same as doing push-ups. You need to start saving
as much as you can and monitor those investments at least on a monthly
basis.

Oh by the way, one more important thing: Life is short. Sometimes very
short. As important as it is to fund your Roth IRAs and save as much as you
can and live frugally, please remember that you are doing this for a reason.
When and if you get to your financial goals, don't forget them. I've seen
plenty of "millionaires" that turned into cheap bastards and were still
making deposits into their million dollar bank accounts at age 80 with 6
months to live. What these people lost is the idea that money is saved for
a purpose. There's no use dying with millions of dollars. If you want to
be a millionaire, then you need also to have a plan on how you are going to
spend your money. For example, my plan is to "retire" at age 40 and be able
to draw 4% from my assets for the next 50 years and live a good normal life,
travel, eat well, and enjoy my friends and family. I've been planning this
for the past 17 years since I was 18 and have done most of what people have
said is in this book (I've never read it). I consider what I have done
"common sense" more than brilliance and I've been amazed at how many people
don't understand this concept. I could keep working until I am 65 and have
$10 million, but I don't need that much to live a quality life. I'm not
interested in Rolex watches or driving a Mercedes or living in a 20 room
mansion. Plus, my fear is that I may not live that long or that by that age
I may not have all my health to do the things I will be able to do at age
40. If I can, then it will be a bonus.

"TB" <borekfm[at]pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:F5yzb.32294$S32.22662[at]newssvr29.news.prodigy.com...
- quote -

LOL...I have no idea. A very profitable endeavor, nonetheless.

- quote -

Lots of small businesses fail. I can recognize the symptoms before it
happens. I warn them. Some even listen. Those that listen are still around.
The others are back on the assembly line at Boeing.

One of my centers of influence is a law firm in small town. During an
initial interview, an attorney asked me what I drove, rather mockingly "Do
you drive a 7 series BMW like everyone else in Wichita?"

This was silly. Most people in Wichita drive the 3 series, because it will
fit in the garage. But, I digress...

I said I drove a Taurus. The three attorneys in the room looked at each
other, and then laughed. The firm pays for their company cars...All are
Tauruses. This is one time I'm glad I wasn't driving my other car. =)

I see silly behavior, though. Business owners in love with the idea of
being a business owner, but not interested in doing any work. I call them
'absentee owners.' They are often the targets of employee theft and fiscal
abuse by those they leave in charge. I see some let the tax tail wag the
dog, spending profit to avoid taxes. If one doesn't accumulate, they go
broke. It just happens.

Some have a natural instinct for money. One local guy who started out
second generation in a supply business, who was comfortable, but not rich,
told me his story. One month, after he had taken all he needed for income
from the business, he had $7,000 left over. He had just started selling cell
phones. So he spent the money on TV and radio ads. All of it. Did the ads
himself. His Dad said it was a waste of money. The ads paid for themselves
10 times over the first month. The next year, he made over seven figures in
PROFIT from cell phones alone. That was in 1992. He built, then sold out at
the right time, and is now doing something else that appears to have the
makings of a multi-million dollar deal. He's still on TV, too. He's only 36.

Brent D. Gardner, ChFC
Chartered Financial Consultant
http://members.cox.net/brentdgardner1378/

"Be ever questioning. Ignorance is not bliss. It is oblivion. You don't go
to heaven if you die dumb. Become better informed. Learn from other's
mistakes. You could not live long enough to make them all yourself." - Hyman
George Rickover (1900-86), Admiral, US Navy, advocated development of
nuclear subs & ships

"Brent D. Gardner, ChFC" <bgardner20[at]cox.net> wrote in message news:<1%nzb.8947$LV1.6603[at]okepread05> ...
- quote -

No it is simply a point about statistics. You cannot assert that a
particular strategy is a strategy for success *unless* you start with
a randomly selected group and profile *winners* and *losers* over a
long period of time (ie a longitudinal study).

What the book does, in effect, is assume that 100% of those who had
heart attacks at 50 had a bad lifestyle (they must have, they had
heart attacks). Without looking at a group of people with different
lifestyles from age 20, say, and seeing which factors actually count
towards getting a heart attack at age 50. Or that 100% of successful
portfolios now hold Microsoft and therefore all successful portfolios
in the future must hold Microsoft.

