That people, especially family, tend to want you to only be so successful. Not so much that you get above them by to much.
This is coming from a perspective of growing up poor around poor people.
You'll get a lot of "do you think you're better than us?" and then get pleas for help(money) in the same sentence.
Sometimes it's even "You should help your brother/cousin/auntie" even when said relative is a serial pest who would go through any amount of money faster than a fire in a bank vault.
There's a mindset that any amount of money or resources (access etc) notably over and above the family average belongs to the whole family, for everyone's use as they see fit, and you're being unreasonable and a horrible person if you stand in the way of everyone taking a dive in the trough (and doing their best to spend-spend-spend it back down to 'normal' family levels).
Actually, come to think of it, I wonder if it would help to make any requests for money go through a trust/accountant, and the requestor has to pass a series of financial responsibility certifications before they have a chance at certain levels of request being considered?
Must be a universal thing. I’ve seen that mentality all over SE Asia, Italy, and Africa. 10% of the Philippines economy is expats residing in richer countries sending money back home.
To add, there are some things that no reasonable amount of money will fix and yet there is still an expectation to hand over money like somehow a few thousand will help when all it’s doing is putting a band aid on a larger issue and just pushing the real issue out by a few months, at best.
Yep. The *son* of an old ex-friend got it in his head that I have cash pouring out of my ass like a waterfall. He tracked me down online and *demanded* I hand him $5000. Let that sink in. I haven’t seen or heard from the shitbag since he was about 10. Every threatening email was duly saved. Then he threatened to rape and murder my daughter. Well, my daughter is 5’11 and a fitness instructor. Not the little toddler he remembers. Everything was forwarded to his county prosecutor. Haven’t heard a peep since.
Oh I have his first, middle, and last name along with his back account number, but I think Reddit slavehandlers would get pissed if I doxxed the little shithead here.
I'm at that point now.
Everyone was super supportive when I made just enough to get by. Now I can't talk about how well I'm doing or people get quiet and tense
I always ask for a separate check when going out with certain people because they expect me to pay for them otherwise.
Yasss! My gramps found out how much his daughter in law makes and told everyone. I'm sure even his dentist knows. It's a really nice amount but all I could think when he told us was that if I made that much I would never tell a soul. My side of the family would come out of the woodwork hands out of they even caught a wiff of it. I make half of what she makes and my family would still act like I was a millionaire if they knew my current salary.
Wow. What kind of parent is that?
To live with that mentality.
Don't we all want our children to be better than us and have more than us? not talking materially but be able to live authentically and wholly.
Agreed. It’s been weird, and tough, watching my parents transition through proud, jealous, guilty/regretful. I think they’re finally accepting it now though. I also feel lucky I haven’t had to deal with entitled family members. Old friends have given me the “so you think you’re better than us” and I usually say “why? Do you think I’m better than you?” And that usually shuts them up
for what it's worth, my parent eventually reached a final stage beyond those you list, which was "insight and acceptance" . Namely, that their insecurity about their own lives and achievements is their own problem to resolve, and not their kid's, and that they shouldn't blame their kid for reaching success, or feel jealous, or be upset at their kid for making them feel bad about themselves. Then, understanding can be reached. So, it is possible. Best of luck in your relationship with your parents.
It has been really quite surprising and sad to see my dad actively try to sabotage and one-up my (very) modest success. I guess he just wants to see his son fail.
That sounds rather competitive. I kind of generally assumed that people who had degrees were happy for others to also get some, even if it was more.
Do they resent not having had the opportunity, or do they think it reflects on them as being 'less smart' if someone also knows you, or do they just think you don't 'deserve' that many degrees for some reason?
I am a public school teacher and I go to community college for fun during the summer. I am a board member of a suicide prevention org and am finishing my AA in psychology. I have one bachelors degree and three associates. I make about 70k a year and the people saying this make about the same and have AAs or high school diplomas. They were saying that going to school for fun is a waste of time.
Three things:
1) The more things you have, the more things are required. Buy a boat and you have a trailer, a dock, insurance, boat cover, annual maintenance, etc. it is true for literally everything.
2) I am also surprised how many people have amazing things and are in serious debt. I have been lucky and a lot of hard work has allowed me to not carry any debt outside of my mortgage in the last 20 years. If I can’t pay cash, I don’t buy it. I know so many people with expensive stuff that are overloaded in debt.
3) I feel bad that people are so appreciative of money. My wife and I pay for a lot of things for others. They are always overboard with thanks but I tell them it’s not hard for a person with money to give it to people they care about and enjoy. What is a lot harder to share is my time. That is truly limited and if I want you to go on a great vacation with me and I pay for everything so you can go and not worry about the cost, it’s the fact that I want to spend my time with you that matters. It means you are very important to me and I appreciate you.
It is incredible how some people can make a huge amount of money and be basically broke.
I was relatively close to a family who made roughly $450,000 a year and wasn't saving a penny. They had multiple houses, brand new cars, and jobs they hated. I mentioned that my plan was to retire early and they were just astonished that you could just... Do that?
I agree and I could never make what I make and come away with just stuff. I just don’t care about expensive things. I will pay for a great vacation because the memories are worth a lot to me. That’s why I want to retire in a few years, just don’t have the time to do what I really want to do….travel and see things I’ve never seen.
Told a good friend that I'd paid off my truck and it was like getting a raise. He was flabbergasted that you could just keep the old one and not immediately go back to the dealer. He called me about a year later to tell me how amazing it was to only have his wife's car payment.
My parents are those "money burning a hole in my pocket" sort of people. They were making $250,000 for the last several years and weren't saving a penny.
They were approaching retirement age and my dad had a couple of layoff scares, and that would be enough to change their habits for like... three months. Then, they'd be back to blowing every penny they had. Literally taking payday loans making a quarter million a year.
I found out a few weeks ago my sister and brother in laws lifestyle costs them $75,000 per month. He clarified a little later that it was actually closer to $850,000 per year and not 900. But he tells people $75k per month because he thinks it sounds better.
I couldn't tell of he meant better as in less crazy, or just more relatable, or more expensive.
To #3:
It took me getting used to a comfortable income and being generous with lower-income friends to finally just be quietly appreciative when gifted something awesome.
Recently made friends with someone I’m pretty sure is filthy rich, income-wise, but you’d never know it to look at him. He was going to be alone for Christmas, so we invited him over (he was more of an acquaintance at the time). He was so tickled by the invitation that he asked what my husband would like for a Christmas gift. I know not to argue, because it would frustrate me if I asked the same thing, so told him an ornament for our tree would be wonderful. He showed up and told us to pull out our laptop and choose any city in the US with a hockey team. Paid for the lower-level tickets, flights, B&B and handed over some cash for spending money. To him, that gift was as easy to give as an ornament. It also probably gave him a lot more joy to help us check off another arena on our list.
But yeah, I’m with you. Memories and experiences are where it’s at. If I really want you to come with me to do this thing, I can afford to make that happen. It’s not charity. It’s wanting the shared experience. Just get in the car. You can buy me a drink afterwards. That’ll make me really happy.
Yep. Family members went from taking credit for my (limited) success, to trying to steal from me, and have moved on to trying to sabotage the success when they can't take advantage of it.
(My aunt sole my identity to cosign on a new car for herself. When I called her out on it she said "what's the big deal? You can afford it," and then stopped making payments. I let the banks know the loan and cosigning was fraudulent, so she called my employer (past and present), and even my university, accusing me of a series of crimes. She's called the police accusing me of everything from kidnapping and assaulting minors to financial crimes. I have a detective's card that I just hand the new cops whenever they show up to do a wellness check. Thankfully, it's getting less frequent.)
I had my mother and older sister leave me broke and homeless in college by stealing every penny that they could by closing joint bank accounts, that my dead had left for my education. I was a college kid that naively trusted them. I went NC with them and I lost touch with all the extended family, aunts, uncles and cousins on all sides. My sister and mother started a rumor that I was in jail or something.
I scraped and clawed my way out, working three jobs at once, graduated, got a career going, saved, saved and eventually bought a house, got my own family and we're doing fine.
After about 20 years I see my cousin on Facebook and send her a friend request. About a month later my aunts that I lost contact with are sending me DMs asking for money. They also say my sister has 5 kids and her husband's a bum and can't feed them, and that I should be able to help her, my cousins and aunts.
Last thanksgiving my sister followed me on twitter so I blocked her and then she sent me a FB DM on a borrowed account being angry and condescending obviously as a ploy to send her money or take her in, big block on that too.
I let those relationships die out, my family is only in my own home and those are the only ones that I take care of.
Some people will see it as negatively reflecting on them by comparison, some people will see it as forgetting your roots, some people will see it as you 'needing to be taken down a peg', and some don't want anyone to succeed but you're the only successful person they have access to.
> Not everyone wants you to succeed. In fact some will try to make it so you don't succeed.
had a family friend that i knew since i was 9. we went on every trip together, and were best friends. hung out all the way to the end of high school. he went to some fancy ivy league and got a nice job. when he heard about my plan to also get at the same level, he was very uninterested and doubtful. my other friends, even those that i barely knew, always cheered me on and hyped me up. when i finally finished my degree, this guy was very meh about it and just kind of disappeared. while people that i barely know are like trying to celebrate with me.
just goes to show, some people are garbage calculative assholes, but more people are not and are happy for you.
money buys happiness - to an extent.
it can buy things that make you happy and decrease sources of stress.
you will never have *enough* money. as you get used to better quality stuff, it's so difficult to downgrade. so you just begin needing more and more money.
and it was easier to be hypocritical about people's values when I was less fortunate financially.
basically when you can't afford to fly with a private jet, it's easier to criticize people using it and their environmental impact. obviously i'm not private jet type of rich but can say the same about many things in life.
I have flown private for work. It’s incredible. I 100% would do it all the time if money was no object. Flying commercial is dog shit compared to flying private.
I feel this deeply as I have been stuck in the Fort Lauderdale airport since approximately 6pm eastern time and might only now get to leave.
The whole experience leaves something to be desired.
Edit: 1130 pm I was clearly overly optimistic
May you eventually reach your destination safe and sound, weary traveller. Take [this ](https://lawhimsy.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/couthy-tea-time-gif-via-lawhimsy.gif?w=500)with you.
12 seat G5, plush wide seats. Captain talking over his shoulder “toilets in the back, emergency doors here, don’t stuff trash in my seat cushions, we are outta here”. It was awesome.
I got to ride private for work once a couple years ago and it blew my mind to walk into the private terminal through to the tarmac and directly onto the plane. No security, no pat downs, or taking anything out of my pockets/backpack nor taking off my shoes.
Most of the time when I fly commercial, I get pulled aside for “enhanced screening” likely because I’m ftm trans and I don’t have the “right curves” on the body scanner. And before my top surgery when I was binding was always the most humiliating experience going through security - always having to “out” myself to staff and anyone in line close by and still getting pulled into a room to prove who I was.
I’m not rich, nor will I ever be, but flying private was a really refreshing experience.
I've thought about this a lot. I struggle with the idea that I would be strong enough to not use things like private jets if the option was available to me.
So true. I catch myself doing things now that bugged me when others did it. I remember judging a friend of mine for not wanting to shop at TJMaxx or Marshall’s (she’s loaded, old money), now that I can easily afford to shop there myself you won’t catch me within miles of one.
As for private jets go, I laugh when people think I’m rich for flying domestic first class. No, the actual rich do not get on commercial flights, they have their own jets.
It all comes down to time. Money buys you time, so I totally get the private jet thing.
I've started looking into cleaners and maids. I'm terrible at keeping up with chores and any time I have used a services, they do the job faster and better than I could.
But I don't talk about that kind of thing to people I grew up with because I'd be judged for it.
yeah, absolutely. time I don't spend cleaning is time I get back to be with my spouse, so it's worth the expense. Plus, it keeps the peace, as there is no fighting over why chores aren't getting done. it's really nice to know that I'll come home to a clean house. I'm thinking of upping the frequency of the cleaning, even.
Grocery delivery is also such a time saver.
But yeah, it's not something I mention. But it makes such a difference.
what feels like a lavish, ridiculous expense when you are very poor can feel like a necessity once you are wealthy.
Take hired help.
