FIN 1050 — Personal Finance
The assignment that I’m including in my ePortfolio to represent this course is a paper that I wrote for the class. This paper is a book review of The Millionaire Next Door, a book describing the characteristics of the affluent. We were instructed to read the book, then compose a five-to-six-page book review. The book review was supposed to relate my education in Personal Finance with the information found in the book.
fin1050signatureassignment.pdf
Reflection
The book review of The Millionaire Next Door that I was required to fill out for Personal Finance helped me to acquire substantial knowledge. Reading The Millionaire Next Door helped me understand the characteristics of the affluent and how those characteristics help them become wealthy. This information will help me in my financial planning and economic activities. The book described the characteristics of the children of under-accumulators of wealth (UAWs) and how they detract from the wealth of those individuals. It also explained how certain habits of wealthy individuals such as giving large cash gifts to their children detract from their children’s ability to achieve financial independence. Finally, the book gave suggestions as to how to target this economic population and make money off of them. This information will be practical through all the stages of my life, since money management will always be a part of life.
Composing the book review of The Millionaire Next Door also helped me to learn to think critically. While reading the book, I compared the information about the characteristics of prodigious accumulators of wealth (PAWs) and UAWs with my own life situation. While reading, I also sought connections in my own life with the information in the book, and saw how the information in the book was related to the real world. And the information in the book helped me to think about what I could do to reach some of the same goals that the wealthy do. Finally, it made me rethink my conception of wealth in America, seeing it as something separate from status and income.
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