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What it argues
The Next Millionaire Next Door is Sarah Stanley Fallaw's update of the research her late father Thomas Stanley began with The Millionaire Next Door in 1996. Using new survey data from more than 600 millionaires conducted in 2015 and 2016, Fallaw examines whether the behavioral and demographic patterns of wealthy Americans have changed in the two decades since the original study — and whether the core thesis still holds that most millionaires are first-generation wealth builders who got there through frugality, discipline, and avoiding conspicuous consumption.
The core finding is that the original conclusions remain largely intact. Wealthy Americans in Fallaw's survey are still predominantly self-made, still tend to live below their means in ordinary homes and drive understated vehicles, and still score higher on what she calls wealth-building behaviors — planning, frugality, deliberate focus — than on consumption behaviors. The difference in 2018 is context: the financial environment has become more complex, with more lifestyle inflation pressure, more marketing sophistication, and more social media comparison anxiety working against the frugal orientation that characterized the original millionaires.
What it gets right
- 1.
The majority of millionaires are first-generation wealth builders who got there through behavioral discipline rather than inheritance or extraordinary income.
- 2.
Living below your means remains the most reliable path to wealth accumulation — conspicuous consumption is strongly negatively correlated with net worth relative to income.
- 3.
Fallaw's seven wealth-building factors — frugality, responsibility, planning, focus, confidence, social indifference, and financial knowledge — predict wealth accumulation better than income alone.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Sarah Stanley Fallaw is the daughter of Thomas J. Stanley, co-author of The Millionaire Next Door, and president of DataPoints, a behavioral assessment company focused on measuring the factors associated with wealth accumulation. She holds a PhD in applied psychology and has spent her career researching the behavioral and psychological correlates of financial success. The Next Millionaire Next Door, published in 2018, continues the survey-based research tradition her father established and extends it with more sophisticated behavioral frameworks.