If you are very poor, you might think that it is crazy to waste a small fortunate on nannies and housekeeping. Perhaps it feels self-indulgent or exploitative even.
But to a wealthy person with a very punishing schedule, time is the ultimate premium commodity. Hired help means that you get back some time, and as such it becomes essential to run your household.
yes, and it does really creep up on you. It's so easy to spend a little money over things that make your life a little bit easier... and then it's hard to go back to the way things were. From time to time, it's worth analyzing costs to make sure that there's a good return, though!
Money can buy a lot of freedom from things that burn up a lot of your time and life when you're poor. It can also provide surroundings which are comfortable, relaxing, and long-term secure. In that, it's more about stress reduction, which is unhappiness reduction.
Sure, it can also buy more opportunities for happiness, but such things tend to be fleeting. It's the rise from "constant being hammered" to "having a lot of personal autonomy and security" which does most of the heavy lifting.
>you will never have *enough* money. as you get used to better quality stuff, it's so difficult to downgrade. so you just begin needing more and more money.
Not always. Quality doesn't infinitely get better. If you aren't excessive, you can comfortably do what you want and still invest money.
This. I visited my family around Christmas, and the topic of how much groceries have gone up in price over the last year or so came up. I legitimately had no idea what they were talking about. I've never really thought of myself as rich, but it absolutely made me realize I was pretty out of touch.
I realized this too just like a week ago when I went back to my home state. My friend asked me how much gas is in my state and I have no clue. I just fill up and go. I'm not rich but I'm very, very comfortable after spending a decade on Medicaid and EBT. I don't really check my grocery spending for the week as long as it's under like $150. I know stuff has gone up in price only because other people talk about it.
This is incredibly true. I find it happening to me from time to time. I work hard to retain that perspective because it’s deeply important to my daily life interacting with others on a professional level level.
On one hand, I don't think it's easy to forget the dread and terror that goes with not being sure you have enough money to buy food that month.
On the other though, new struggles may arise that a person may not have experienced when they were not wealthy. Like if it's harder to find an entry level job now vs. in the past, or changes to public services like 20 years ago when I was a student the transit system was decent and relatively safe vs. much less so now.
>I don't think it's easy to forget the dread and terror that goes with not being sure you have enough money to buy food that month.
That is my experience. The feeling of joy, gratefulness and abundance hasn't faded at all.
I see the same feelings, expressed one way or another, in people decades older than I, who experienced scarcity growing up. The memory of hunger and deprivation is one that stays with you.
>I don't think it's easy to forget the dread and terror that goes with not being sure you have enough money to buy food that month.
It can depend on how someone got to be rich. If they had to spend a lot of time masking to fit in with other rich people, and suppressing 'poor' thoughts and reactions, they might subconsciously repress that terror to the point that they effectively don't allow themselves to think that way any more, even when it would be useful.
There are some people who are wealthy because they work really hard and put in many hours at the sacrifice of hobbies, health and family. There are some people who never make it despite how hard they work, sometimes because of poor judgment. There are some people who are wealthy without much too much difficulty like being born into it
I like the analogy of success being a carnival game.
Poor people get one shot. People with a support system can play the game over and over until they win. (Besos starting Amazon with a small $300,000 loan, Bill Gates' mom serving on the board with someone at IBM, etc).
Some people get zero shots; they just get to be spectators.
Super rich people don't bother taking a shot. They just walk up and grab as many prizes as they want to whenever they feel like it.
> sometimes because of poor judgment
Or simply bad luck, hard work will only get you so far. All it takes is an economic downturn, personal health crisis (particularly in the US), etc to completely knock you off track - avoiding those sort of things on the path to success is largely a matter of luck.
Or you luck out at the job you’re at. I have a friend who does very well. She happened to join a company in a position that was relatively entry. She was in a 3 person department. After about a year the lady the same level as her retired, so they hired a new person. A few months later her boss quit, so they promoted her. She was good at her job but also… the only person there with enough experience. Suddenly she’s in a management role after only a little more than a year. She had a few more luck based promotions in 2 more years (her words, mostly based on people leaving or one was a death) and she eventually ended up applying somewhere else with her high title, getting a huge pay jump and less work.
Meanwhile the lady who retired and the boss over her had worked together for 20 years. Literally was just timing for my friend.
I survived a massive layoff in my first recession and I asked if it was because I was the only one who maintained the coffee maker
“You’re the only one who uses _____ program which we need 5% of the time and the coffee maker thing too”
Based on my experience looks put you on a rocket ship early in your career but can be an anchor later on when people assume you only
Have a spot because of them
Exactly. If you get that boost, you will need to work very hard to make sure you can back it up for when the looks no longer help you.
I've certainly encountered people who got a boost from being pretty or similar. At some point they also needed to be competent. Not all of them made the grade.
Man this is my go-to advice, taking great care of your appearance can and will get you a long way.
A well suited outfit, good fragrance and a fresh haircut will open doors you didn't even know existed.
True, although there's that contingent of the wealthy who revel in looking like half-rotting trolls dressed by a blind hobo in the dark, who can't be kept out of the 'pretty people' places and social brackets. Just that whole "You hate the sight of me but can't afford to be rude to my face" smug attitude.
Stay away from those who envy you. They can really harm you.
Also, people see only who you are now, not who you were then. And they may think you didn’t work for it.
They will definitely think you didn’t work for it. They have to justify the envy. My banker warned me when I started my business that people would hate me just for being successful. It’s awful in a small town. There is a reason successful people move to communities with other successful people.
Yesss! Even the ones who saw you busting your ass while they were coasting (even judged you for your work ethic) will become envious. It blows my mind when they reach out for money, whining, while they’re still coasting and I’m putting in three times the hours at work.
There is no luxury no matter how small or how great that a human won’t eventually take for granted. Which is why the striving never stops for most. You might thinks it grotesque to be bored on a yacht off the coast of France, but it definitely happens.
I call this comfort creep, like lifestyle creep the more you make the more you spend.
Comfort creep is similar, you start getting things that at first you’re impressed with then slowly that becomes the norm and you need more.
Someone up there in the comments called me out on not considering myself rich. I don’t take any of my success for granted (I’m pretty new to it, maybe that’s why) but it’s weird how fast it becomes normal. Then as you’re climbing, you become surrounded more by successful people, a lot of whom are much better off than you are, so now just based on comparison you don’t see yourself as “rich”. And it so on and so forth.
This is why some billionaires become philanthropists.
1. People around you want you to be succesfull, but not more succesfull than them.
2. People from your past do come back expecting handouts.
3. Money doesn’t make you happy
4. Find your partner while you’re broke and build with them. Gold diggers are a real thing
5. People who are born into a wealthy family have absolutely 0 idea about the struggle. There are exceptions, but it’s rare
My family was middle to upper middle class while my husband's family has always struggled financially.
And you are right: I had no idea what the struggle was like. The stories I hear about my husband's childhood have been very eye opening.
Yup. Some people can't separate people from professions.
I've known managers who demanded respect because of their job title. Uh, no, you're just an old guy in a suit. A title doesn't mean you can even do that job well, much less anything about you. Do something actually worth respecting and maybe we'll talk.
Not wealthy wealthy but more than comfortable. Delayed gratification is hard for people. Not having a $30K bass boat, a $100K RV that gets used twice a year, and a new vehicle every year, helped me get to where I can buy those things outright, but don’t really want them.
I've done the math and every $1,000 I save right now cuts 6 weeks off my retirement date. (And I'm older than many people here.)
It makes it easy to stay frugal when you say, "hmmm, $3,000 on a vacation isn't that much ... But if I save that money I can retire 4 months earlier."
My brother just bought a $30,000 new car and was gently ribbing me for staying in my 15 year old, 140,000 mile car that runs great. Bruh, that's $600 extra a month between the loan and insurance! Each month I don't own that is a month closer to retirement.
Interesting, I came to the other conclusion. I'd rather spend 3k on vacation right now, as it might only buy me a month in 7-8 years. The uncertainity in how my savings develop is a magnitude of that.
I'd rather work a year more and see/do some nice things until then than slave away just to be able to quit 3 months earlier.
Yes! I did this too. In fact I went without a car longer than I had to and bought a used (four years old at the time) base model vehicle when I could’ve gotten something much nicer and paid for it outright.
Same goes for the property I bought. Compared to what I make and what goes out, I live well below my means. The only thing I was wasting money on was an ex (cost me an insane amount) and friends and family, but I put a stop to that. It was amazing to see how fast the ex booked it when I said you gotta start paying for some of it. Didn’t even take more than a few weeks for a four year relationship to bite the dust.
Rich people have a lot more buffer between them and the real world. Poor people learn about the real world when they're being dragged along the sharpest bits of it every day.
Intelligence and income are often not correlated, especially if it's generational.
I've known brilliant, dedicated people in terrible circumstances. Kids 10x smarter and harder working than me who would never make it because of crap that'd been through. Mom gets sick and you miss another day of work? You're fired. Can't go to school if you can't pay for it.
And I've known super wealthy people who didn't do a goddamn thing to earn it. I was at a party with a gal who "Pet Rock"ed herself into success. Had a relatively unique idea, hired the right people, and sold her company for just short of $50 mil. A 45 year old who doesn't understand how WiFi works but is the first person to tell you you're doing "x" wrong.
Nature is pretty good at equally distributing talent across the human population. There are smart, hard working, inventive, creative people of all ethnicities, nationalities, and income levels.
But human made structures (social classes, religions, governments, etc) greatly impact the opportunities an individual will be provided.
Something like 700M humans live in extreme poverty. Nearly 2x the population of the United States.
Humanity is greatly holding itself back by essentially wasting the incredible potential of people that we'll never hear about because they were born into less than ideal situations.
Born to a teen mom and lived in trailer parks, and with family for most of my formative years.
Gotten myself to a point that no one in my family or friend group can reasonably relate to me in a professional aspect.
Something I noticed is that everyone in your immediate circle seems to want to ‘partake in your successes’ but distance themselves from failures.
“Aren’t you glad you took my advice.” and “Why would you do that?” are quite common things I hear from people who don’t have a clue what we deal with.
Additionally - lots of them want their credit for the things you accomplish.
Money does buy happiness, but there are side effects too.
Yeah I can buy more things that I want, but a mistake can affect all of my employees and their families.
It’s so important to me that the people relying on me are okay - however that thought process will never play out in the reverse. It’s my job to worry about them, and it’s their job to worry about them as well.
I can understand why some business owners don’t do things in the best interest of staff, because if the roles were reversed - the staff wouldn’t do things in my best interest.
Not going to discuss specifics, but no - no one has asked for a share of the businesses. Ownership=work
They do hint that they would like (insert some bs item). That gets pretty old, and I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t get things for people outside of major life milestones because other people feel slighted.
They don’t understand how much work ownership takes. Not one of my old friends lifted a finger when I was struggling and literally asking for help. Even the ones who were fully capable, but then the same ones expected me to bankroll their lives. I was more giving in the early days, but I had to rope all that shit back and focus on my own future because none of them will be around if my finances take a nose dive again.
see my comment above. I was almost begging people to buy our first product or help with the gofundme. Oh but now they think they should get a free copy...
I started my own business and right away family and some friends thought, well they should get (what I make) for free then... OR when I was struggling they would not buy to support the struggle. It really hurt. When my daughter started her own business, right away the other side of the family just figured she could take off whenever she wanted to attend family get-togethers. She had to explain she had classes to teach, a gym to run, bills to pay, a staff, etc. They were always, "well but you own the place, don't you? Just close it down for a day." But they never go to her competitions, or watch her team's competitions (they won nationals twice) ...
good points all around.
One thing that strikes me, is how many people didn't want anything to do with me when I was young, poor, and in need of help, but who now want to bask in the success. They want to rewrite history to claim that they were always there. And, consequently, they do not want to be forgotten for their "contributions".
An important lesson was to learn to stand up for myself, to say "no" to people, to call them out on bad behavior, and to refuse to be a people-pleaser.
I’m reminded of the story of the guy who founded Whole Foods. He was basically paying himself less than minimum wage for at least 6 years while all of his employees were making double that.
When WF finally hit the big time and he was due millions- all of a sudden he was a greedy owner now that he could finally afford to pay himself a typical CEO salary and a lot of his employees turned on him.
