Millionaires Are Regular People
By Jim Bauer
@porwest (89933)
United States
August 20, 2022 6:36am CST
Despite popular belief, most millionaires aren't people who live lavish or luxury lifestyles. It's true. Most millionaires are just regular folks just like you and I who happen to simply have more money in their bank accounts.
Millionaires wear clothes from thrift stores. Yes. In fact they do. Millionaires use coupons and take advantage of discounts. Millionaires shop at discount stores like The Dollar Tree and Walmart. You will even find them pushing carts at a place like Aldi.
You won't see a millionaire shying from mowing down a burger from McDonald's. Open the cupboards of most millionaires and you won't find brand name foods—they like the cheaper generic stuff.
Most millionaires don't drive expensive cars. In fact, most millionaires buy used cars, and what's the #1 vehicle among most millionaires?
A Ford F-150 pickup truck.
Millionaires cut their own grass and wash their own clothes and clean their own house. Many millionaires live in modest houses, not big mansions.
Most millionaires, if you saw them on the street, you would not even suspect they ARE millionaires. Some you might actually think are poor.
In fact, if you went to a store parking lot and saw two guys pull into their stalls, one being a guy with a late model truck and the other with a brand new BMW, the one in the truck with raggy clothes and the guy in the BMW decked out to the nines...
The millionaire is probably not the guy in the BMW, but the one in the truck.
10 people like this
11 responses
@DaddyEvil (137257)
• United States
20 Aug 22
Do you know you just described Sam Walton, founder of Walmart? I met him once when my first wife took me to his house to talk with him. (She was related to him some way but I can't remember how.)
3 people like this
@DaddyEvil (137257)
• United States
20 Aug 22
@porwest It's their kids that act "rich" and try to act like they are the ones who earned the money.
2 people like this
@porwest (89933)
• United States
20 Aug 22
@DaddyEvil 90% of the time it is the third generations that do all the hype and squandering. Typically the second generation fares a little better because they saw the hard work that went into building the wealth, and so they respect it more and tend to hold onto more of it and the values that earned it. The third generation only see the money, and wealth rarely trickles into the fourth and 5th generations in the same way it did in the 1st and 2nd.
There are many rich families where we have seen this. The Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts, the Kennedys and so on and so forth.
2 people like this
@porwest (89933)
• United States
20 Aug 22
I would have loved to have met Sam Walton. And yes, in a way I did describe him. He was known to be a pretty down to Earth guy. Even Warren Buffet is like that in a way, but he does enjoy a few more creature comforts of course. The real lives of rich people actually fascinate me, and I am never surprised to know that they really don't usually "act" rich.
2 people like this
@lovebuglena (44504)
• Staten Island, New York
22 Aug 22
Some people that are not rich want to be seen as rich so they will wear high end brand clothes like Gucci, Versace, Fendi, etc. I just don't get that. I will admit I prefer to buy clothes that is not made in China but is made in Italy or Spain, etc. but I won't buy it if it costs a fortune. I don't really care for brand names, especially the high end ones.
1 person likes this
@lovebuglena (44504)
• Staten Island, New York
23 Aug 22
@porwest Can you elaborate on that first sentence?
1 person likes this
@porwest (89933)
• United States
23 Aug 22
@lovebuglena In other words, people spend a lot of time trying to play the part, rather than actually do the things that would be prone to MAKE them rich, and therefore not have to pretend.
Then again, most millionaires don't actually have any need for these kind of wasteful things. It is part of the reason they have money.
1 person likes this
@RebeccasFarm (89832)
• Arvada, Colorado
20 Aug 22
Well that is a fact, one never knows who you are talking to.
1 person likes this
@porwest (89933)
• United States
20 Aug 22
Most of the people who look rich aren't. Not all. But most. As the old saying goes, rich people don't become rich people by giving their money away. AND they don't achieve their riches to be able to show it off. They achieve their riches for their own personal comfort and well being.
1 person likes this
@RebeccasFarm (89832)
• Arvada, Colorado
20 Aug 22
@porwest Yes pimps look rich and colorful dont they
1 person likes this
@porwest (89933)
• United States
20 Aug 22
@RebeccasFarm They are an entirely different batch. lol
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (121546)
• Gainesville, Florida
21 Aug 22
That guy in the BMW and the fancy clothes is probably broke and in debt up to his ears!
I had the honor of meeting the late, great Sam Walton back in 1991 when I worked for Walmart. When he was alive, he made a point of visiting each and every one of his Walmart stores across the country. And guess how he got to each store? Yep, he drove to them in his old, beat up red F-150 pickup. He wasn't wearing any fancy suits, he showed up in jeans, cowboy boots, a plaid shirt, and a baseball cap. The guy was worth billions, and you would have never known it.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (121546)
• Gainesville, Florida
24 Aug 22
@porwest I think that—in addition to their change in culture and lackadaisical ethics practices—they just got too damn big!
