Thomas Oliver: Frugality is key to being rich

By Thomas Oliver

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Thomas J. Stanley doesn’t believe we’ve learned our lesson.

The Atlanta author, former Georgia State professor and expert on the wealthy writes in his new book that once the fear recedes, we’ll go right back to spending like the shopoholics we are.

That might be good news for our economy, which is so dependent on consuming spending. But for the individual, spending beyond his means translates to living off credit and on borrowed time.

So Stanley asserts in “Stop Acting Rich . . .and Start Living Like a Real Millionaire.”

As we enter the holiday shopping season, surveys indicate we’ll spend even less (5 to 7 percent less) than last Christmas, which came right amid the meltdown.

But for Stanley, who has researched our spending habits for over 30 years, conspicuous consumption is second nature to most of us.

“I’m fairly certain that they will resume their spendthrift ways once the outward symptoms of financial flu have passed,” he writes.

But aren’t we saving more and spending less?

“We may be spending less after the 2008 financial crisis, but we are still spending,” he writes. “Savings may have increased to its highest levels in decades, but the reality is that that is not saying much, since the savings rates has been so abysmally low.”

Stanley’s extensive research of millionaires continues to unearth the counterintuitive nature of wealth: Those who exhibit it are actually only demonstrating their access to credit. Those who are truly wealthy don’t drive luxury cars, sip expensive wines, own vacation homes or live in million-dollar homes.

Here, we aren’t talking about the “glittering millionaires,” as Stanley describes the group of star athletes and performers who make gaudy salaries and have a net worth of $30 million-plus.

These bling-blingers represent only 2 percent of the millionaires, though they are who we too often think of when we think of millionaires. But as Stanley points out, for all their glitter, most are still living below their means.

Which is the defining characteristic of the real millionaire.

Stanley is particularly hard on wine snobs.

You know these people. They really think they can tell the difference between a good $10 Merlot and one that cost $100 or more.

If you drink scotch and have never heard of Crawford’s scotch, know that a millionaire times three over told Stanley about it. In Atlanta, it sells for one-third to one-fourth the price of Chivas Regal and Johnnie Walker Black.

This same millionaire drives the millionaires’ car of choice: a Toyota. In his case, the Avalon, which he says has more head room than the millionaires’ favorite model, the Camry. He also wears the watch of real millionaires: the Seiko.

If you are a parent whose adult children have recently returned home for an extended stay, as is happening in this recession as in previous ones, perhaps a copy of Stanley’s book in their Christmas stockings would be a nice way of saying I love you.

And, just maybe, insuring against a return stay.

Thomas Oliver writes the Sunday business column. He can be reached at toliver.writeright@gmail.com.