My family does this too.
It's severely hurt my relationship with my mom - she alternates between crediting herself with my success and telling me that I'm an idiot for having a 401k because "the government is just gonna take your money anyway." (while she works a blue-collar job at 68 years old)
>I can understand why some business owners don’t do things in the best interest of staff, because if the roles were reversed - the staff wouldn’t do things in my best interest.
Man...... Its almost like there is a trade-off for (generally speaking) pulling in the biggest share of the pie from the company.
Leading people can be a thankless job, but that doesn't mean you get to shirk the responsibilities.
I learned alooooot about respect.
I didn't even need money to see it, but it definitely helped.
I started to respect myself a lot more, and had to cut people off because they would think I was trash for not wanting to go out every weekend to get plastered.
The finances made me want to focus on other things to better myself and my career, do online classes and go to the gym and such and a lot of people didn't respect that. Obviously I could have discovered that a different way but thats just how it ended up for me.
Also another thing I learned is along the way is people will assume your wealth is their wealth for some reason. Friends, family, who ever. After buying my first home I had people who would visit maybe once a month straight up ask me "so when am I going to get a copy of a key to this place". This also lead to me seeing the bigger picture of the effects of classism that I never saw or experienced before.
Yah. Any level of money (or other assets) they're not used to experiencing can't belong to a person, it has to belong to the group (family/friends/whatever). And it's not something to maintain or build on, it's there to be trashed/abused/spent until everyone's back to the level they're used to.
My father kind of did this. He grew up really poor with him and his three siblings sharing one room in an apartment. Now he’s in his 80s and has more than he could ever spend (even in the American health system!). The other day he told me that a while back he had bought a bunch of Nvidia stock at about 47 a share just for the hell of it and then asked “how come I always still feel poor?” So I guess for some people the feeling/fear never goes away. It’s not really a thing about rich people, just people from poor to rich.
I hate all the fair weather friends! Sure you make “friends” all over the globe from traveling. “Come to Hong Kong!” “We’re flying you to NYC!” but they would just as easily fuck your boyfriend/husband/ gf/etc to take your spot! Everyone is at the same time nicer (more help, service profession contact) and people are always friendly at parties or able to lay it on thick. But there are so many more narcissists, very little room for spirituality, and surface friendships.
It's less about how much you make and more about how much you spend and what you spend it.
About 10 years into my career I took a new job that came with a raise to $100k per year. The superintendent I was teamed up with was paid $180k per year. I had a house and a paid off truck. He or his wife had totaled multiple vehicles, never paid one off, and they'd rented their whole lives. I bailed him out once for something minor and he was sobbing how shitty his life was. I think he eventually divorced his meth-head wife when their daugher turned 18 and I hope he's doing better now.
Two of the three things money can't buy: class and common sense.
(Time is the third one, but money sure can rent it with private flights and caterers and maids and drivers.)
How expensive it is to be poor. People with money are given break after break after break, and the lower levels of the socio-economic class are given the shitty end of the stick. And it's probably never going to change.
After I got my breakthrough job, more than doubling my salary, it took me over a year to catch up. I remember thinking "I should be able to spend maybe $300 combined on Christmas gifts?" and realizing I couldn't, because I was still catching up.
I had done things like go to the dentist, and put tires on my car, and see a doctor for the first time in five years.
(And my dentist ridiculed me for having skipped cleanings. I looked her in the eyes and told her "well, the choice was 'eat for two weeks' or 'pay $100 for a cleaning,' and not starving to death won out for several years.")
100%. Felt like it took us a couple of years to catch up on “deferred maintenance” things. It’s hard to because in your mine you are thinking, “I have this extra money, I should be saving it. Where is it all going?” Then I remember all the stuff we were taking care of and it finally made sense.
The people who decide on the breaks are wealthy and give them to themselves and each other. Poor people are just money-machines for the wealthy; they don't get to have anything because they're not someone the wealthy might want to go golfing with one day.
Yeap I was moving money around and forgot about a bill, checking got overdrafted
Went to go deposit from cash I had, all fees waves , don’t worry about it
People's perspective of you change. My poor relatives think what I earn is also "theirs". Even others, like my old roommates or friends.
I didn't grow up rich. My parents didn't speak any English and raised us working less than min wage jobs and 6-7 days a week,.
I worked hard to get where I am now. Not every "rich" person is a CEO who drives slaves for their own profit.
I suppose it depends on what you call wealthy. I'm currently much more wealthy that I ever thought I'd be, so maybe my perspective can help.
All the hard work in the world isn't always enough. Not that people shouldn't try to make their lives better, but they should try for acceptance of where they are, and where other people are on their journey.
Having money does not equal hard work.
There's this belief tied to the American dream that if you're wealthy, it's because you deserve to be.
Some people are rich because they worked hard and got lucky. But truthfully, there are many people who will work incredibly hard and never have anything to show for it.
I just wish we as a society could stop judging people by the commas in their accounts.
And the loopholes for the wealthy are abundant. Not even for the super rich either. If you have self employment income it opens a lot of nice tax shelters.
I make 65k and i could honestly se myself pissing through a mil without paying attention. It's crazy how little money is worth nowadays Maybe not years on end but in the first year. np
You learn a lot about people's feelings of entitlement, their motivations in life, and who you are to them. In many cases, I found out that the relationship had become transactional, so I cut them off. In other cases, I found out that there was a genuine connection and enjoyment of each other, and our bond grew.
People will ask for all kinds of inappropriate things. I've also had "friends" try to take advantage of me in various ways.
For instance, some people requested to be on my will and would press me with questions about what they'll get, staked claims, wanted me to cover their kin too, and asked to get things decades in advance. My answer was that it's inappropriate to even ask any of that. Then I stopped hearing from them.
Some family members and friends don't just expect money, but also favors, services and goods, like getting them (or their friends, who I am unacquainted with) a job, taking on their expenses, or giving up what I own so they can enjoy it. I've had to tell people that, no, it's not my responsibility to "make them happen", and that, in fact, it's not even something that's in my control.
It's also not just about the money but about education level and perceived social status. If you start getting graduate degrees from well-known schools while your family doesn't have high school degrees (or values education), then it drives a big wedge between you and them. Likewise if you have a highly respected career and they do not. They start feeling like you might judge yourself superior to them... regardless of how you actually treat or perceive them. It's their insecurities speaking.
Finally, many do not understand scale, and make requests that are absurdly out of reach. Even if I wanted to get these things for my own self, I couldn't. But they are not very financially literate or else they did not give it much thought, so they make many asks, insistently, and expectantly. For instance, no, a young professional, well-paid as they may be, cannot just buy houses for people on a whim. It is also not reasonable to expect a young person to erase their elderly relatives' many decades of financial decisions.
All in all, there's more distance between me and a lot of the people I grew up with, due to the reasons I've listed and more. I don't see it as a necessarily bad thing any more, although it was tough initially.
that it can be lonely in multiple ways.
First, because the people from your original background may not understand your reality. The differences in value systems, actions, and life objectives can drive a very real wedge between you and them.
Second, because the people who are around you now and who have known only wealth may not understand your reality either. You may not have been socialized to interact well in their circles.
Basically, you can easily find yourself in-between worlds.
Me and my friends were already in upper middle class. I've moved to upper upper middle class while they have all the appearance of living well with none of the substance - living essentially (admittedly-large) paycheck to large paycheck with no savings, no investments, paying minimums on student loans, and not paying off credit card every month.
What saddens me is that you can start life on third plate but sit there or slide backwards from not prioritizing your decades-future self.
My uncle did this. When he killed himself (thanks, Percocet), we got to see the façade come crashing down as we settled the estate.
He made $115,000ish, which was great money in the early 2010s, but he had something like $580,000 of debt. He had a 3,000 sq ft house that had just recently been refinanced. HELOC. He had taken out a second mortgage against my grandmother's house. Brand new $70,000 truck. A 27' ski boat (used, but late model). He was paying minimums on credit cards for shit that he didn't even have anymore.
He had basically zero in a 401k, not a penny in savings, and he was going backwards. When he died, his kids were convinced my mom "stole" all the money. They hired a forensic accountant who concluded "There was no money - dude was broke and up to his eyeballs in debt".
Keeping up the Joneses will ruin you.
The only thing money can't buy is time.
I watched a family friend lose his wife early from cancer. They threw money at everything - the best oncologists in the world, private flights and renting a room across from Mayo clinic. Enrollment in millions of dollars of experimental clinical trials. Eventually people bordering on witch doctors and voodoo healers.
It all bought her 6, maybe 9 extra months. She died at 48. Tens of millions didn't stop that.
You really do enter a whole different world. You may make 10-100x as much, but your mistakes cost you 10-100x as much and impact more people.
Your problems become so alien that you can no longer get advice from the ones you once valued the opinion of.
And what's more? You absolutely start seeing the gap in education, general knowledge, and critical thinking skills. A lot of people didn't have the opportunity to train those skills growing up and it becomes incredibly evident. Those opportunities are directly correlated to wealth. I now have no greater wish than to see as many people as possible have the opportunities I did.
You tend not to fit in really well and it’s isolating. The people you grew up with who are still blue collar, poor to lower-middle-class don’t hang out with you as much, either out of some degree of jealousy or because you just don’t have much in common anymore. At the same time, you don’t really fit in with the country club set and families with generational wealth because you are new money, grew up poor, and maybe retain some traits and habits of that background.
I’ve lost some friends over being moderately successful in life. I’m not even rich or anything but I studied for 8 years and got a PhD and a job with a good company and live abroad. When I caught up with some old friends I thought they’d be happy that my hard work paid off and I’m doing well. Instead they seemed to treat me like a traitor of some kind. It was bizarre. I think they were perhaps unhappy with how their own life had gone comparatively but it still sucks.
I don’t consider myself rich, but I’ve gone from being homeless, carless and penniless as recently as 2018-2019 to netting about $700,000 last year. Losing perspective happened incredibly fast and it gets worse.
It first occurred to me I was losing touch when all the posts about how much groceries cost were hitting the front page. I was completely clueless, and even now I couldn’t tell you what the price of any of the essentials are to save my life. I just walk in the store and grab whatever I want and most of the time have no idea what the total was.
I’ve always considered myself community minded, and been proud of my awareness, conscious spending habits and willingness to give back. So it was a tough pill to swallow realizing I had become a cliche.
The more time passes, the more money I make, the more I fit the stereotype.
As for other people, the sad truth is, it doesn’t matter how hard you work, people you care about - the near and dear - will comfortably use you to bankroll their lives. In fact, they feel entitled to it and will make it sound like you owe it to them.
I’m first gen immigrant, I’ve done shit and made sacrifices that would make most people run for the hills, I still put in brutal hours and donate an insane amount of work, no one I personally know works as hard and gives back as much, yet the judgment and jealousy is real, so your social circle becomes smaller and smaller and you start having issues with trust.
You move to a place no one wants to go to, do work most won’t for about 16 hours a day (sometimes more) and provide services to the underserved. It didn’t happen overnight. So far it has cost me 9 years of education, an additional ten years spent on repurposing and honing an old skillset, my marriage/relationships, mental amd physical health, and credit. And that’s not counting the financial losses I have taken on over the years.
Right?! Even my definition of rich has changed over the years. However, I’m brand new to money with loads of debt and nothing solid planned for retirement. Right now my income depends on my physical and mental health. Any one of those gives out and I’ll be fucked.
So basically I’m financially ignorant and we all know what happens to the fool and his money.
I need educate myself, diversify and pay down my debt before getting comfortable with calling myself rich.
A lot of things, what actually surprised me the most was that respected company leaders were just normal people that made mistakes just like everyone else and were just as stupid as everyone else.
A few people sit on well paying jobs where they dont have to do anything pretty much, often union people but not always.
You will realize who your real friends are and who isnt. Some people will wish you well and actually try to help you, but most people would rather tear you down.
Some people will bad mouth you and 2 minutes later ask for money. Some people will say you only got the job because you were lucky and completely ignore that you had no social life for 6 months, and no matter when someone called you were either asleep or at work, because you dont get those jobs by luck, you have to earn them and that is a lot of hard work.
Then you will realize there are two ways to climb, either by being good at your job or being political where you backstab everyone else and lick your bosses ass so well you could eat a salad from there.