1 person likes this
@porwest (89933)
• United States
25 Aug 22
@moffittjc That is always a part of the problem. You can't be personal when you don't have a direct connection with your customers. I know this personally from my sales job. My best customers are those I can connect with.
1 person likes this
@porwest (89933)
• United States
22 Aug 22
@moffittjc It is an entirely different company now, and very sadly so.
1 person likes this
@LindaOHio (177898)
• United States
20 Aug 22
Some of the richest people on Earth are the tightest with their wallets. I think if I had a lot of money I would eat really well and buy better "things"; but I would still drive a Toyota or Subaru.
1 person likes this
@LindaOHio (177898)
• United States
22 Aug 22
@porwest Just keep that retirement date in front of you like a carrot in front of a rabbit.
1 person likes this
@porwest (89933)
• United States
23 Aug 22
@LindaOHio I like you chose a rabbit instead of a donkey, which might have other underlying connotations and insinuations. 
1 person likes this
@porwest (89933)
• United States
21 Aug 22
I have always been simple and remain so to this day. I want for little and am always happy with what I have. I go to Goodwill and never think, "I'd rather have a new pair of jeans."
A someone told me once, the best way to save your money is to fold it up and put it back in your pocket.
When I do treat myself I at least have the comfort of knowing that I do not have to borrow to do it. That's reward enough for me.
1 person likes this
@Butterfingers (66583)
• India
20 Aug 22
But how have they become a millionaire? By saving money?
1 person likes this
@porwest (89933)
• United States
21 Aug 22
@Butterfingers No time like the present to get that started now, right? Time decay is a very real thing and the longer you wait the harder it will be to achieve it.
1 person likes this
@porwest (89933)
• United States
20 Aug 22
According to statistics, that is how most people become millionaires and how most millionaires made their money. Working regular jobs, saving and investing. Only a small percentage had their own business to get there. Saving and investing is how MOST millionaires achieve that status.
And I emphasize "regular jobs." How much one makes is never as important as how much one saves and how well one understands money and money management.
1 person likes this
@Butterfingers (66583)
• India
21 Aug 22
@porwest thanks I hope to work like that and maybe become a millionaire some day
1 person likes this
@fatragu (677)
• United States
20 Aug 22
They keep staying millionaires by living smaller lifestyles. If they lived lavishly they would blow through their money fast. My goal is to live the same lifestyle I live now so that people believe I still live in poverty but I don't. I want to make my money last for my kids and have them be surprised at how much they receive when I die. I don't see the point in spending as much as I can when I can better their lives.
1 person likes this
@porwest (89933)
• United States
20 Aug 22
The term "better lives" is always one we need to be careful with. Because money doesn't change anyone's life necessarily unless they already possess a mindset and value money a certain way. If I told one person that my Ally bank account had $10,000 in it, they might think that's a lot of money. Another person would think it's a drop in the bucket.
People view money very differently depending on how much they have—and because their mindset might be that $10,000 WOULD be a lot of money, they might actually spend it faster thinking in their mind it is more money than it actually is.
My grandfather left a considerable sum to his three daughters. On his deathbed he told them it would be okay and the money he would leave them would let them be more "comfortable." It was a sizeable sum, but it only did it for one of them. The other two sisters blew through the money in a few months. It did not change their lives, it did not make life easier...
My mother, under my advice, saved it and invested it and still has most of it. She gets to spend what the money makes and it has made her life better and she retired before her two sisters did.
The bottom line is that more than money, what one can give their children is a strong understanding of and value of money. If one does that not only will they make more money and have more money on their own, and less financial troubles. They will make more of what you leave behind more valuable as well.
@Hate2Iron (15727)
• Canada
20 Aug 22
I have heard that so many times! They are millionaires because they are careful with their money and that makes sense! I wish that I had known that when I was in my thirties! Shopping was my favourite pass-time!
1 person likes this
@porwest (89933)
• United States
20 Aug 22
Millionaires like celebrities are among the "lavish and luxury" crowd. But that is in part because their money was not that hard to get. Granted, it's hard to get noticed of course and reach that kind of status where you can command big bucks. But most millionaires make their money the hard way. Working for it and saving and investing.
I separate the celebrity types from those who are self-made.
1 person likes this
@Ravi6300 (106)
•
21 Aug 22
I knew that millionaire also live like a normal people, for instance warren buffet, he did not have smartphone. Facebook co-founder walking on the road, seen on a post. But didn't know that they purchase discounts, coupons, move in a model truck. It is hard to believe and also wearing of rag clothes.
