Who would not like to become a member of the millionaire club? I would love to become a millionaire. So with this goal in front of me I began to search the Internet with google to find out how one can become a millionaire.

I used to believe it is very difficult to become a millionaire unless you have a top job with a six-figure salary and a string of qualifications from the top MBA schools in the US. If you did not have any of these then you should be lucky at least to be born to a millionaire. This thought itself use to discourage me from thinking any further in achieving my goal.

With this background I began the search to find out how one becomes a millionaire. The first result that was displayed by google was the book The Millionaire Next Door: Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy . The title of the book made me believe that this would be the right book. I went to Amazon and ordered the book online.

What I read in the book was a bolt from the blue. All my beliefs in the minimum requirements necessary to become a millionaire were not at all required. In fact the survey results in the book said that there were many high-income earners with a six figure salary and were not in the millionaire club. Though they were earning a good income their net worth was not commensurate with it. They were high spenders too, to keep up their status with their neighbours. The eye opener was this - people whose income was not in six figures and those with moderate earning were millionaires. This made me more curious to find out more on this. Believe me, I was stunned by what I found out. It was, as the author of the book says, to become a millionaire all that is required is be ‘frugal’ – live within your means. It is frugality that turns into wealth.

What one has to do to become wealthy are the following, according to this book. I am sure most of you would be aware of all these things, at least I was well aware but my thoughts never gave any importance to them.

• Live a frugal life
• Live within your means
• Invest in wealth creating assets and not the assets that create more liability
• Allocate time, energy and money efficiently in ways conducive to building wealth
• Have a budget and plan your expenditures
• Never spend against your future expected incomes
• Set financial goals and spend time, money and energy to achieve those goals
• Believe what millionaires believe - that financial independence is more important than displaying high social status