For example, one common way of amassing wealth is ownership of rental
property (leveraged acquisition of same). But that has been done by
clever people over the last 40 years or so in a bull market in
property. In a different set of future conditions, that strategy may
not work at all.

So it is a biased sample that the book uses. That is simply
statistical fact and I am disturbed that you do not understand that
point.

Doesn't mean the book is not interesting but it doesn't include a
sample of all those people who started entrepreneurial businesses, and
failed, and wound up broke. Or people who lived within their incomes,
but invested heavily in stocks in 1966, died in 1979 having lost 60%
of their money after inflation.

"HW \"Skip\" Weldon" <skip5700removethis[at]hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<d48psv80rab06ouj5bht581rel3q56uef4[at]4ax.com> ...

- quote -

The book and its sequel emphasize this, but it's interesting to see in
more detail how these people did it. A lot were small business owners.
Anyone interested in acquiring wealth should read this book as an
important work of its kind.

Mike

Brent D. Gardner, ChFC wrote:
- quote -

[do the latter need to deal with suitability?? And the NABSD?]

I see a high correlation between business ownership and those PAW kinds
of personalities. And not "senior management experience" necessarily,
but ownership. Once someone runs a business where they watch every dime
come in & go out - different perspective. I've also seen a
flip-side...working for a large company where there's no real
bottom-line responsibility...that FedEx overnight letter looks free and
well yes you can bill the airline ticket change fee to the company
account. The biz owner says, "won't priority mail do fine?" and flies
standby. The thinking carries over into personal finance decisions as
well. [I won't go into my theory about how a certain percentage of
companies are unprofitable because of their overnight mail bills. But
when a big company reports a tiny profit, doesn't it make you think...?]

That kind of stuff sounds silly but like your Taurus it's all the
difference in the world - PAW vs UAW.

-Tad

"mark" <mark2741[at]verizon.net> wrote in message
news:v21zb.19518$UG2.9560[at]nwrdny03.gnilink.net...
- quote -

There is, but only if you really want to learn more. Having met the
authors personally, I think that anyone who is stuck in the grasps of the
lenders would benefit from THOROUGH study of this book, more than once.

Despite what others think, the book really isn't about millionaires, but
Prodigious Accumulators of Wealth (PAW). The equation they derived is
elegantly simple, and it also happens to work: age times income divided by
10 equals median net worth for that age and income. If your answer is less
than half what the median is, you have a spending problem. You probably
carry too much debt. If you have more than double the median, you're a PAW.
Some PAWs aren't millionaires, but most of them are in pretty good shape
financially. Most people have the tools, but they lack self-discipline and
let their ego get in the way.

In my own personal life, I found I was an Under Accumulator of Wealth
(less than half the median). I said to myself "F this" and two years later,
was well above the median. All one has to do is make the choice. Some of my
stock broker buddies laugh at my car (Ford Taurus, they drive Lexus, BMW,
etc.), so I ask them what their payment is. Mine is zero and I can write a
check to buy theirs....brand new.

In my business, I get to examine results daily. Like the guy who owns a
sandwich franchise who drove a big old POS car for 8 years, paying off his
business loans instead of buying a fancy car he could easily afford. Now
he's driving a new SUV that he paid cash for, and has a seven figure line of
credit at the bank. The bank is always trying to get him to borrow, too.
Then there's my personal physician. He started medical school when his
youngest daugher was a frosh in college. He was still paying off his own
student loans, and on the surface, his decision looked stupid, but he's
showed me the math - he would never have them paid off (including two
daughters in college) without more income, and his career advancedment was
at an end. I met him the first month after his residency was over. $600,000
in the hole, he was. Three years later, he still owed on the home mortgage,
but only $150,000. He was also still driving a 20 year old pickup truck with
more rust than paint. In two years, he'll be debt free. Based on his income,
the bank tells him he can buy a $1,250,000 house. He laughs, because he
knows that would be the dumbest thing to do. Fortunately, his wife agrees,
so they live in a nice neighborhood next door to people who probably make
$60,000 and live paycheck to paycheck to pay the mortgage.