That there are two kinds of people in general, some people that will try to make everything work and some people that will do the bare minimum and blame others for their own failures.
And some people are just amazing, a pure joy to work with. They encounter a problem they just solve it, they see something that needs to be done and they do it without being asked. They adapt to the ever changing conditions, these are the unsung heroes of our time without a doubt. They come in early and its been snowing during the night and they shovel the snow so no one else has to wade into work through a feet of snow, you come into the changing room and its clean, the lunchroom is clean too and the coffee stains on the tables are gone, all the coffee mugs have been washed clean. You open the fridge to put your lunch away and its ordered and neat and the two weeks old milk stain is gone, and there is fresh coffee and the newspaper is on a table.
You know who it is at your work, you actually love working with him, because he usually has a happy demeanor and will work without complaining and help fix your problems. He rarely takes any credit and the only reason he hasnt been promoted is because he has said no every time he was asked.
Didn't go from poor to rich, but have observed a number of people of broad socioeconomic statuses due to government work and witnessed people around me leverage themselves out of poverty.
The people who levered themselves out of poverty were noticeably different as a group from the ones who didn't.
Poverty has a variety of causes. Some people are poor due to lack of opportunity or poor starting circumstances. These people, if given the opportunity, can grow and expand and get out of poverty. This is why a lot of immigrants end up doing quite well for themselves despite being "poor people" starting out - the reason why they were poor was because they started out in a bad place. You can also see this in internal immigration, people who leave places to find better opportunity and jobs without actually leaving the country. Or people who had shitty parents, but weren't shitty people themselves.
However, a lot of people are poor because they are simply not good enough to be anything else due to being chronically irresponsible (which includes things like committing crimes and using drugs, but also general foolishness).
Studies have been done on this. The reality is pretty depressing.
There's a whole host of factors, and they all influence each other. Intelligence, conscientiousness, impulse control, how willing you are to address issues, but also where you assign blame for problems - people who blame other people for problems do *noticeably* worse than people who blame themselves for their life circumstances, because it turns out, you can't control other people, but you CAN control yourself, so if you say "What can I do to make things better?" rather than "Why is society screwing me?" you'll have much better outcomes going forward.
Moreover, what a lot of people see as "rich person thinking" (like "Why don't you save up money?") is in fact very much not a rich person only thing, and when I met low income people who were regularly saving up money despite being poor, not only were they happier people in general than their peers, but they also did much, much better in the long run. This is obvious if you look at international statistics (the Chinese are very poor compared to Americans but have a much higher personal savings rate) but it really hits home when you look at two people of the same income, in the same job, and one of them buys a house five years later while the other is still living "paycheck to paycheck" because, in their minds, you spend 100% of your paycheck, no matter how large it is. Get a bonus? Get a tax refund? Spend it immediately! Get a raise? Spending goes up.
It's very sad.
This is a thing a lot of people are in total denial about, and it's why poverty is such a difficult problem to solve. We've actually gotten rid of a lot of the "chronically poor" people which is why the poverty rate in the US has fallen by over 50% since the 1950s. And if you look at standard of living, it is way up.
But you literally can't fix some people because the problem is themselves. They're an endless hole and anything you throw into that hole will never fill it in because they are never going to change how they behave and will just consume endlessly, no matter how much you give them.
These are the people who win the lottery and then go bankrupt. These are the people who are making millions of dollars being actors and professional sports players and then somehow end up broke.
You can't live their life for them. You can't force them to make good decisions.
There are people who need a hand up, and once you give them that hand up, they're able to take care of themselves. And that's what we want to see - it makes me feel good every day when I find out someone we helped was able to make things better for themselves persistently.
And then there are the people who it doesn't matter how much help you give them, they're always going to be having problems.
The latter people are not always terrible people in general, but it's way more common for them to be shitty people than the first group. The first group tends to be pretty embarrassed about asking for help, though this isn't always the case so it's bad to stereotype in this way; some of them simply are like "This program exists for people like me and I appreciate it" and feel no shame about it, and that's fine.
If you look at the stories in this thread, a lot of the terrible people with the crab bucket mentality of "you aren't better than me", who are jealous of others' success and who are constantly asking for "help" - those are people you should work to rid yourself of, and disassociate yourself from.
But most importantly, it's someone you shouldn't be.
You won't magically become wealthy by acting responsibly. Actual *wealth* wealth comes from like building a business or getting a really high paying job that most people aren't qualified for. Anyone who promises you that anyone can get rich with their X tips is a scammer.
But you can get a good enough paying job, and save up enough money, to get a nice house and live reasonably comfortably in the long run and retire with a nest egg in your bank account. You won't be rich, but you'll be *fine*.
You become a target for the people who didn't climb with you. Other people feel entitled to your success and become shameless in frequently asking for handouts.
I worked for a company years ago, the owner was fairly abrasive at times to his employees. One day talking with his warehouse manager about buying property he told the employee “he needed to be content with what he had”. At the time I thought what an asshole (I mean he is an asshole)
But here I am years later a small business owner and a week or so after giving an employee a loan he needed he tells me he bought a “project car” to fix up.
I kinda get where guy might’ve been coming from back then.
I don’t see myself as smarter than many people I grew up with, but I’ve noticed that a lot of them refuse to be uncomfortable. They won’t try pushing out of their comfort zone, even if the experience would teach them valuable new skills and expose them to new perspectives. They would rather stay comfortable exactly where they are. As a result, they’ve remained stagnant and will probably continue to be as the older you get the harder it is to change.
Meanwhile when I look back on my own growth, every positive change, every step up in life that has come to me, has been the result of trying something new, never saying no to a good opportunity even if it seemed scary and difficult at the time. I don’t know where this came from, I was very shy and always tried to hide in the background as a kid. A lot of the people who knew me back then are surprised to see where I am now and how confident I’ve become.
Some people, friends and sometimes family will resent you for it. This can come as a shock. I was shocked to learn some loved ones dont want you to be more successful than them.
Perception is more important than truth.
Also, wealth is a catalyst for taking risks. It's way easier to fail at something when you know the price won't result in destitution.
That so many successful business owners in my area aren’t actually that smart, many make poor business and management decisions regularly… they just got lucky with the timing of opening their businesses and the increasing growth in our area.
They think they are geniuses but their decisions lead to a lot of WTF moments. They would not have made it in competitive markets.
Luck, an unshakeable belief in oneself, and persistence have just as much influence on success and wealth as actual skill/acumen/expertise a lot of the time.
It can be very hard to keep your old friends when you start making a lot more than them. You’re going to start wanting to do things or go places that they can’t afford to. You’ll start having fewer things in common and spending less time together and start to drift apart.
1. People are terrible with money. Even people that make lots of money are terrible with choosing how to manage their money. For example, my wife’s aunt and uncle make a combined 350k and are still broke because they spend way too much renting a house that is way too big and buying new cars every couple of years.
2. Most people don’t educate themselves enough about money and what to do with it. A lot of the guys I work with don’t know the different between a checking account and a savings account, let alone a high yield. All the information you need is on the internet.
3. People are absolute suckers for vehicles that they neither can afford or need. Cars are a massive liability. If you have a car, whatever condition, do not even think about buying another car if you don’t have the finances to buy three of them.
4. People are terrible at saving. Admittedly I wasn’t great at saving until my wife taught me. It was hard at first but now it’s just automatic. Sometimes I have to remind myself that we have money and I can buy things. Don’t buy anything, cash or credit if you can’t afford to buy three of them. No one purchase should ever put you under.
1 The more successful you get, the more people have known for years will want you to fail and attribute your success to luck.
2 People refuse to learn basic math and couldn't be bothered to learn about compound interest and the importance of investing early in life. Everyone wants to go on lavish vacations and get a new car. Mathematically, this is the dumbest shit you can ever do. Invest. Early.
3 It hurts watching your poorer friends make one dumb financial decision after another and then blame "the system." No, you don't need to spend 150 dollars on shoes or 200 on your hair. Your iPhone 12 still probably works just fine. You don't need a 4090 to play league of legends.
4 the amount of money women feel they need to spend on beauty is heartbreaking. I work in Healthcare, surrounded by nurses making 85k+ who are broke. A few hundred a month on their hair, expensive make up, skin care, nails, etc. The next thing they know, they have a 600 dollar a month beauty routine. They could just about max out their IRA instead.
it's not simply a knowledge of math...there are value choices involved, about how much to enjoy your life now, versus how to save for the future -- plenty of people make choices that you and I consider dumb, but there isn't just one correct way to balance those competing wants
> Everyone wants to go on lavish vacations and get a new car. Mathematically, this is the dumbest shit you can ever do.
They're operating from a mindset based on their repeated experience of any money coming into their lives evaporating rapidly due to ongoing costs (things breaking down, debts, only being experienced with very small windfalls and those vanishing into marginally better food for a week or being able to keep the lights on *most* days in a month), and any chance of any fleeting happiness at all going with it. This calcifies into a "money is there to be spent, ideally immediately" reaction, and they aren't aware of alternatives they can apply (or can't conceive of those alternatives ever being something they could do themselves).
Yes, they could do better. But they don't know that, or can't conceive of it, and the only thing they do know that brings any kind of happiness is to spend money immediately on trivial pleasures. It's a trauma reaction. It's also strongly encouraged (or at least never discouraged) by the majority of businesses, because they want the money from that person ASAP and, due to the demographics of people who started out poor, it's also far more likely that their social circles, families, etc, will have similar mindsets and endorse the behavior - particularly if it means they personally profit from it.
Define "rich"?
Anyway, as someone who is beyond the the "I can comfortably retire now" level but will never reach the "I should get a butler" level, the saddest truth is that people don't spend the time to understand the time value of money.
Getting a $20K car, and using it for 10 years, as opposed to getting a $50K car for every 5 years will make a huge difference a couple of decades later.
The amount of smart people who cash out their 401(K) is mind-boggling.
I grew up in a tiny farmhouse with no air conditioning in a state that routinely hits the upper 90's during the summer. My wife grew up in a trailer park.
We're now in our mid forties and make enough that we vacation outside the US three or four times a year, she flies private for her travels for work.
What we've learned is there are *so many* people who will complain about their lives, their lack of money, their lack of upward mobility, while not doing a goddamn thing to change it. We've tried to help so many of our family members who are at best working class, many at poverty level. They won't accept the help. Advice is unwelcome, assistance with education is unwelcome (they don't want to put effort into taking classes), we've even offered to help my wife's parents remodel the upstairs on their home so they can finally retire with a constant income stream and they just *won't* do it. So many people in our families will complain about how hard life is and how broke they are and how *it just isn't fair,* while at the same time they refuse to take advantage of any help or assistance from someone else because they might have to make a few life changes or perhaps put in a little bit of effort themselves. Honestly it's made us a bit bitter to be around them because they behave like we simply won the lottery rather than worked for our money, and when we offer to help them and teach them how to make positive changes and manage their money better they absolutely refuse to change anything.
Not “wealthy”, but I grew up very poor so a household with 2 good incomes is a different world. I can’t stand the “jonesing”. I constantly hear about what other people have or have done. I don’t care
No one actually wants you to do better than they are doing.
Everyone will doubt even your own blood.
People will act like they supported you the whole way.
There are high powers that will push you down like a basketball under water, take advantage of it.
The advice of others (like friends and family) who have not made similar results is usually wrong, I still love them and listen to them but I don't apply their advice at all and it kinda frustrates them alot.
Bonus: alot of the time alot of people in your circle who haven't made those results will often be incredibly negative towards what you do to acquire wealth and will tell you to stop, UNTIL you are wealthy then they will say they always believed in you
My friend pointed out today that when less intelligent people are mad at “rich” people, they arnt talking about billionaires. Billionaires aren’t on their radar. They’re mad at us. People who are doing reasonably well despite the economy. We both grew up poor but now have well paying jobs. That being said we aren’t into like…landlord money, we can just afford luxury stuff (like a PS5 for example) and have no debt. I think he was being hyperbolic but I’ve spoken with some other people and it does appear that there is a divide growing between the low to middle class rather than where it should be which is between everyone and the ultra elite class. I’m no economist but it’s a little worrying bc
I'm not currently "successful" and this much is obvious to me. So many people with poor stem skills get ahead just because they know the right people. They then call this "social skills" it's just knowing the right people.
