Thomas J. Stanley

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Thomas J. Stanley (1944 – February 28, 2015) was an American writer and business thinker who studied how people become wealthy. He helped popularize ideas about frugal, disciplined wealth-building through his best-selling books, including The Millionaire Next Door and The Millionaire Mind.

Stanley wrote several other books focused on affluent consumers and how they manage money, such as Marketing to the Affluent, Selling to the Affluent, Networking with the Affluent and Their Advisors, Millionaire Women Next Door, and Stop Acting Rich. He also served as chief advisor to Data Points, a company built on his research.

He earned a Doctor of Business Administration from the University of Georgia and taught marketing at the University of Tennessee, the University of Georgia, and Georgia State University, where he was named Omicron Delta Kappa’s Outstanding Professor. Born in the Bronx, his father drove subway cars and his mother was a homemaker and secretary. Stanley studied in Connecticut and did graduate work in Tennessee before moving to the Atlanta area.

Stanley passed away in 2015 after being hit by a drunk driver in Georgia, at age 71. In his final days, he was working on a book with his daughter, Sarah Stanley Fallaw, about enduring wealth-building strategies. The book, The Next Millionaire Next Door: Enduring Strategies for Building Wealth, was published with her as co-author.