People who accomplish millionaire personal assets generally have middle-class lifestyles. This is what Thomas Stanly and William Danko concluded after closely studying for 10 years the habits of one thousand American citizens who have over one million dollars in their personal accounts.

In the book The Millionaire Next Door, they reflect the habits of people who accumulated wealth. On a general basis, these persons have a conservative lifestyle, quite different to people who only know how to spend money.

Disregarding cultural differences, the analysis shows that, in order to generate long-term savings, it is necessary to learn to live below our socioeconomic possibilities. The core idea is to spend less than what you earn.

Another point that arises from the analysis is the relevance of economic independence and control of money, which is way more important than showing off status. People surveyed consider that teaching their children how to be economically independent and to develop their own projects is a great gift; a gift that preserves and increases/diversifies fortunes.

They also claim that they use part of their time to detect new business opportunities. In addition, they surround themselves with reliable professionals who objectively assess their business. Diversification has enabled them to earn profit that may solve temporary problems for their original businesses.

They consider it is vital to separate personal money from business money. Furthermore, in every startup, they pay themselves a salary if they spend time working on it.

They believe that having a very high standard of living can lead to debts and poor savings, while a mid-level standard of living provides security for them and for those who live with them.

They think that economic prosperity and stability can be achieved after turning 40 years old. It is a period of time in which they have already accumulated years of efforts, failures, good moves, and, most importantly, experience.

A key factor is to prevent income level to determine budget expenditure. They consider that it is vital to control expenditure so that extra money can be saved and/or invested.

Each of these persons have drawn up capital accumulation goals, they have untouchable savings for unexpected situations and for programed expenses. They believe it is important to understand how they function towards consumption, as well as their impulsive purchases, in order to control them.

They consider that abundance is always harder to manage, so they focus these sort of actions to small patrimonies of young people who are just getting started in their careers.

They think that the key to strengthen personal finances is working, saving and investing.

Clearly, these are principles that can also be applied to countries and may lead to a major qualitative jump for Latin America.