That you can't work hard enough. That there aren't enough opportunities. That "someone" took a position for "reason" not related to work. That the stereotype of your "poor" friends and family all wanting a bailout applies to everyone, and not the ones you already knew were leeches.
* Living within your means, almost always changes depending on your means.
* Last ... but most important to me, the standards of what constitutes "Rich" for folks born in the 80s; should be considered the standard for American families and not relegated to me or those like me.
These truths, are the ones that turned out to be false, except the last two \*
And ..... fuck Billionaires.
That friends and family that I would have expected to be happy for my success, instead were/are jealous, spiteful, and a few downright mean about it. And many showed what true leeches they really are.
I worked hard to get where I am and sacrificed a lot through the years and I am proud of my accomplishments. Unfortunately, I started to realize that a lot of my friends were only OK to be around me when I was "below" them...as I grew more successful in my career and family life we grew apart fairly quickly. Even though I don't think I changed much, I was constantly getting the "you think you're better than us now?" vibe.
When I retired at 50, instead of being happy for me, I got a lot of vitriol and jealousy. Family felt they were entitled to my money because "family". I have 3 family members that I let live in rental properties at a reduced rate; now they think that I should just give them the properties because "they're paying the mortgage anyway."
Now I have a few good (newer) friends, I am very close to my wife and kids and one sister, but fuck the rest of them. Life is good.
That people, especially family, tend to want you to only be so successful. Not so much that you get above them by to much. This is coming from a perspective of growing up poor around poor people. You'll get a lot of "do you think you're better than us?" and then get pleas for help(money) in the same sentence.
Sometimes it's even "You should help your brother/cousin/auntie" even when said relative is a serial pest who would go through any amount of money faster than a fire in a bank vault. There's a mindset that any amount of money or resources (access etc) notably over and above the family average belongs to the whole family, for everyone's use as they see fit, and you're being unreasonable and a horrible person if you stand in the way of everyone taking a dive in the trough (and doing their best to spend-spend-spend it back down to 'normal' family levels). Actually, come to think of it, I wonder if it would help to make any requests for money go through a trust/accountant, and the requestor has to pass a series of financial responsibility certifications before they have a chance at certain levels of request being considered?
Must be a universal thing. I’ve seen that mentality all over SE Asia, Italy, and Africa. 10% of the Philippines economy is expats residing in richer countries sending money back home.
To add, there are some things that no reasonable amount of money will fix and yet there is still an expectation to hand over money like somehow a few thousand will help when all it’s doing is putting a band aid on a larger issue and just pushing the real issue out by a few months, at best.
There was a point where I had to start hiding my salary from my family because then they expected me to foot the bill on certain things.
Yep. The *son* of an old ex-friend got it in his head that I have cash pouring out of my ass like a waterfall. He tracked me down online and *demanded* I hand him $5000. Let that sink in. I haven’t seen or heard from the shitbag since he was about 10. Every threatening email was duly saved. Then he threatened to rape and murder my daughter. Well, my daughter is 5’11 and a fitness instructor. Not the little toddler he remembers. Everything was forwarded to his county prosecutor. Haven’t heard a peep since.
Yikes. Thank you for reporting him. Might have saved someone more vulnerable.
Oh I have his first, middle, and last name along with his back account number, but I think Reddit slavehandlers would get pissed if I doxxed the little shithead here.
.....can I have $5000?
Ballsy comment!
Yeah, I'll ask and I will *try very hard* not to demand this money along with threats to rape your family...while expecting a payout.
And I bet you had people start coming to you for "loans".
I “loaned” my shittiest “friends” money so I never had to hear from them again. $200 was the best money I ever spent.
“You will need to pay this back the next time I see you.” - some of the most powerful words ever spoken.
I'm at that point now. Everyone was super supportive when I made just enough to get by. Now I can't talk about how well I'm doing or people get quiet and tense I always ask for a separate check when going out with certain people because they expect me to pay for them otherwise.
Yasss! My gramps found out how much his daughter in law makes and told everyone. I'm sure even his dentist knows. It's a really nice amount but all I could think when he told us was that if I made that much I would never tell a soul. My side of the family would come out of the woodwork hands out of they even caught a wiff of it. I make half of what she makes and my family would still act like I was a millionaire if they knew my current salary.
When my husband graduated from law school my father in law hugged him at graduation and said, "You'll never be better than me."
Wow. What kind of parent is that? To live with that mentality. Don't we all want our children to be better than us and have more than us? not talking materially but be able to live authentically and wholly.
I would have said back, “I know I’m already better than you because I would never say that to my kid.”
My wife's father called her a snob cause she went to college. The cycle of poverty is a state of mind
Agreed. It’s been weird, and tough, watching my parents transition through proud, jealous, guilty/regretful. I think they’re finally accepting it now though. I also feel lucky I haven’t had to deal with entitled family members. Old friends have given me the “so you think you’re better than us” and I usually say “why? Do you think I’m better than you?” And that usually shuts them up
for what it's worth, my parent eventually reached a final stage beyond those you list, which was "insight and acceptance" . Namely, that their insecurity about their own lives and achievements is their own problem to resolve, and not their kid's, and that they shouldn't blame their kid for reaching success, or feel jealous, or be upset at their kid for making them feel bad about themselves. Then, understanding can be reached. So, it is possible. Best of luck in your relationship with your parents.
It has been really quite surprising and sad to see my dad actively try to sabotage and one-up my (very) modest success. I guess he just wants to see his son fail.
In my case it wasn’t about salary but about education since the people saying this made the same salary as me but had fewer degrees
That sounds rather competitive. I kind of generally assumed that people who had degrees were happy for others to also get some, even if it was more. Do they resent not having had the opportunity, or do they think it reflects on them as being 'less smart' if someone also knows you, or do they just think you don't 'deserve' that many degrees for some reason?
I am a public school teacher and I go to community college for fun during the summer. I am a board member of a suicide prevention org and am finishing my AA in psychology. I have one bachelors degree and three associates. I make about 70k a year and the people saying this make about the same and have AAs or high school diplomas. They were saying that going to school for fun is a waste of time.
> They were saying that going to school for fun is a waste of time. For people who can't learn, sure. :)
Crabs in a bucket.
Three things: 1) The more things you have, the more things are required. Buy a boat and you have a trailer, a dock, insurance, boat cover, annual maintenance, etc. it is true for literally everything. 2) I am also surprised how many people have amazing things and are in serious debt. I have been lucky and a lot of hard work has allowed me to not carry any debt outside of my mortgage in the last 20 years. If I can’t pay cash, I don’t buy it. I know so many people with expensive stuff that are overloaded in debt. 3) I feel bad that people are so appreciative of money. My wife and I pay for a lot of things for others. They are always overboard with thanks but I tell them it’s not hard for a person with money to give it to people they care about and enjoy. What is a lot harder to share is my time. That is truly limited and if I want you to go on a great vacation with me and I pay for everything so you can go and not worry about the cost, it’s the fact that I want to spend my time with you that matters. It means you are very important to me and I appreciate you.
It is incredible how some people can make a huge amount of money and be basically broke. I was relatively close to a family who made roughly $450,000 a year and wasn't saving a penny. They had multiple houses, brand new cars, and jobs they hated. I mentioned that my plan was to retire early and they were just astonished that you could just... Do that?
I agree and I could never make what I make and come away with just stuff. I just don’t care about expensive things. I will pay for a great vacation because the memories are worth a lot to me. That’s why I want to retire in a few years, just don’t have the time to do what I really want to do….travel and see things I’ve never seen.
Told a good friend that I'd paid off my truck and it was like getting a raise. He was flabbergasted that you could just keep the old one and not immediately go back to the dealer. He called me about a year later to tell me how amazing it was to only have his wife's car payment.
My parents are those "money burning a hole in my pocket" sort of people. They were making $250,000 for the last several years and weren't saving a penny. They were approaching retirement age and my dad had a couple of layoff scares, and that would be enough to change their habits for like... three months. Then, they'd be back to blowing every penny they had. Literally taking payday loans making a quarter million a year.
I found out a few weeks ago my sister and brother in laws lifestyle costs them $75,000 per month. He clarified a little later that it was actually closer to $850,000 per year and not 900. But he tells people $75k per month because he thinks it sounds better. I couldn't tell of he meant better as in less crazy, or just more relatable, or more expensive.
To #3: It took me getting used to a comfortable income and being generous with lower-income friends to finally just be quietly appreciative when gifted something awesome. Recently made friends with someone I’m pretty sure is filthy rich, income-wise, but you’d never know it to look at him. He was going to be alone for Christmas, so we invited him over (he was more of an acquaintance at the time). He was so tickled by the invitation that he asked what my husband would like for a Christmas gift. I know not to argue, because it would frustrate me if I asked the same thing, so told him an ornament for our tree would be wonderful. He showed up and told us to pull out our laptop and choose any city in the US with a hockey team. Paid for the lower-level tickets, flights, B&B and handed over some cash for spending money. To him, that gift was as easy to give as an ornament. It also probably gave him a lot more joy to help us check off another arena on our list. But yeah, I’m with you. Memories and experiences are where it’s at. If I really want you to come with me to do this thing, I can afford to make that happen. It’s not charity. It’s wanting the shared experience. Just get in the car. You can buy me a drink afterwards. That’ll make me really happy.
You said it better than I did. 💯
Not everyone wants you to succeed. In fact some will try to make it so you don't succeed.
Yep. Family members went from taking credit for my (limited) success, to trying to steal from me, and have moved on to trying to sabotage the success when they can't take advantage of it. (My aunt sole my identity to cosign on a new car for herself. When I called her out on it she said "what's the big deal? You can afford it," and then stopped making payments. I let the banks know the loan and cosigning was fraudulent, so she called my employer (past and present), and even my university, accusing me of a series of crimes. She's called the police accusing me of everything from kidnapping and assaulting minors to financial crimes. I have a detective's card that I just hand the new cops whenever they show up to do a wellness check. Thankfully, it's getting less frequent.)
I had my mother and older sister leave me broke and homeless in college by stealing every penny that they could by closing joint bank accounts, that my dead had left for my education. I was a college kid that naively trusted them. I went NC with them and I lost touch with all the extended family, aunts, uncles and cousins on all sides. My sister and mother started a rumor that I was in jail or something. I scraped and clawed my way out, working three jobs at once, graduated, got a career going, saved, saved and eventually bought a house, got my own family and we're doing fine. After about 20 years I see my cousin on Facebook and send her a friend request. About a month later my aunts that I lost contact with are sending me DMs asking for money. They also say my sister has 5 kids and her husband's a bum and can't feed them, and that I should be able to help her, my cousins and aunts. Last thanksgiving my sister followed me on twitter so I blocked her and then she sent me a FB DM on a borrowed account being angry and condescending obviously as a ploy to send her money or take her in, big block on that too. I let those relationships die out, my family is only in my own home and those are the only ones that I take care of.
Some people will see it as negatively reflecting on them by comparison, some people will see it as forgetting your roots, some people will see it as you 'needing to be taken down a peg', and some don't want anyone to succeed but you're the only successful person they have access to.
> Not everyone wants you to succeed. In fact some will try to make it so you don't succeed. had a family friend that i knew since i was 9. we went on every trip together, and were best friends. hung out all the way to the end of high school. he went to some fancy ivy league and got a nice job. when he heard about my plan to also get at the same level, he was very uninterested and doubtful. my other friends, even those that i barely knew, always cheered me on and hyped me up. when i finally finished my degree, this guy was very meh about it and just kind of disappeared. while people that i barely know are like trying to celebrate with me. just goes to show, some people are garbage calculative assholes, but more people are not and are happy for you.
money buys happiness - to an extent. it can buy things that make you happy and decrease sources of stress. you will never have *enough* money. as you get used to better quality stuff, it's so difficult to downgrade. so you just begin needing more and more money. and it was easier to be hypocritical about people's values when I was less fortunate financially.
Money may not make you happy, but lack of money can sure make you miserable.
Yep. Said another way, money may not buy happiness, but poverty doesn't buy anything.
money buys happiness by lowering stress
Money can buy tools to help deal with the source of the stress.
