Chris Hogan is a former football player and Georgetown alum who became the Vice President of a well-respected company. By all accounts, he seemed successful. Yet he felt there was something missing.
He kept seeing families struggle with their personal finances, and he felt a calling to help. That’s when he met Dave Ramsey, who brought him into the Ramsey family to spread the word about smart money management and debt freedom. Chris has been a writer, speaker and influencer ever since.
Chris organized a survey of 10,000 millionaires in the United States. The last time anyone conducted a large-scale study of American self-made millionaires was 25 years ago, and documented in the classic book The Millionaire Next Door. While that book is fantastic, it’s also 25 years old. Chris wanted to gather current data, to see what’s changed since then, and what’s remained the same.
He published these findings in a new book called Everyday Millionaires, which details the life of individuals and households in the U.S. that have seven-figure net worths.
Here’s what he discovered:
- 89 percent of millionaires have a net worth between $1 million to $5 million dollars
- 62 percent graduated from public state schools
- 9 percent didn’t graduate from college
- Close to 50 percent had a B average or less in school
- 55 percent give to charities and churches on a regular, monthly basis
- 73 percent never had a penny of credit card debt
- 18 percent are self-employed
- 62 percent earned a household income of less than $100,000 annually
- 80 percent exercise at least three times a week.
On average, their homes are 2,600 square feet, and they’ve lived there for an average of 17 years. Two-thirds have a paid-off mortgage. They paid off their home on average in 11 years.
Their net worth breaks down as one-third their home, and two-thirds their investments. They became millionaires at the average age of 49.
They spend, on average, $35 on a pair of jeans.
The top five occupations among millionaires in the U.S. are engineer, accountant, teacher or professor, management, and lawyers.
The top five cities of residence for U.S. millionaires are New York, San Francisco, Phoenix, Chicago, and St. Louis.
I interviewed Chris about this study twice.
We recorded our first interview on stage in front a live crowd at FinCon, which is a conference for personal finance bloggers and podcasters.
We had an awesome conversation, but at the time, he couldn’t share the numbers. So I asked if we could speak again when he’s authorized and ready to share the data.
He agreed, and we recorded a second interview via Skype a couple months later.
In today’s podcast episode, you’ll hear both interviews. Here are six key takeaways from our conversation.
#1: Millionaires choose classic investments, like mutual funds (index funds) and real estate. They typically don’t invest in the latest fad, like bitcoin or marijuana stocks. Most prefer broad, diversified funds rather than individual stock picking.
#2: They hire a strong team. They work with a financial planner, an accountant, and other professionals who coordinate with one another to make sure that they’re not overlooking any blind spots. In essence, they build a team of support around themselves and their family.
#3: They look for “opportunities to grow forward.” While most are not high earners (the majority make annual household incomes in the five-figure range), they’ll look for opportunities to earn more, create a side hustle, or cut back on their expenses. And of course “they’re allergic to debt.”
#4: They’re disproportionately represented by the self-employed. “Eighteen percent were self-employed,” Chris told me. Here’s why that’s a remarkable statistic:
According to the Pew Research Center as of 2014, 10 percent of the workforce in the United States is self-employed.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 10 percent of the workforce in the United States is self-employed.
According to the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Analysis in a 2017 report, among taxpayers with non-zero earnings, 7.2 percent receive income solely from self-employment and 6.1 percent depend on a mix of self-employment and working for a company. This means the total number of people who receive some income from self-employment is 13.3 percent (e.g. employed workers with a side hustle), but people who receive their sole source of income from self-employment is only 7.2 percent.
In other words, reports range in stating that between 7 to 10 percent of the U.S. workforce is full-time self-employed.
Let’s take the high end of that estimate, and use 10 percent as the share of workers in the U.S. who are self-employed. Then let’s compare that to Chris’ statistic.
This means that self-employed people consist of 1/10th of the workforce population, but 1/5th of the millionaires.
WHOA.
The self-employed, relative to the ranks within the overall U.S. workforce, are disproportionately represented among millionaires.
#5: If you have bad habits, and then you earn a bunch of money, now you’re just living out bad habits at a larger scale.
#6: When you’re successful with money — that’s not an accident. That’s a decision.
Listen to the full interview (excuse me, BOTH interviews) with Chris Hogan on today’s podcast. Enjoy!
Resources Mentioned:
- Everyday Millionaires, by Chris Hogan
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Laura
This was a great episode! I took to heart the data about hiring a financial professional. Any advice on how to find a reliable, trustworthy financial planner in my area? So far, all the highest-rated ones I have found, require an asset minimum that I can not meet (yet!)
Jane
Check out the XY network. They are aimed at Generations X and Y. They are all Fee only and all must offer some option with no minimum.
