Family Fortunes: How to Build Family Wealth and Hold on to It for 100 Years

Build Family Wealth and Hold on to It for Generations

From trusted New York Times bestselling author Bill Bonner comes a practical, actionable guide to getting and maintaining multigenerational wealth. Family Fortunes: How to Build Family Wealth and Hold on to It for 100 Years (Wiley; July 2012; Hardcover and ebook; $29.95; ISBN: 978-1-1181-7141-7) by father-and-son team Bill and Will Bonner presents a radical new way to look at family money. Rejecting much of the common wisdom associated with building family wealth, Family Fortunes presents a game-changing new look at family, money, and how the two can come together in exciting, potentially life-altering ways.  

“Many families wonder, what’s the secret? The secret is simply this: the rich take the long view, “says Bill Bonner. “If you thought you’d live forever, would you do anything differently? Wouldn’t your attitude toward your money change a little? Wouldn’t you reduce your spending, too, knowing that your money would have to last you a long, long time? If you look carefully, almost all ‘Old Money’ secrets can be traced to a single source: a longer-term outlook. The truly wealthy are careful to spend their money on things that hold their values over time.”

Family Fortunes is comprehensive guide that shows how families can successfully preserve their estates by ignoring most of what people think they know about "the rich" and, instead, training and motivating all family members to work together toward a very uncommon goal. The Bonners explain:

• Why family money should NOT be invested in "safe, conservative" investments
• Why charitable giving is usually a waste of money, or worse
• Why it is NOT a good idea to let children go their own way
• Why you can't trust wealth "professionals" and why you should never entrust your money to money managers
• Why giving your children as much education as possible is NOT a good idea
• Why Warren Buffett and others asking for higher tax rates are wrong to take "the pledge"
• Why Wall Street is a graveyard for capital, why most celebrity CEOs are a threat to the businesses they run, why modern capitalism is a failure, and more

“To construct a legacy that will last, you need to forget everything you think you know about what it means to be ‘rich,’ even if you already are. Big houses? Flashy cars? Not so fast,” adds Bill Bonner. “Keeping money in the family involves putting in more hard work, not having more fun. It's a constant challenge, but the benefits can be huge.”

The book is a must-read for all individual investors—even those who do not plan to leave money to their children—because it challenges many of the most ubiquitous principles and rules of investing. Family Fortunes is packed with invaluable advice for making money and keeping it in the family, interwoven with anecdotes about the authors' own family's wealth philosophy and practices. The book illustrates why family money is the most dynamic, forward-looking capital in the world, and how any wealthy family can cash in on it for generations to come.

“Readers will come away with a very different idea as to what family wealth is all about. It is not stodgy. Not boring. Not moss-backed and reactionary. The most essential guide to passing wealth from one generation to the next, Family Fortunes is filled with concrete, practical advice you can put to use right away,” says Will Bonner. “Family wealth is not about getting something. It is about giving up something. It is for the person who wishes to make a sacrifice—even if it is a relatively agreeable sacrifice—so that others may benefit from it, perhaps others whom he will never meet.”