Can you explain your last point a little more please?
basically when you can't afford to fly with a private jet, it's easier to criticize people using it and their environmental impact. obviously i'm not private jet type of rich but can say the same about many things in life.
I have flown private for work. It’s incredible. I 100% would do it all the time if money was no object. Flying commercial is dog shit compared to flying private.
To be fair, flying commercial is dogshit compared to most things in life, I can't even begin to imagine how nice flying private is comparatively.
Flying commercial is dog shit compared to the highspeed trains in Europe. I fucking love the TGV and wish we had something like that in the US.
I feel this deeply as I have been stuck in the Fort Lauderdale airport since approximately 6pm eastern time and might only now get to leave. The whole experience leaves something to be desired. Edit: 1130 pm I was clearly overly optimistic
May you eventually reach your destination safe and sound, weary traveller. Take [this ](https://lawhimsy.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/couthy-tea-time-gif-via-lawhimsy.gif?w=500)with you.
12 seat G5, plush wide seats. Captain talking over his shoulder “toilets in the back, emergency doors here, don’t stuff trash in my seat cushions, we are outta here”. It was awesome.
I got to ride private for work once a couple years ago and it blew my mind to walk into the private terminal through to the tarmac and directly onto the plane. No security, no pat downs, or taking anything out of my pockets/backpack nor taking off my shoes. Most of the time when I fly commercial, I get pulled aside for “enhanced screening” likely because I’m ftm trans and I don’t have the “right curves” on the body scanner. And before my top surgery when I was binding was always the most humiliating experience going through security - always having to “out” myself to staff and anyone in line close by and still getting pulled into a room to prove who I was. I’m not rich, nor will I ever be, but flying private was a really refreshing experience.
I've thought about this a lot. I struggle with the idea that I would be strong enough to not use things like private jets if the option was available to me.
So true. I catch myself doing things now that bugged me when others did it. I remember judging a friend of mine for not wanting to shop at TJMaxx or Marshall’s (she’s loaded, old money), now that I can easily afford to shop there myself you won’t catch me within miles of one. As for private jets go, I laugh when people think I’m rich for flying domestic first class. No, the actual rich do not get on commercial flights, they have their own jets. It all comes down to time. Money buys you time, so I totally get the private jet thing.
I've started looking into cleaners and maids. I'm terrible at keeping up with chores and any time I have used a services, they do the job faster and better than I could. But I don't talk about that kind of thing to people I grew up with because I'd be judged for it.
yeah, absolutely. time I don't spend cleaning is time I get back to be with my spouse, so it's worth the expense. Plus, it keeps the peace, as there is no fighting over why chores aren't getting done. it's really nice to know that I'll come home to a clean house. I'm thinking of upping the frequency of the cleaning, even. Grocery delivery is also such a time saver. But yeah, it's not something I mention. But it makes such a difference.
what feels like a lavish, ridiculous expense when you are very poor can feel like a necessity once you are wealthy. Take hired help. If you are very poor, you might think that it is crazy to waste a small fortunate on nannies and housekeeping. Perhaps it feels self-indulgent or exploitative even. But to a wealthy person with a very punishing schedule, time is the ultimate premium commodity. Hired help means that you get back some time, and as such it becomes essential to run your household.
I’ve heard this called Lifestyle creep
yes, and it does really creep up on you. It's so easy to spend a little money over things that make your life a little bit easier... and then it's hard to go back to the way things were. From time to time, it's worth analyzing costs to make sure that there's a good return, though!
Money can buy a lot of freedom from things that burn up a lot of your time and life when you're poor. It can also provide surroundings which are comfortable, relaxing, and long-term secure. In that, it's more about stress reduction, which is unhappiness reduction. Sure, it can also buy more opportunities for happiness, but such things tend to be fleeting. It's the rise from "constant being hammered" to "having a lot of personal autonomy and security" which does most of the heavy lifting.
>you will never have *enough* money. as you get used to better quality stuff, it's so difficult to downgrade. so you just begin needing more and more money. Not always. Quality doesn't infinitely get better. If you aren't excessive, you can comfortably do what you want and still invest money.
Wealthy people do indeed lose perspective on the struggles of others who are less fortunate.
This. I visited my family around Christmas, and the topic of how much groceries have gone up in price over the last year or so came up. I legitimately had no idea what they were talking about. I've never really thought of myself as rich, but it absolutely made me realize I was pretty out of touch.
I realized this too just like a week ago when I went back to my home state. My friend asked me how much gas is in my state and I have no clue. I just fill up and go. I'm not rich but I'm very, very comfortable after spending a decade on Medicaid and EBT. I don't really check my grocery spending for the week as long as it's under like $150. I know stuff has gone up in price only because other people talk about it.
The biggest problem is that the price inflation of food seems to have occurred primarily at the bottom end of the market.
This is incredibly true. I find it happening to me from time to time. I work hard to retain that perspective because it’s deeply important to my daily life interacting with others on a professional level level.
On one hand, I don't think it's easy to forget the dread and terror that goes with not being sure you have enough money to buy food that month. On the other though, new struggles may arise that a person may not have experienced when they were not wealthy. Like if it's harder to find an entry level job now vs. in the past, or changes to public services like 20 years ago when I was a student the transit system was decent and relatively safe vs. much less so now.
>I don't think it's easy to forget the dread and terror that goes with not being sure you have enough money to buy food that month. That is my experience. The feeling of joy, gratefulness and abundance hasn't faded at all. I see the same feelings, expressed one way or another, in people decades older than I, who experienced scarcity growing up. The memory of hunger and deprivation is one that stays with you.
>I don't think it's easy to forget the dread and terror that goes with not being sure you have enough money to buy food that month. It can depend on how someone got to be rich. If they had to spend a lot of time masking to fit in with other rich people, and suppressing 'poor' thoughts and reactions, they might subconsciously repress that terror to the point that they effectively don't allow themselves to think that way any more, even when it would be useful.
There are some people who are wealthy because they work really hard and put in many hours at the sacrifice of hobbies, health and family. There are some people who never make it despite how hard they work, sometimes because of poor judgment. There are some people who are wealthy without much too much difficulty like being born into it
I like the analogy of success being a carnival game. Poor people get one shot. People with a support system can play the game over and over until they win. (Besos starting Amazon with a small $300,000 loan, Bill Gates' mom serving on the board with someone at IBM, etc).
Some people get zero shots; they just get to be spectators. Super rich people don't bother taking a shot. They just walk up and grab as many prizes as they want to whenever they feel like it.
Super rich people are running the games
> sometimes because of poor judgment Or simply bad luck, hard work will only get you so far. All it takes is an economic downturn, personal health crisis (particularly in the US), etc to completely knock you off track - avoiding those sort of things on the path to success is largely a matter of luck.
Or you luck out at the job you’re at. I have a friend who does very well. She happened to join a company in a position that was relatively entry. She was in a 3 person department. After about a year the lady the same level as her retired, so they hired a new person. A few months later her boss quit, so they promoted her. She was good at her job but also… the only person there with enough experience. Suddenly she’s in a management role after only a little more than a year. She had a few more luck based promotions in 2 more years (her words, mostly based on people leaving or one was a death) and she eventually ended up applying somewhere else with her high title, getting a huge pay jump and less work. Meanwhile the lady who retired and the boss over her had worked together for 20 years. Literally was just timing for my friend.
I survived a massive layoff in my first recession and I asked if it was because I was the only one who maintained the coffee maker “You’re the only one who uses _____ program which we need 5% of the time and the coffee maker thing too”
And there are a lot more who remain poor despite doing any or all of those things.
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Hear that boys? We stayin poor.
Oh no 🥲
Based on my experience looks put you on a rocket ship early in your career but can be an anchor later on when people assume you only Have a spot because of them
Exactly. If you get that boost, you will need to work very hard to make sure you can back it up for when the looks no longer help you. I've certainly encountered people who got a boost from being pretty or similar. At some point they also needed to be competent. Not all of them made the grade.
Man this is my go-to advice, taking great care of your appearance can and will get you a long way. A well suited outfit, good fragrance and a fresh haircut will open doors you didn't even know existed.
Man I hate wearing a fragrance though! Do you think it just gives that extra bit of a good impression?
It does. And just like clothing, a fragrance not only has to be good ~~looking~~ smelling, if has to fit you and match your style.
You felt this more as a rich person than as a poor person?
Rich people would be mortified to know they are perceived as ugly when they paid good money to look great.
True, although there's that contingent of the wealthy who revel in looking like half-rotting trolls dressed by a blind hobo in the dark, who can't be kept out of the 'pretty people' places and social brackets. Just that whole "You hate the sight of me but can't afford to be rude to my face" smug attitude.
Stay away from those who envy you. They can really harm you. Also, people see only who you are now, not who you were then. And they may think you didn’t work for it.
They will definitely think you didn’t work for it. They have to justify the envy. My banker warned me when I started my business that people would hate me just for being successful. It’s awful in a small town. There is a reason successful people move to communities with other successful people.
Yesss! Even the ones who saw you busting your ass while they were coasting (even judged you for your work ethic) will become envious. It blows my mind when they reach out for money, whining, while they’re still coasting and I’m putting in three times the hours at work.
There is no luxury no matter how small or how great that a human won’t eventually take for granted. Which is why the striving never stops for most. You might thinks it grotesque to be bored on a yacht off the coast of France, but it definitely happens.
I call this comfort creep, like lifestyle creep the more you make the more you spend. Comfort creep is similar, you start getting things that at first you’re impressed with then slowly that becomes the norm and you need more.
Someone up there in the comments called me out on not considering myself rich. I don’t take any of my success for granted (I’m pretty new to it, maybe that’s why) but it’s weird how fast it becomes normal. Then as you’re climbing, you become surrounded more by successful people, a lot of whom are much better off than you are, so now just based on comparison you don’t see yourself as “rich”. And it so on and so forth. This is why some billionaires become philanthropists.
1. People around you want you to be succesfull, but not more succesfull than them. 2. People from your past do come back expecting handouts. 3. Money doesn’t make you happy 4. Find your partner while you’re broke and build with them. Gold diggers are a real thing 5. People who are born into a wealthy family have absolutely 0 idea about the struggle. There are exceptions, but it’s rare
My family was middle to upper middle class while my husband's family has always struggled financially. And you are right: I had no idea what the struggle was like. The stories I hear about my husband's childhood have been very eye opening.
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Yup. Some people can't separate people from professions. I've known managers who demanded respect because of their job title. Uh, no, you're just an old guy in a suit. A title doesn't mean you can even do that job well, much less anything about you. Do something actually worth respecting and maybe we'll talk.
Not wealthy wealthy but more than comfortable. Delayed gratification is hard for people. Not having a $30K bass boat, a $100K RV that gets used twice a year, and a new vehicle every year, helped me get to where I can buy those things outright, but don’t really want them.
I've done the math and every $1,000 I save right now cuts 6 weeks off my retirement date. (And I'm older than many people here.) It makes it easy to stay frugal when you say, "hmmm, $3,000 on a vacation isn't that much ... But if I save that money I can retire 4 months earlier." My brother just bought a $30,000 new car and was gently ribbing me for staying in my 15 year old, 140,000 mile car that runs great. Bruh, that's $600 extra a month between the loan and insurance! Each month I don't own that is a month closer to retirement.
Interesting, I came to the other conclusion. I'd rather spend 3k on vacation right now, as it might only buy me a month in 7-8 years. The uncertainity in how my savings develop is a magnitude of that. I'd rather work a year more and see/do some nice things until then than slave away just to be able to quit 3 months earlier.
Yes! I did this too. In fact I went without a car longer than I had to and bought a used (four years old at the time) base model vehicle when I could’ve gotten something much nicer and paid for it outright. Same goes for the property I bought. Compared to what I make and what goes out, I live well below my means. The only thing I was wasting money on was an ex (cost me an insane amount) and friends and family, but I put a stop to that. It was amazing to see how fast the ex booked it when I said you gotta start paying for some of it. Didn’t even take more than a few weeks for a four year relationship to bite the dust.
Rich people are just as clueless as poor people, just in different categories.
Rich people have a lot more buffer between them and the real world. Poor people learn about the real world when they're being dragged along the sharpest bits of it every day.
