I purchased the book ‘The Millionaire Next Door‘ by Thomas J Stanley  & William Danko second-hand, from Amazon.

Inside was a handwritten inscription:

“Cindy,
Merry Christmas 1999.
Here’s to the First Million!
Love [unreadable name]”

At first glance, it looked like ‘Cindy’ hadn’t even bothered to open the book as it was in pristine condition, with no creasing in the spine or cover and it had all the appearance of having been left on a shelf with other unread books.

However, throughout the book, there were a few handwritten notes and certain paragraphs were underlined, so she did at least have a read of it.

Millionaire Folk

In a nutshell, from the results of an extensive survey, the book depicts how folk on above average salaries (mostly but not exclusively entrepreneurs/self-employed) become millionaires and maintain their millionaire status by living below their means, budgeting, not succumbing to consumerism, investing their money and making the most of opportunities to make money.

Sound familiar?

Those who regularly read the various FI/PF blogs will feel like they’ve read all this before and bought the t-shirt – I found that the book did seem to be covering some ‘old ground’ but  there were interesting examples and stats.

I guess it was worth reading first hand the book which many people have cited as being inspiring and changing their way of thinking how they live their lives and how they view ‘wealthy’ or ‘rich’ folk.  None of  the millionaires in question achieved their wealth via inheritance or lottery wins.

It had me checking out my own neighbours and wondering which ones were possibly millionaires.

Becoming a Millionaire

It sounds like the person who bought this book for Cindy thought that it would be a guide on how to become a millionaire.

Perhaps it is, but in order to become a millionaire, it helps if:

• you earn a decent income ($70,000 per year is cited, although the book was written in 1998, so a much higher salary might be needed today);
• you marry someone who is good at budgeting and is frugal;
• your grown up children (if you have any) are also frugal;
• you buy your cars second-hand instead of new;
• you invest your money and spend time planning your investments

What If?

I’ve never had any real aspirations to become a millionaire – it has only ever been a dream for me and sadly, a dream which involved winning the lottery!

I did wonder what would have happened if, like Cindy, someone had gifted this book to me in 1999, a time when I was probably at my most ‘spendy’ and deep in credit card debt.

If I had read it back then, it would certainly have been a complete revelation and could have changed my financial outlook – I could have been well on my way to achieving FI much earlier in life.

The reality however is that I probably wouldn’t have even bothered to read it and it would have been on a bookshelf gathering dust. The person I was in 1999 would not have been mentally prepared for a lifestyle change, nor I’d say, be willing to change.

Anyway, the completion of this book means that I have achieved one of my reading goals – yay!

As recommended by various people, I read “Whoops!: Why Everyone Owes Everyone And No One Can Pay” by John Lanchester this month. As I borrowed it from the library, that’s another step closer to my library book-reading goal!

I’d say it was probably the most fascinating non-fiction book I’ve read in a long, long time!

It basically describes and explains how the global economy was brought to the edge of destruction in 2008. Ooh, those naughty banks!

Where was I in 2008?

Well, this was the year I sold the house that I owned with my ex and I finally paid off my credit card debts so I was in a good place financially – finally! The proceeds of the sale were left sitting in a high interest bank account (yes, they existed back then!) and I had virtually no investments whatsoever (I say virtually as I discovered years later that I had a small holding in an investment trust!).

Whilst I do remember the global economy collapsing and the hysteria in the news, I didn’t really understand why or how it happened, except that the banks were largely to blame. How so? Something or other to do with ‘sub-prime’ mortgages but to tell you the truth, I wasn’t really that interested at the time.

I also naively didn’t think the financial crash would affect me since I had no investments (that I knew of) that were affected by the plummet in the stock market…until my job became ‘at risk’ and Old Co axed around 120 people in one go and had to be bailed out by Warren Buffet. Those days at work weren’t great…

Years later, I would still feel the aftereffects of the crash, with regulatory overkill forming a huge part of my working life and environment – audits upon audits!

So what’s in the Book?

The book is easy to read as it assumes you know nothing so explains lots of things in a clear, uncomplicated way; things which my eyes probably glossed over when I saw them in newspapers back in 2008.

I also found it pretty scary – scary at how the banks were so powerful that they pretty much made up their own rules and when even those rules didn’t suit them, they just bent them and nobody stopped them.  Regulators were just regulators in name only – they were next to useless against the almighty banks.

People think pay day loans are bad but they’re nothing compared to the mortgages that were handed out almost like candy to people known to have patchy credit history. It wasn’t just the value of the mortgages, it was the sheer number of mortgages that were handed as it was so easy for anyone to get a loan.

For example:

‘Stated income’ loans were where the borrower just stated what their income was and the lender took their word for it…yes, really!

‘Ninja loans’ –  where people who had ‘No Income, No Jobs or Assets’ were able to borrow a pile of money…

It really sounds made up and unbelievable but the scary truth is that this all happened, though not in some corrupt third world country – it happened in the rich western countries and nearly destroyed the global economy.

So, who or what was to blame?

Greed, stupidity, Governments or Banks?

Probably all of the above.

Have lessons been learnt?

Well the book was written six years ago and there’s still the ticking time bomb of Deutsche Bank (still the most dangerous bank in the world?) to name but one.

Only time will tell before the next financial crisis happens due to some new loophole that will get exploited, though of course, actual Brexit and the result of the US elections could cause some disruption.

Anyway, a highly recommended read.

When I borrowed John Lanchester’s ‘How To Speak Money‘ from the library last month, I was able to make progress on two of my goals in one go.

Ok, so technically this book isn’t about personal finance or investing as such but as there’s mention of ‘asset allocation’, Warren Buffett and ETFs among a lot of other interesting and diverse topics that can be linked with personal finance, I’m counting it as part of my goal!

Economics

The intro talks a little about the history of economics, including human behaviour, capitalism, some politics and other interesting stuff, mostly written in a non-text book style with pop-culture references and bits of humour.

There was however also a bit of ‘waffle’ which dragged on a bit, as what I really wanted to get to was the chunky middle section, entitled ‘A Lexicon of Money’.

Lexicon

Basically, it’s an A-Z of words, phrases and acronyms which I often hear or read about in financial or money context, words which I sort of know the meaning of but which I would struggle to explain in detail to a complete novice if I had to.

I’ll be the first to admit that while I’ve expanded my knowledge a bit on finance related topics these past couple of years, it still doesn’t mean that I totally understand all of it. I might understand it while reading it in a blog or news article. Ask me about it 6 months later and I’ll not be able to explain what it all actually means!

I’m not saying that after reading the book, I know everything – I just understand a bit more about implications of say, QE, increasing/decreasing interest rates (and not just relevant to savers) etc and that’s what the book was all about – increasing my understanding of some things I thought I knew a bit about but also learning about new stuff I knew nothing about. All in mostly bite-sized, easily digestible chunks.

Words

So now, among some other things, I know the basic difference between ‘fiscal‘ and ‘monetary‘ and what the IMF does but my favourite new word?

FUNGIBLE1something which can be substituted in part or in whole by an equivalent amount of the same thing, eg a £10 note being substituted for 10 x £1 coins

I don’t know why but it makes me smile! 🙂

All in all, an interesting book, one that I’m likely to revisit just for future reference.

Anyway, hope you all have a great (long. for those in the UK) weekend.