Pixie
Are the details of how this study was done published somewhere? And was it peer-reviewed?
Kory J Postma
In R:
binom.test(c(1800,8200), p=0.1) yields a p-value of < 2.2×10^-16 for the 18% being self-employed versus 10% for the general population. This is highly significant!
95% CI is between 17.3% and 18.8%
Stanley
Thanks for the great content and information. God Bless you.
Blake
I would have liked more in depth information on how those surveyed became millionaires. It seems like the facts they wanted to verify were the same ones that Dave Ramsey loves to preach over and over. GPA in college, amount of money spent on jeans, and buying new cars. I was hoping for a better answer from Chris when Paula asked him for numbers on spending in categories like transportation and housing based on a percentage of their income. The survey did a good job of building a profile of what millionaires look like now with a team of professionals, size of house, and etc, but what about how they got there? Size of house is not relevant unless its compared to the average size for their zip code or a similar areas. It really seemed like information was cherry picked to fit the Dave Ramsey message, which was disappointing for me. I’ve listened to Dave interview millionaires on his millionaire hour and the information they highlighted in this study are the same ones he always asks. Great interview Paula, I thought you you asked great questions. Dave Ramsey and team do great things for personal finance, but could have been a little less “intentional” with the findings of their study and let the numbers speak more.
Westcoaster
Blake said it far more succinctly than I could have.
Westcoaster
I love how Paula pulls episodes together with “take aways” at the end of a show. Her synopsis is always so on point! I also love how Paula has a great non-confrontational journalist way of pushing people to show more data — “my twitter followers are going to want to know… ” but this interview did fall short of pushing back to get the more granular data and a more nuanced interpretation. Chris needs to be congratulated on his 10,000 interviews. It is a huge number and the data generated from this is a phenomenal accomplishment. I did want, however, more detail, analysis, and investigational thought on how these stats worked and what we could draw from them. Some thoughts:
When data sets get big, some stats are reliable and easy to get at (the % with networth between 1 -5 million for instance) but some stats are going to get muddled (how do you assess “intentionality” or how people talk to their kids about money?). The more qualitative/descriptive components this data set are going to be prone to bias — how the question is worded, is the study paid or unpaid, even what Chris’s pre-study assumptions are (I suspect they are influenced by the Dave Ramsey school of thought (All Debt Bad)).
I would have loved some methodological context. How were participants recruited? Were they paid cash for their response? Is a more frugal minded millionaire more likely than a frivolous millionaire to fill out the survey? What % of millionaires approached did not respond to the survey? Was there a control sample of non-millionaires to base comparisons on? What kinds of sample bias might we anticipate here?
As a descriptive study, data generated like “the top 5 cities from which millionaire respondents reported from” is not so helpful. First we have some assumptions about how the surveys were distributed across the country. Second, more populous areas are going to contain more millionaires but also more impoverished people as well as more middle class people. I think it’s more interesting to know if there are areas that are disproportionately represented by millionaires compared to middle class and then how that wealth is stacked up (% of wealth in primary residence vs funds). I’m guessing there are plenty of San Fran/Seattle/LA types who are house rich and cash poor and maybe not the role model of how to be a millionaire.
Age is a factor here too. As we get older, we are more likely to have higher net worth. This creates its own form of bias. “Millionaires are more likely to eat prunes and watch old M*A*S*H re-reuns!” Do retirees favor Growth Mutual Funds over Value? Maybe a study criteria looking at those who hit 1 million in equities by age 50 is more interesting than anyone who ever hits 1 million.
Inflation is also interesting here. In the original “millionaire next door study” in 1994. 1 million is worth 1.7 million today. Or put otherwise, today’s “millionaires” were merely $600,000-aires in 1994. Even the Millionaire Next Door is problematic here when compared to the original book investigating the rich, which is Napolean Hill’s Think and Grow Rich in 1937. At that time, 1 million was worth 11 million in 1994 and 19 million in 2018 dollars. When asked what Chris anticipates the next iteration of this study in 25 years looks like, he may have been wiser to say with inflation of 2% per year, our kids will all be millionaires at some point.
I jaw dropped a couple of times to Chris’ answers. When he identifies that millionaires include growth mutual funds more than value mutual funds, Chris believed that the answer why was “personal preference”. Is it that growth funds are more common or grew faster in the last 10 years and therefore make up a larger portfolio? When compared to age-equivalent non-millionaires, was this same relationship seen? This kind of statistic and the accompanying explanation leaves me in a maddeningly digital vacuum and I expected more from Paula here.
Sorry for a long winded post which admittedly borders on rant. I lack Paula’s upbeat silver-lining way of seeing and wish I could emulate that better. She does, as usual, a terrific public service by continuing this podcast. I always learn something new. For this, my sincere thanks!