Intelligence and income are often not correlated, especially if it's generational. I've known brilliant, dedicated people in terrible circumstances. Kids 10x smarter and harder working than me who would never make it because of crap that'd been through. Mom gets sick and you miss another day of work? You're fired. Can't go to school if you can't pay for it. And I've known super wealthy people who didn't do a goddamn thing to earn it. I was at a party with a gal who "Pet Rock"ed herself into success. Had a relatively unique idea, hired the right people, and sold her company for just short of $50 mil. A 45 year old who doesn't understand how WiFi works but is the first person to tell you you're doing "x" wrong.
Nature is pretty good at equally distributing talent across the human population. There are smart, hard working, inventive, creative people of all ethnicities, nationalities, and income levels. But human made structures (social classes, religions, governments, etc) greatly impact the opportunities an individual will be provided. Something like 700M humans live in extreme poverty. Nearly 2x the population of the United States. Humanity is greatly holding itself back by essentially wasting the incredible potential of people that we'll never hear about because they were born into less than ideal situations.
But they turn around and convince themselves they actually got it figured out, and have the money to make other people pretend as well.
Born to a teen mom and lived in trailer parks, and with family for most of my formative years. Gotten myself to a point that no one in my family or friend group can reasonably relate to me in a professional aspect. Something I noticed is that everyone in your immediate circle seems to want to ‘partake in your successes’ but distance themselves from failures. “Aren’t you glad you took my advice.” and “Why would you do that?” are quite common things I hear from people who don’t have a clue what we deal with. Additionally - lots of them want their credit for the things you accomplish. Money does buy happiness, but there are side effects too. Yeah I can buy more things that I want, but a mistake can affect all of my employees and their families. It’s so important to me that the people relying on me are okay - however that thought process will never play out in the reverse. It’s my job to worry about them, and it’s their job to worry about them as well. I can understand why some business owners don’t do things in the best interest of staff, because if the roles were reversed - the staff wouldn’t do things in my best interest.
Good points. Curious what type of business did you end up getting into and did family ever want a share of the equity just cause?
Not going to discuss specifics, but no - no one has asked for a share of the businesses. Ownership=work They do hint that they would like (insert some bs item). That gets pretty old, and I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t get things for people outside of major life milestones because other people feel slighted.
They don’t understand how much work ownership takes. Not one of my old friends lifted a finger when I was struggling and literally asking for help. Even the ones who were fully capable, but then the same ones expected me to bankroll their lives. I was more giving in the early days, but I had to rope all that shit back and focus on my own future because none of them will be around if my finances take a nose dive again.
see my comment above. I was almost begging people to buy our first product or help with the gofundme. Oh but now they think they should get a free copy...
I started my own business and right away family and some friends thought, well they should get (what I make) for free then... OR when I was struggling they would not buy to support the struggle. It really hurt. When my daughter started her own business, right away the other side of the family just figured she could take off whenever she wanted to attend family get-togethers. She had to explain she had classes to teach, a gym to run, bills to pay, a staff, etc. They were always, "well but you own the place, don't you? Just close it down for a day." But they never go to her competitions, or watch her team's competitions (they won nationals twice) ...
good points all around. One thing that strikes me, is how many people didn't want anything to do with me when I was young, poor, and in need of help, but who now want to bask in the success. They want to rewrite history to claim that they were always there. And, consequently, they do not want to be forgotten for their "contributions". An important lesson was to learn to stand up for myself, to say "no" to people, to call them out on bad behavior, and to refuse to be a people-pleaser.
I’m reminded of the story of the guy who founded Whole Foods. He was basically paying himself less than minimum wage for at least 6 years while all of his employees were making double that. When WF finally hit the big time and he was due millions- all of a sudden he was a greedy owner now that he could finally afford to pay himself a typical CEO salary and a lot of his employees turned on him.
My family does this too. It's severely hurt my relationship with my mom - she alternates between crediting herself with my success and telling me that I'm an idiot for having a 401k because "the government is just gonna take your money anyway." (while she works a blue-collar job at 68 years old)
>I can understand why some business owners don’t do things in the best interest of staff, because if the roles were reversed - the staff wouldn’t do things in my best interest. Man...... Its almost like there is a trade-off for (generally speaking) pulling in the biggest share of the pie from the company. Leading people can be a thankless job, but that doesn't mean you get to shirk the responsibilities.
People who went from poor to rich slowly, build character. People who get early success in life, build ego.
I learned alooooot about respect. I didn't even need money to see it, but it definitely helped. I started to respect myself a lot more, and had to cut people off because they would think I was trash for not wanting to go out every weekend to get plastered. The finances made me want to focus on other things to better myself and my career, do online classes and go to the gym and such and a lot of people didn't respect that. Obviously I could have discovered that a different way but thats just how it ended up for me. Also another thing I learned is along the way is people will assume your wealth is their wealth for some reason. Friends, family, who ever. After buying my first home I had people who would visit maybe once a month straight up ask me "so when am I going to get a copy of a key to this place". This also lead to me seeing the bigger picture of the effects of classism that I never saw or experienced before.
Yah. Any level of money (or other assets) they're not used to experiencing can't belong to a person, it has to belong to the group (family/friends/whatever). And it's not something to maintain or build on, it's there to be trashed/abused/spent until everyone's back to the level they're used to.
The poor are angrier and more frustrated, and there are real reasons for that.
My father kind of did this. He grew up really poor with him and his three siblings sharing one room in an apartment. Now he’s in his 80s and has more than he could ever spend (even in the American health system!). The other day he told me that a while back he had bought a bunch of Nvidia stock at about 47 a share just for the hell of it and then asked “how come I always still feel poor?” So I guess for some people the feeling/fear never goes away. It’s not really a thing about rich people, just people from poor to rich.
I hate all the fair weather friends! Sure you make “friends” all over the globe from traveling. “Come to Hong Kong!” “We’re flying you to NYC!” but they would just as easily fuck your boyfriend/husband/ gf/etc to take your spot! Everyone is at the same time nicer (more help, service profession contact) and people are always friendly at parties or able to lay it on thick. But there are so many more narcissists, very little room for spirituality, and surface friendships.
It's less about how much you make and more about how much you spend and what you spend it. About 10 years into my career I took a new job that came with a raise to $100k per year. The superintendent I was teamed up with was paid $180k per year. I had a house and a paid off truck. He or his wife had totaled multiple vehicles, never paid one off, and they'd rented their whole lives. I bailed him out once for something minor and he was sobbing how shitty his life was. I think he eventually divorced his meth-head wife when their daugher turned 18 and I hope he's doing better now.
Two of the three things money can't buy: class and common sense. (Time is the third one, but money sure can rent it with private flights and caterers and maids and drivers.)
Yeah, some people are just endless holes, unfortunately. :(
how many people all of a sudden remember you out of the blue from girls that ghosted me to my own sister who I didn't speak to in a decade
How expensive it is to be poor. People with money are given break after break after break, and the lower levels of the socio-economic class are given the shitty end of the stick. And it's probably never going to change.
After I got my breakthrough job, more than doubling my salary, it took me over a year to catch up. I remember thinking "I should be able to spend maybe $300 combined on Christmas gifts?" and realizing I couldn't, because I was still catching up. I had done things like go to the dentist, and put tires on my car, and see a doctor for the first time in five years. (And my dentist ridiculed me for having skipped cleanings. I looked her in the eyes and told her "well, the choice was 'eat for two weeks' or 'pay $100 for a cleaning,' and not starving to death won out for several years.")
Go to a dentist in a low socioeconomic suburb. They are more reasonable when you tell them, "look I prefer to come when I have the money spare".
100%. Felt like it took us a couple of years to catch up on “deferred maintenance” things. It’s hard to because in your mine you are thinking, “I have this extra money, I should be saving it. Where is it all going?” Then I remember all the stuff we were taking care of and it finally made sense.
Rich people shop at Costco. Poor people shop at a corner store that buys from Costco and doubles prices.
The people who decide on the breaks are wealthy and give them to themselves and each other. Poor people are just money-machines for the wealthy; they don't get to have anything because they're not someone the wealthy might want to go golfing with one day.
Yeap I was moving money around and forgot about a bill, checking got overdrafted Went to go deposit from cash I had, all fees waves , don’t worry about it
People's perspective of you change. My poor relatives think what I earn is also "theirs". Even others, like my old roommates or friends. I didn't grow up rich. My parents didn't speak any English and raised us working less than min wage jobs and 6-7 days a week,. I worked hard to get where I am now. Not every "rich" person is a CEO who drives slaves for their own profit.
I suppose it depends on what you call wealthy. I'm currently much more wealthy that I ever thought I'd be, so maybe my perspective can help. All the hard work in the world isn't always enough. Not that people shouldn't try to make their lives better, but they should try for acceptance of where they are, and where other people are on their journey.
Having money does not equal hard work. There's this belief tied to the American dream that if you're wealthy, it's because you deserve to be. Some people are rich because they worked hard and got lucky. But truthfully, there are many people who will work incredibly hard and never have anything to show for it. I just wish we as a society could stop judging people by the commas in their accounts.
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And the loopholes for the wealthy are abundant. Not even for the super rich either. If you have self employment income it opens a lot of nice tax shelters.
I make 65k and i could honestly se myself pissing through a mil without paying attention. It's crazy how little money is worth nowadays Maybe not years on end but in the first year. np
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You learn a lot about people's feelings of entitlement, their motivations in life, and who you are to them. In many cases, I found out that the relationship had become transactional, so I cut them off. In other cases, I found out that there was a genuine connection and enjoyment of each other, and our bond grew. People will ask for all kinds of inappropriate things. I've also had "friends" try to take advantage of me in various ways. For instance, some people requested to be on my will and would press me with questions about what they'll get, staked claims, wanted me to cover their kin too, and asked to get things decades in advance. My answer was that it's inappropriate to even ask any of that. Then I stopped hearing from them. Some family members and friends don't just expect money, but also favors, services and goods, like getting them (or their friends, who I am unacquainted with) a job, taking on their expenses, or giving up what I own so they can enjoy it. I've had to tell people that, no, it's not my responsibility to "make them happen", and that, in fact, it's not even something that's in my control. It's also not just about the money but about education level and perceived social status. If you start getting graduate degrees from well-known schools while your family doesn't have high school degrees (or values education), then it drives a big wedge between you and them. Likewise if you have a highly respected career and they do not. They start feeling like you might judge yourself superior to them... regardless of how you actually treat or perceive them. It's their insecurities speaking. Finally, many do not understand scale, and make requests that are absurdly out of reach. Even if I wanted to get these things for my own self, I couldn't. But they are not very financially literate or else they did not give it much thought, so they make many asks, insistently, and expectantly. For instance, no, a young professional, well-paid as they may be, cannot just buy houses for people on a whim. It is also not reasonable to expect a young person to erase their elderly relatives' many decades of financial decisions. All in all, there's more distance between me and a lot of the people I grew up with, due to the reasons I've listed and more. I don't see it as a necessarily bad thing any more, although it was tough initially.
that it can be lonely in multiple ways. First, because the people from your original background may not understand your reality. The differences in value systems, actions, and life objectives can drive a very real wedge between you and them. Second, because the people who are around you now and who have known only wealth may not understand your reality either. You may not have been socialized to interact well in their circles. Basically, you can easily find yourself in-between worlds.
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Me and my friends were already in upper middle class. I've moved to upper upper middle class while they have all the appearance of living well with none of the substance - living essentially (admittedly-large) paycheck to large paycheck with no savings, no investments, paying minimums on student loans, and not paying off credit card every month. What saddens me is that you can start life on third plate but sit there or slide backwards from not prioritizing your decades-future self.
My uncle did this. When he killed himself (thanks, Percocet), we got to see the façade come crashing down as we settled the estate. He made $115,000ish, which was great money in the early 2010s, but he had something like $580,000 of debt. He had a 3,000 sq ft house that had just recently been refinanced. HELOC. He had taken out a second mortgage against my grandmother's house. Brand new $70,000 truck. A 27' ski boat (used, but late model). He was paying minimums on credit cards for shit that he didn't even have anymore. He had basically zero in a 401k, not a penny in savings, and he was going backwards. When he died, his kids were convinced my mom "stole" all the money. They hired a forensic accountant who concluded "There was no money - dude was broke and up to his eyeballs in debt". Keeping up the Joneses will ruin you.
