The moms and dads who picked it up came in for some tough love if they were funneling money to their adult children. In the chapter “Economic Outpatient Care,” meant to lampoon parental good intentions gone awry, the authors noted that the more parents give their adult children, the less wealth those children accumulate. Adult children who get little or nothing from their parents once they are grown-ups end up accumulating more than those children who are beneficiaries of their parents’ largess. The giving of one-time gifts to get young adults going instead became habit-forming for everyone.

In the chapter “You Aren’t What You Drive,” the book makes a strong case against spending a lot of money on cars. The pair found that millionaires spent only 10 percent more than the average American on cars, and that one-third of the wealthy group bought used vehicles. They tend to see luxury hood ornaments and nameplates as unnecessary “high-status artifacts.” Indeed, if you do the math, as I did this week using the Dinkytown savings calculator, you can easily come up with reasonable situations in which an incremental $300 that you don’t spend on fancier cars each month can, if you save it over 45 years instead, turn into an extra $1 million by the time you retire. Seriously, you can become a millionaire just like that.

But even Mr. Danko, who ought to know better, has not always been able to resist the siren call of the Germans and their advertising. He bought one older Mercedes from a widowed friend, but his other one came new. “I was planning on buying a used one again, but the salesman was very good, and I was weak,” he said. “These luxury cars are clearly overrated when you have to get your oil changed, and it costs $200.”

Nowadays, Mr. Danko gets a $29 lube job on the wheelchair van that he drives, as he’s the primary caretaker for his brother, who has multiple sclerosis. It has dings because he can’t always see where he’s driving when he’s in reverse. He lives in the same house he always has, though he bought another one for his brother and treated himself to a good snowblower.

I asked Mr. Danko about Mr. Stanley’s spending habits, given that he makes passing reference in the book to owning an Acura loaded with options. Mr. Danko couldn’t answer; he and Mr. Stanley had not spoken for about 15 years at the time of his death on Saturday. Was there a rift over money, I wondered? Credit? Mr. Danko said he honestly did not know. “I have no animosity towards Tom Stanley,” he said. “I wish the very best for his family, and they continue to be in my prayers.”

I tried to reach them, but they did not return my calls, and I found out later that they were busy with the funeral. But I was curious that Mr. Stanley died behind the wheel of a 2013 Corvette, rammed by another driver who might soon face charges in the accident. Mr. Stanley too, it turns out, couldn’t help but have a taste for the finer things in life.

So does that make him a hypocrite? Or just a human being? All the best research tells us that we get much more joy out of doing things than having things, and a weekend drive in a car that goes really fast probably falls into both categories. But he earned that drive — and that car — by putting untold numbers of readers in a position where they’d be lucky enough to have that same choice themselves.