@Traineeinvestor – The ones you mention (investment bankers, etc) I consider the Fast millionaires because they can make LOTS of money in a short amount of time. It’d be easy for them to take a little more time (assuming they could find it) and set up retirement funds, on-going self-managing investments, etc. to cover their later-life expenses.

@Laura – No reason they can’t do both, but personality comes into play and they tend to drift towards one or the other a little more strongly. I’d assume that the SMART millionaires are using tactics from both sides of the board.

@EnoughWealth – Agreed. “Old Money”, or money that’s lasted past the first generation inheritance is different. By then the money has turned into an institution and can’t be readily squandered by a single generation. It’s surviving the first ‘generation pass’ that I’m talking about. Many rich people that pass on their riches to their children never realize it won’t get to their grandchildren.

Your 40’s is where I placed the (imaginary) dividing line between fast and slow, but it could go either way by a decade or more depending on the habits of the millionaire; a Slow millionaire could have made his first million by 30, but practice all/most of the ’slow’ habits, a Fast millionaire could wait until they’re 50 to make their first million, but might have started at 45 or so. It’s just an arbitrary division.

(I did say a ‘few’ pairs of shoes, so maybe 10 pairs at $200 over 40 years would put you closer, but even then it was just an illustration, not an exact number. And if I were taking into account inflation, I would also have used the historic average rate of stock market increase – ~10%) Great comment though!!

Being a ’slow’ millionaire doesn’t have to take until 65 or 70 – I made it by 45, and could have made it by 40 if I’d focussed more seriously on learning about investing when I was in my twenties. A ‘fast’ millionaire would probably be those that made their million before turning 30.

BTW – the cost of a pair of shoes (say, $200) invested at 5.5% for 40 years is only $1,700 – and that isn’t adjusted for inflation. I seriously doubt that it would buy you a decent car! Then again, if you invested the cost of a pair of shoes in a high-growth index fund for 40 years you might be able to buy a car (at 11% the $200 would grow to $13,000 – but that still isn’t inflation adjusted).

Regards
http://enoughwealth.com

I might be only successful with the slow millionaire’s method, but at least I tried with the fast way.

Good article!