I have a fair number of millionaires in my book, and quite a few PAWs
(some made the same choice I did, given the facts of their situation). Most
of them own busineses that others scoff at - fast food restaurant
franchisees, cosmetologists, farmers, ranchers, trash haulers, diesel
mechanics, land appraisers, crop consultants, bull semen brokers, tractor
drivers, etc. Most people would not do what these people do for a living,
yet every occupation I listed is one where I have clients who earn six
figure incomes in a part of the country where six figures is a lot of money.

Someone mentioned a bias group for study. That's garbage. Here's why:

"Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the
ordinary are everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be
found only in studying the exemplary." - Warren G. Bennis

Brent D. Gardner, ChFC
Chartered Financial Consultant
http://members.cox.net/brentdgardner1378/

"Be ever questioning. Ignorance is not bliss. It is oblivion. You don't go
to heaven if you die dumb. Become better informed. Learn from other's
mistakes. You could not live long enough to make them all yourself." - Hyman
George Rickover (1900-86), Admiral, US Navy, advocated development of
nuclear subs & ships

"mark" <mark2741[at]verizon.net> wrote in message news:<v21zb.19518$UG2.9560[at]nwrdny03.gnilink.net> ...
- quote -

I haven't read the book, but a review said that there are seven rules.
What are the other six?

--
Ron

It is good for developing a practice. The material has helped me focus on
places that others pass over and be successful writing new business.

"mark" <mark2741[at]verizon.net> wrote in message
news:v21zb.19518$UG2.9560[at]nwrdny03.gnilink.net...
- quote -

"HW \"Skip\" Weldon" <skip5700removethis[at]hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<d48psv80rab06ouj5bht581rel3q56uef4[at]4ax.com> ...
- quote -

Some of the stuff is interesting, but of course there is huge sample
bias (he only studies the successful, not the unsuccessful). But
there are some interesting common features (this book and the sequel):

- millionaires tend to live in relatively modest houses in good
neighbourhoods, drive their cars for a long time and pay cash for
things

- they tend to be small businessmen or professionals (doctors,
lawyers) and to invest spare cash in expanding their businesses or in
property rentals (albeit right now that latter strikes me as
potentially quite dangerous: EVERYONE seems to be writing about the
benefits of investing in real estate)

- they make maximum use of the tax benefits of being self employed

- quote -

How about the book . . . . Ecclesiastes??? ;-)

Justin Chen wrote:

- quote -

I think everyone who invests should read:
The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need - Tobias
Common Sense on Mutual Funds - Bogle (or any of his mutual fund books)
A Random Walk Down Wall Street - Malkiel

Good to have:
The Wall St. Journal books on personal finance
Eric Tyson's "dummies" book

More advanced:
The Intelligent Asset Allocator - Bernstein
Stocks for the Long Run - Siegel
Asset Allocation - Gibson

If you pick stocks:
Contrarian Investment Strategies - Dreman

-Tad

What are some other good books that might be worthwhile to read?

"Tad Borek" <borekfm[at]pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:SW4zb.64175$fY4.55025[at]newssvr25.news.prodigy.com...
- quote -

mark wrote:
- quote -

Sounds like you're already on track...ten bucks saved!

- quote -

That was my impression: interesting point, and backed up w/plenty of
data & interesting anecdotes. But after a couple of chapters the point's
made & the extensive tables dicing up the data don't add much. This and
"Irrational Exuberance" to me stick out as books that could have been
magazine articles.

Still I think it's a helpful book, and it's great that so many people
are reading it. I gotta believe it's convinced more than a few people
that the key to wealth is largely tied to spending habits.

-Tad

That's certainly the gist of the book, but I read the whole thing and thought
it was definitely worth my time.

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 08:14:07 CST, "mark" <mark2741[at]verizon.net> wrote:

- quote -

I believe you have it. Financial security comes from spending less
than your income and then saving the difference regularly over your
career. The rest is window dressing.

-HW "Skip" Weldon
Columbia, SC

My wife picked me up a copy of this book from the library yesterday. I
started to read it and it seemed interesting, however after the first few
pages I get the feeling that there isn't any more substance to the book -
basically they tell you that millionaire's live well below their means and
are aggressive savers. That's good info to know, but is there any more to
this book or should I not waste my time?