A few years ago I picked up my first personal finance book. I was a sophomore in college and the only thing I knew about money was that I didn’t know anything about it. Lucky for me, someone recommended a book called “The Millionaire Next Door.” Not only did this book help me understand what wealth looks like it also helped me grasp what I should be focusing on as a young person just starting to learn about personal finance.
The one thing I took away from this book was this: building wealth means spending below your means.
For a college student, this was an interesting concept because I had no real source of “means” at the time. But, this book helped me build habits that I still follow to this day.
In retrospect, keeping lower expenses to save more is such an obvious concept. In order to save money and build wealth, you have to spend less than you earn. Duh! Right? Yes, but this book breaks down how wealth doesn’t always look like our “traditional” definition of wealth. When I was younger I thought being wealthy meant you had to have fancy cars, expensive clothes, big vacations, etc. “The Millionaire Next Door” helped me reframe that idea.
After reading this book at 20, I learned that just because my paychecks were $150 biweekly, didn’t mean that I couldn’t still be intentional about my money. I also was motivated to find a way to earn more as a college student. After reading this book, I searched for higher paying jobs, applied for scholarships, took internships and learned as much as I could about personal finance. Over the next few years, I even took business classes as electives throughout college to help me learn more.
This book truly changed the way I viewed personal finance. It taught me that wealth is a journey and habits over time are far more powerful than chasing trends and keeping up with others.