The Millionaire Next Door

Economic Outpatient Care

Some  adult children who still live at home are in fact quite productive.  Take Tinny, for example. He started and stopped going to college several times. He had a variety of jobs but found them uninspiring.  At age 23 he moved back home.  But not to live off of his parents.  He began his small business operation out of his parents’ basement.  They provided him with free food and shelter on the condition that he would get serious about building a rather unique business. 


Tinny always liked cars, especially status makes and high performance models.    He realized that there were several unfulfilled needs connected with the types of vehicles he preferred.  His grandmother, a millionaire next door type, loaned him $3,000 to get started.  She told him that he would have to pay the money back interest free and that he should always wear a suit when making business contacts.


Tinny’s business concept was simple.  He realized that many leasing companies had inventories of motor vehicles  “coming off of lease.”  Most of these companies were good at leasing cars, but not great at reselling them.  Tinny offered to sell these vehicles on a consignment basis.  He also contacted people who had their vehicles listed for sale and made them the same offer.  This was his daytime business.  At night he took evening classes  at a local state college and majored in finance


Tinny’s hard work and charming personality began to return dividends quickly.  He sold his first Lexus to his grandmother and then a BMW to his parents who had never owned a foreign car.  Things got a little crowded in his parents’ driveway and on the street with a BMW here, a Mercedes there, a Lexus, etc.   Yet none of the neighbors complained.   Many of them got a heck of a deal on one of Tinny’s late model cars.


Eventually, Tinny moved his business into an old building that once housed a new car dealership .  Today he owns several new car dealerships. Yes, he did pay back his grandmother the money that he owed her.  And he always wears a suit, never a sports jacket. 


The message is “don’t give up on your adult childtren who may currently occupy your basement.”  Tinny would never have become a success today if his parents/grandparents didn’t provide him with low overhead and an interest free loan.   In the national surveys that I have conducted, I found that 44% of millionaire women versus 26% of millionaire men have provided cash or forgiveness loans to their children/grandchildren to start or enhance a business.

5 thoughts on “Economic Outpatient Care”

  1. What terrible advice. Without a drive to put food on the table, Tinny could have just as easily played businessman off-and-on between video game sessions.

    I agree we shouldn’t give up on our children, but giving free food and board isn’t the way. There should be some driver to push them out such as rent or a definite timeline. It is not fair to our children to enable them. There are too many bad examples for every Tinny out there.

  2. I think it’s ok to have kids live with you if you can set rules and if the kids follow them (no smoking dope in the garage or bringing women home to spend the night.) Plus–they have to do household chores, and not expect an allowance, and pay for their own car insurance, and be enrolled in school.

    1. William McCloskey

      I lived at home in my 20’s, paid room and board and saved my money – and that was the smartest thing that I ever did.

      Requiring your adult child to go to Big College and piss away money on worthless course is by far the dumbest advice you could give. I outearned both of my parents combined while living at home in my late 20’s at a white collar job and I hate 0 debt.

  3. William McCloskey

    I lived at home in my 20’s and paid room and board – in a middle class Philadelphia row home. That enabled me to save 6-figures before I was 30. I was not a dependent in any way, shape or form. Mommy and daddy did not spend $100,000.00 on overpriced schooling either – nor did they loan me a cent to start a business.

    This is why I don’t live in my parent’s satelite basement via economic outpatient care. As a matter of fact, my room and board money helped to fund part of my mother’s retirement.

    Living with your parents or a family member is the smartest thing that you can do while you are single – especially when you are MAKING GOOD MONEY. Pissing away money on a fuck pad or taking out a mortgage before you have accumulated some wealth is dumb – very dumb.

    If you pay room and board then you shit shower and shave somwhere while you are busy working and saving for your future – and that hardly consitiutes living in a basement.

    1. If you paid room and board, then really this article isn’t about you in the first place. This article is about parents coddling their adult children by paying for everything for them. You could have paid room/board at your own apartment (although I’m guessing your parents were not charging market rate) and your scenario would not have changed much. Most parents DON’T charge their adult children rent or other bills, that’s what the author is referring to.

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