The Richest Man in Town by W. Randall Jones

The Richest Man in Town – The Twelve Commandments of Wealth by W. Randall Jones, the founder of Worth Magazine, is one of the great business books I’ve read this year.  It profiles some of America’s most successful self-made super-rich, focusing on the richest person in towns throughout the United States, offering insights into how [...]

from Joshua Kennon

The 2010 Values Voters Summit Concludes

Well folks, the 2010 Values Voters summit just concluded and I’ve got to be honest: It makes me sad.  Mostly, I think it arises from the knowledge that, in a vast percentage of cases, people are not binary in terms of being “good” or “bad”.  The same mindset that pervaded the Values Voters Summit seems [...]

from Joshua Kennon

A $1,000,000 Municipal Bond Dilemma

Those of you who follow my writings at About.com, a division of The New York Times, know that I’ve written about municipal bonds at the Investing for Beginners site including one article that detailed some ways to help you determine if a specific municipal bond was “safe”. At the wedding this weekend, I was discussing [...]

from Joshua Kennon

Where Do Millionaires Invest Their Cash to Keep It Safe?

I’ve been having a conversion about investing and money with the reader “Frat Man” in the comments section of another post.  He asked: I also had one other question I have always wondered. Where do millionaires keep their money? In the sense that FDIC insurance only covers $250,000 at the bank and SIPC only covers [...]

from Joshua Kennon

How to Marry a Millionaire – An Economic Update on the 1953 Film

In 1953, a great movie starring Lauren Bacall, Bette Grable and Marilyn Monroe was released called How to Marry a Millionaire.  I got curious as to how much money it would take to equal the same net worth today so I did an inflation adjustment because I wanted to know how big their motivation was [...]

from Joshua Kennon

Does Geographic Location Influence Success?

I was speaking to a relative of mine when this person (who shall remain nameless) expressed horror that after living near New York for so long, I would buy a house near my parents in the Midwest.  “I thought you were going places!” they basically decried in exasperation. It was then that I realized how [...]

from Joshua Kennon

Where Do Most Decamillionaires Get Their Money?

Most decamillionaires attribute their wealth to owning and investing in their own, rather than in other people’s, businesses, which include the ones listed on the various stock exchanges.  The millionaires state that they can control their own businesses, but they can’t control or dictate policy to public corporations, let alone determine prices in the stock [...]

from Joshua Kennon

Response to What Is Probably the Most Ignorant Message I’ve Received In 10 Years of Writing Finance Articles

A reader named Medusa wrote me and, to keep it short, explained that I shouldn’t believe people should be rich because the Bible is against rich people, that I was going to die a miserable, lonely old man with no one who loved me because I saved my money instead of spending it, and that [...]

from Joshua Kennon

New Jersey Battles Over Millionaire Tax

Think about all the income I earn and my businesses earn.  The sales and profits that are generated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.  Guess what?  The taxable income could have belonged to the state of New Jersey.  However, the cost of living, driven in part by the state [...]

from Joshua Kennon

Mail Bag – How Does Someone Start Creating Passive Income?

Among the thousands of emails and messages I receive regularly, I came across one today that was sent to me on May 17th by Cale P. Here is the question that was posed: I’m a pretty talented IT professional with great salary and a standard quality of living. I’ve known that I won’t be in [...]

from Joshua Kennon

How My Grandpa Dennis Could Have Turned His Pepsi Habit Into a 7-Figure Estate

I’ve written in the past about how nearly every American alive today has been confronted with perhaps a dozen different companies that they knew first hand because they enjoyed using the firm’s products for years (in some cases, their whole life) that turned out to be spectacular investments.  Yet, they never thought to research the [...]

from Joshua Kennon

Mental Model: The Drunkard’s Search

The Drunkard’s Search: The tendency for people to search in the easiest places, rather than the ones that are the most likely to yield results.  The name comes from the idea of a drunkard seeking his car keys under a street lamp because the light is better instead of where he most likely lost them. [...]

from Joshua Kennon

The Joy of Cash Dividends

Over the years, I’ve written a lot about dividends on the Investing for Beginners site at About.com.  In fact, over the past few years it has been one of my absolute favorite topics to cover because through the Great Recession of 2007-2009, those who owned a collection of high quality dividends stocks were better able [...]

from Joshua Kennon

The 5 Levels of Building Wealth

Early in life, I developed a theory that there were five levels of building wealth that most self-made men (and women) go through to reach financial independence.  It was started by my love for Carl Barks Scrooge McDuck comics.  When I started reading the Federal Reserve reports of consumer wealth, empirical studies, and other sources [...]

from Joshua Kennon

Misconceptions About Wealth

How The Marketing Industry Continues to Convince Average Americans They Know What a Millionaire Looks Like A few days ago, I quoted something from one of Dr. Thomas J. Stanley’s books: “In the United States, there are three times more millionaires living in homes that have a market value of under $300,000 than there are [...]

from Joshua Kennon

How One of My Family Members Used Shares of U.S. Bancorp to Build Substantial Wealth

A member of my close family has been using a technique to build substantial wealth that doesn’t require a high income or any specialized knowledge, extra work, or effort.  I was so impressed by the way he implemented this program, I thought I would share it with my other family and friends (as well as [...]

from Joshua Kennon