01 February 2012
To start out the 2012 year, I wanted to take the opportunity to go back to a book that we had the privilege of gleaning some wisdom from in 2011 and that is the book called Stop Acting Rich and Starting Living Like a Real Millionaire written by Thomas J. Stanley, Ph. D.
As we open up chapter 3 the title of the chapter is “Does the Shoes Make the Man?” We’ve learned in the past discussions that the #1 car for a millionaire is a Toyota followed by Ford. We also learned that the #1 watch for a millionaire is a Seiko. So we can see in those two products, that we’ve looked at, that millionaires don’t typically spend a bunch of money but do buy quality. Also homes that millionaires typically live are priced around $300,000. So now as we go into shoes what are we going to find? Are we going to learn that millionaires also like to get quality but average price shoes or low price shoes? Or are we going to find that millionaires actually spend above average amounts on the shoes that they purchase? Let’s go right into it.
Let’s start out with a wonderful quote that Dr. Stanley gives us on page 64: “If you spend in anticipation of becoming rich, you are unlikely ever to become truly wealthy”. Continuing on page 64, “Most millionaires are motivated by their need to gain financial independence.” Page 65 reads: “Most millionaires do not become rich until they are in their late ‘40s.” Also interestingly here on page 65 we get the definition of the word “miser”.
A miser is defined by Websters Dictionary as “a greedy, stingy person who hoards money for its own sake…a miserable wretch.” On page 66 we learn that what many people in our society believe, who wants to act rich, is that looking beautiful is more important than actually being beautiful. So let’s continue on. The most popular brands of shoes for millionaire women are:
1) Nine West, 2) Stuart Weitzman, 3) Easy Spirit,
4) Cole Haan, and 5) Is a two-way tie between Enzo Angiolini and Ferragamo.
So as we can see most women millionaires do prefer high quality brands.
Then as we move into the millionaire men, a full 78% reported a preferred brand of shoes. However, fewer millionaires reported a preferred brand of suit. As we look at the #1 shoe for men, it was Allen Edmonds and they believe that the Allen Edmonds shoe is worth the price. In general, Allen Edmonds never goes out of style and can be refurbished over and over again. 2nd place goes to Cole Haan. This was the most popular show for the self-employed millionaires and also marketing and sales professionals. 3rd place in popularity for the male millionaire was Johnson and Murphy. This brand was more popular among self-employed business owners and marketing of sales professionals but it was also #1 among millionaire lawyers. Shoe #4 was Florsheim and interestingly this was the most popular shoe for millionaires who have annual incomes under $100,000. Then finally the 5th most popular shoe among millionaires is the Rockport, and it is likely that the balance sheet affluent physicians who helped deliver your children were wearing Rockports.
So why is it that millionaires tend to wear those brands of shoes that are generally in the higher price range? The reason is because millionaires are much more quality sensitive and thus tend to focus on the variations and life cycle cost among competing brands. A high quality shoe can last 10 even 20 years if treated properly and additionally 70% of millionaires surveyed have their shoes resoled. So it all goes back to value and price. Long-term buying these expensive shows is going to cost the millionaire less money and although they were unable to find a high quality shoe at a low cost, like they could with the Toyota or Seiko watch, they were able to buy a shoe that in the long run was able to dramatically reduce their cost because they were able to wear it 10 and 20 years. They could also resole the shoe which is very important to the millionaire. Here is a quote from a millionaire regarding cheap shoes: “Cheap shoes wear you; you don’t wear them!”
So as you’re looking to go buy shoes this is one area of spending that if you really want to start living like a true millionaire you can actually go ahead and buy one of the more expensive brands. Of course when you’re looking at homes, when you’re looking at watches, when you’re looking at suits and when you’re looking at types of wine, that’s certainly not the case. But in the case of the shoe the “millionaire next door” does actually spend more on shoes because they last longer.