Hamster
Hi Paula,
Another great interview. I really enjoyed Chris’s answers to your questions. So much to think about and to incorporate into our own thinking.
It’s so easy to think that it takes a huge source of income to become a millionaire, but it’s usually the average earner, staying the course, that makes it! Awesome revelation!
Hamster
Ryan
Paual and team – It appears that Afford Anything podcasts can no longer be downloaded as mp3s? This is a feature that I found useful and would like to see restored as I find this to be the best way to listen to them that does not require a smart phone with installed apps or a web connection.
Erin @ Team Afford Anything
Hi Ryan – thanks for pointing this out! We just launched a new website design and we’re still working out some of the kinks. I’ve restored the download functionality to the podcast player. =)
Abby H.
I agree with others’ observations. As an English instructor, I teach my students to look at “loaded language,” i.e., words with high emotional connotations. In addition, we’re all familiar with Dave Ramsey’s general tone and ideals. Hogan’s spiel was filled with it. 🙁
Chris seemed more interested in pushing across a “let me tell YOU!” perspective peppered with aphorisms “Don’t believe the MYTH of LEVERAGE! INTENTIONALITY!” than in sharing scientific findings. Unfortunately, he came across as quite condescending: “See, BUDGETING isn’t a skill that you STOP doing. BUDGETING is one of those things that allows you to to stay in control of money.” I agree, but he said this as though Paula herself wouldn’t know this.
MAJOR props to Paula for her skilled handling of this particular “message-forward” author. As others said, his study stands worthy of respect, regardless, but I’m not so keen to read it now that I’ve heard someone lecture Paula on how (NO WAY!!) people need an emergency fund?! etc.
He did not seem to know her audience or who she was at ALL. A difficult listen.
I did like the description of how they brought the people in, but even that was a bit light on specifics, and focused too much on what Chris wanted.
Ray
I’m sorry Paula, but he sounds like a Dave Ramsey infomercial. Everything they found out coincides with Dave Ramsey‘s teachings.
Michelle @ Free
I’ll be interested to listen to this episode in the upcoming week! Dave means well, but has a one way approach to all spending and saving and I basically stopped listening to him after I began noticing how conservative he was. With that being said, this isn’t Dave…So I can’t wait to listen!
I really enjoyed The Millionaire Next Door and didn’t realize it was 25 years old, so I’m glad to have some more updated stats! At work an employee of mine was recently Oooing and ah-ing over a BMW a patient was driving and how wealthy they must be, and the whole time I’m over here like well The Millionaire Next Door taught me they are probably poor! Ha!
As always, love your show and ability to interview and educate!
Linda
Hi Paula
I am not dissing Dave Ramsey or Chris Hogan. Dave’s show is what originally got me interested in personal finance but as a few others talked about here I want more info on how this survey was conducted. I am 99% certain it was just Dave Ramsey listeners. I remember taking a long survey at Dave’s site with exactly these questions. The problem is this is being presented as a study about millionaires in general when it is most certainly not. Dave listeners are a very specific sub set of the population. I find this extremely mis leading and I’m pretty disappointed that the data isn’t more scientific. People will make assumptions based on invalid information. This is a study about Dave millionaires, interesting but not statistically valid and I think the public needs to be aware. i would love to see this talked about on your show.
Love the show and thanks for letting me vent.
Sarah
I agree with many of the other comments here. The insights gleaned from this research sound exactly like what Dave has preached for years, which makes me question the research methods and validity.
Although it’s a bit difficult for me to put my finger on it, something about him parroting about “personal responsibility” and “victim mentality” really grated on my nerves. While I generally agree with the sentiment, there was condescension in his speech towards people who are not millionaires.
It was difficult to listen to. In fact, I didn’t finish the episode.
Brent S.
Just listened to this podcast and also agree with the other points mentioned. Would love to see more on their study, and to find out whether or not it was independently verified. There were a number of points that were just too conveniently lined up with the Ramsey message. Visual Capitalist put a chart out just a year ago (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-assets-make-wealth) that shows business interests as a predominantly larger percentage of assets as wealth grows. Doesn’t line up with his numbers. Chris rather dismissed business owners, real estate investors, index funds (big red flag as Ramsey has his network of American Funds pushing, high-fee mutual fund salesmen), debt and credit cards… anything that didn’t adhere to his sales protocol. Like I said, entirely too convenient. Has all the telltale characteristics of cherry picking.
CC
The show and the study sounded very biased to me… You should get Dr. Sarah Fallaw on the show to compare her stats on Millionaires.
Paula Pant
My interview with her is scheduled for April 9th (that’s our interview date), so that episode will most likely air either at the end of April or sometime in May.
Bryan
Unfortunately, for the people that care about wealth building this information is common sense. The people that need to hear this information don’t care.