The Frugal Millionaires in Summary

The Frugal Millionaires by Jeff Lehman
Mentor Press / 190 pages

As the cover states, this books gathers the advice from 70 anonymous millionaires to help guide us to our own wealth. And just like the author, you may find an idea or two that you hadn't thought of to make changes for your own financial future.

Jeff's main concern is to let the the frugal millionaires give their advice on 24 different financial concerns that people may have. Throughout the book he also gives his rants and rave on various related topics.

In The Frugal Millionaire, Jeff wants you to get a picture of these 70 millionaires and why they stay millionaires and how frugality influences the money they get and keep. He hopes to convey that over-spending doesn't get you anywhere, the rich aren't all driving Ferrari's and wearing 1200 socks. Instead he hopes to show that a frugal millionaire, "could be sitting right next you and you not even know."

Initially my perception of this book would be closer to what I read in the Millionaire Next Door and while it would give statistics (and it does a little) it would also have more of a narration story of their lives. Instead you will find  a lot of short quotes because each millionaire was given a survey and these were their answers.

When it came to Jeff's rant or rave they were a nice break from the continuous and sometimes repetitive quotes of the millionaires. I enjoyed his comment on lottery millionaires, "free" seminars and the media.

I personally gravitated towards the topics that interested as I don't have a home and I am not married, though the advice in wills was of interest.  Most of the quotes were on the mark with what I enjoy reading from other PF bloggers, but it was could to see that common sense rules and I'm on the right track in my thinking. I was also happy to see a section on conservation and recycling/ re-using, those opinions were nice to read.

Toward the end of the book is a small section where the millionaires listed their personal mottoes:
"It's not how much you make, it's what you do with it."
"No matter how much money you have, someone will always have more. Deal with it and enjoy your life."
One person wrote, "You can't save your way to prosperity." Yet another wrote, "Save, Save, Save... Unless you see that must have item and if you can truly afford it, then buy it!"

Of course one wonders how these people made their money and Jeff does list that information in one big paragraph from Website owners to real estate owners to public servants. But the list doesn't really matter because you and I read in the paper regularly about some unknown wealthy person leaving a big lump sum and they were a janitor or a teacher or worked for the government.  Those people found out how to live like frugal millionaires.

Overall, I found the book an easy read through, not quite what I was expecting but still enjoyable. The book followed through on getting advice from frugal millionaires and gave it out in easy, bite size pieces. Though it isn't a book I would refer to as a resource in the future, it was a good mile marker book to see how far I've come and how far I need to go.

I'm glad I picked it up at the library, I know I wouldn't have wanted to spend 21.95 for it brand new.

To quote one of the millionaires, " Only buy something if you really need it. Think about it a lot before buying. Ask yourself what else you could be doing with the money first."