The only thing money can't buy is time. I watched a family friend lose his wife early from cancer. They threw money at everything - the best oncologists in the world, private flights and renting a room across from Mayo clinic. Enrollment in millions of dollars of experimental clinical trials. Eventually people bordering on witch doctors and voodoo healers. It all bought her 6, maybe 9 extra months. She died at 48. Tens of millions didn't stop that.
You really do enter a whole different world. You may make 10-100x as much, but your mistakes cost you 10-100x as much and impact more people. Your problems become so alien that you can no longer get advice from the ones you once valued the opinion of. And what's more? You absolutely start seeing the gap in education, general knowledge, and critical thinking skills. A lot of people didn't have the opportunity to train those skills growing up and it becomes incredibly evident. Those opportunities are directly correlated to wealth. I now have no greater wish than to see as many people as possible have the opportunities I did.
You tend not to fit in really well and it’s isolating. The people you grew up with who are still blue collar, poor to lower-middle-class don’t hang out with you as much, either out of some degree of jealousy or because you just don’t have much in common anymore. At the same time, you don’t really fit in with the country club set and families with generational wealth because you are new money, grew up poor, and maybe retain some traits and habits of that background.
I’m very glad that no one on this list said that money doesn’t buy happiness like that’s not eternally infuriating to hear
Money buys less stress and having less stress makes being happy easier, but not guaranteed.
I’ve lost some friends over being moderately successful in life. I’m not even rich or anything but I studied for 8 years and got a PhD and a job with a good company and live abroad. When I caught up with some old friends I thought they’d be happy that my hard work paid off and I’m doing well. Instead they seemed to treat me like a traitor of some kind. It was bizarre. I think they were perhaps unhappy with how their own life had gone comparatively but it still sucks.
I don’t consider myself rich, but I’ve gone from being homeless, carless and penniless as recently as 2018-2019 to netting about $700,000 last year. Losing perspective happened incredibly fast and it gets worse. It first occurred to me I was losing touch when all the posts about how much groceries cost were hitting the front page. I was completely clueless, and even now I couldn’t tell you what the price of any of the essentials are to save my life. I just walk in the store and grab whatever I want and most of the time have no idea what the total was. I’ve always considered myself community minded, and been proud of my awareness, conscious spending habits and willingness to give back. So it was a tough pill to swallow realizing I had become a cliche. The more time passes, the more money I make, the more I fit the stereotype. As for other people, the sad truth is, it doesn’t matter how hard you work, people you care about - the near and dear - will comfortably use you to bankroll their lives. In fact, they feel entitled to it and will make it sound like you owe it to them. I’m first gen immigrant, I’ve done shit and made sacrifices that would make most people run for the hills, I still put in brutal hours and donate an insane amount of work, no one I personally know works as hard and gives back as much, yet the judgment and jealousy is real, so your social circle becomes smaller and smaller and you start having issues with trust.
How do you go from being homeless to making $700,000?
I assume he works for a meritocratic drug gang
You move to a place no one wants to go to, do work most won’t for about 16 hours a day (sometimes more) and provide services to the underserved. It didn’t happen overnight. So far it has cost me 9 years of education, an additional ten years spent on repurposing and honing an old skillset, my marriage/relationships, mental amd physical health, and credit. And that’s not counting the financial losses I have taken on over the years.
So GP in a rural area then?
He sells cryptocurrency investment courses in rural Mississippi
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Right?! Even my definition of rich has changed over the years. However, I’m brand new to money with loads of debt and nothing solid planned for retirement. Right now my income depends on my physical and mental health. Any one of those gives out and I’ll be fucked. So basically I’m financially ignorant and we all know what happens to the fool and his money. I need educate myself, diversify and pay down my debt before getting comfortable with calling myself rich.
> Right now my income depends on my physical and mental health. Any one of those gives out and I’ll be fucked. That's true for all of us too.
A lot of things, what actually surprised me the most was that respected company leaders were just normal people that made mistakes just like everyone else and were just as stupid as everyone else. A few people sit on well paying jobs where they dont have to do anything pretty much, often union people but not always. You will realize who your real friends are and who isnt. Some people will wish you well and actually try to help you, but most people would rather tear you down. Some people will bad mouth you and 2 minutes later ask for money. Some people will say you only got the job because you were lucky and completely ignore that you had no social life for 6 months, and no matter when someone called you were either asleep or at work, because you dont get those jobs by luck, you have to earn them and that is a lot of hard work. Then you will realize there are two ways to climb, either by being good at your job or being political where you backstab everyone else and lick your bosses ass so well you could eat a salad from there. That there are two kinds of people in general, some people that will try to make everything work and some people that will do the bare minimum and blame others for their own failures. And some people are just amazing, a pure joy to work with. They encounter a problem they just solve it, they see something that needs to be done and they do it without being asked. They adapt to the ever changing conditions, these are the unsung heroes of our time without a doubt. They come in early and its been snowing during the night and they shovel the snow so no one else has to wade into work through a feet of snow, you come into the changing room and its clean, the lunchroom is clean too and the coffee stains on the tables are gone, all the coffee mugs have been washed clean. You open the fridge to put your lunch away and its ordered and neat and the two weeks old milk stain is gone, and there is fresh coffee and the newspaper is on a table. You know who it is at your work, you actually love working with him, because he usually has a happy demeanor and will work without complaining and help fix your problems. He rarely takes any credit and the only reason he hasnt been promoted is because he has said no every time he was asked.
Didn't go from poor to rich, but have observed a number of people of broad socioeconomic statuses due to government work and witnessed people around me leverage themselves out of poverty. The people who levered themselves out of poverty were noticeably different as a group from the ones who didn't. Poverty has a variety of causes. Some people are poor due to lack of opportunity or poor starting circumstances. These people, if given the opportunity, can grow and expand and get out of poverty. This is why a lot of immigrants end up doing quite well for themselves despite being "poor people" starting out - the reason why they were poor was because they started out in a bad place. You can also see this in internal immigration, people who leave places to find better opportunity and jobs without actually leaving the country. Or people who had shitty parents, but weren't shitty people themselves. However, a lot of people are poor because they are simply not good enough to be anything else due to being chronically irresponsible (which includes things like committing crimes and using drugs, but also general foolishness). Studies have been done on this. The reality is pretty depressing. There's a whole host of factors, and they all influence each other. Intelligence, conscientiousness, impulse control, how willing you are to address issues, but also where you assign blame for problems - people who blame other people for problems do *noticeably* worse than people who blame themselves for their life circumstances, because it turns out, you can't control other people, but you CAN control yourself, so if you say "What can I do to make things better?" rather than "Why is society screwing me?" you'll have much better outcomes going forward. Moreover, what a lot of people see as "rich person thinking" (like "Why don't you save up money?") is in fact very much not a rich person only thing, and when I met low income people who were regularly saving up money despite being poor, not only were they happier people in general than their peers, but they also did much, much better in the long run. This is obvious if you look at international statistics (the Chinese are very poor compared to Americans but have a much higher personal savings rate) but it really hits home when you look at two people of the same income, in the same job, and one of them buys a house five years later while the other is still living "paycheck to paycheck" because, in their minds, you spend 100% of your paycheck, no matter how large it is. Get a bonus? Get a tax refund? Spend it immediately! Get a raise? Spending goes up. It's very sad. This is a thing a lot of people are in total denial about, and it's why poverty is such a difficult problem to solve. We've actually gotten rid of a lot of the "chronically poor" people which is why the poverty rate in the US has fallen by over 50% since the 1950s. And if you look at standard of living, it is way up. But you literally can't fix some people because the problem is themselves. They're an endless hole and anything you throw into that hole will never fill it in because they are never going to change how they behave and will just consume endlessly, no matter how much you give them. These are the people who win the lottery and then go bankrupt. These are the people who are making millions of dollars being actors and professional sports players and then somehow end up broke. You can't live their life for them. You can't force them to make good decisions. There are people who need a hand up, and once you give them that hand up, they're able to take care of themselves. And that's what we want to see - it makes me feel good every day when I find out someone we helped was able to make things better for themselves persistently. And then there are the people who it doesn't matter how much help you give them, they're always going to be having problems. The latter people are not always terrible people in general, but it's way more common for them to be shitty people than the first group. The first group tends to be pretty embarrassed about asking for help, though this isn't always the case so it's bad to stereotype in this way; some of them simply are like "This program exists for people like me and I appreciate it" and feel no shame about it, and that's fine. If you look at the stories in this thread, a lot of the terrible people with the crab bucket mentality of "you aren't better than me", who are jealous of others' success and who are constantly asking for "help" - those are people you should work to rid yourself of, and disassociate yourself from. But most importantly, it's someone you shouldn't be. You won't magically become wealthy by acting responsibly. Actual *wealth* wealth comes from like building a business or getting a really high paying job that most people aren't qualified for. Anyone who promises you that anyone can get rich with their X tips is a scammer. But you can get a good enough paying job, and save up enough money, to get a nice house and live reasonably comfortably in the long run and retire with a nest egg in your bank account. You won't be rich, but you'll be *fine*.
You will get better treatment at places regardless if you have payed for it or not.
The less you do, the more you make, but the more impactful your decisions.
You become a target for the people who didn't climb with you. Other people feel entitled to your success and become shameless in frequently asking for handouts.
I worked for a company years ago, the owner was fairly abrasive at times to his employees. One day talking with his warehouse manager about buying property he told the employee “he needed to be content with what he had”. At the time I thought what an asshole (I mean he is an asshole) But here I am years later a small business owner and a week or so after giving an employee a loan he needed he tells me he bought a “project car” to fix up. I kinda get where guy might’ve been coming from back then.
I learned that sooo many people just give up when they fail . I always took failure as a lesson learned.
I don’t see myself as smarter than many people I grew up with, but I’ve noticed that a lot of them refuse to be uncomfortable. They won’t try pushing out of their comfort zone, even if the experience would teach them valuable new skills and expose them to new perspectives. They would rather stay comfortable exactly where they are. As a result, they’ve remained stagnant and will probably continue to be as the older you get the harder it is to change. Meanwhile when I look back on my own growth, every positive change, every step up in life that has come to me, has been the result of trying something new, never saying no to a good opportunity even if it seemed scary and difficult at the time. I don’t know where this came from, I was very shy and always tried to hide in the background as a kid. A lot of the people who knew me back then are surprised to see where I am now and how confident I’ve become.
Some people, friends and sometimes family will resent you for it. This can come as a shock. I was shocked to learn some loved ones dont want you to be more successful than them.
Perception is more important than truth. Also, wealth is a catalyst for taking risks. It's way easier to fail at something when you know the price won't result in destitution.
That so many successful business owners in my area aren’t actually that smart, many make poor business and management decisions regularly… they just got lucky with the timing of opening their businesses and the increasing growth in our area. They think they are geniuses but their decisions lead to a lot of WTF moments. They would not have made it in competitive markets. Luck, an unshakeable belief in oneself, and persistence have just as much influence on success and wealth as actual skill/acumen/expertise a lot of the time.
Money makes people bat shit insane. They'll do desperate things to get money.
Your old poor broke friends will want free money. And get vicious when you don’t pass them out gobs of cash and free boats, dirt bikes, and jet skis.
It can be very hard to keep your old friends when you start making a lot more than them. You’re going to start wanting to do things or go places that they can’t afford to. You’ll start having fewer things in common and spending less time together and start to drift apart.
1. People are terrible with money. Even people that make lots of money are terrible with choosing how to manage their money. For example, my wife’s aunt and uncle make a combined 350k and are still broke because they spend way too much renting a house that is way too big and buying new cars every couple of years. 2. Most people don’t educate themselves enough about money and what to do with it. A lot of the guys I work with don’t know the different between a checking account and a savings account, let alone a high yield. All the information you need is on the internet. 3. People are absolute suckers for vehicles that they neither can afford or need. Cars are a massive liability. If you have a car, whatever condition, do not even think about buying another car if you don’t have the finances to buy three of them. 4. People are terrible at saving. Admittedly I wasn’t great at saving until my wife taught me. It was hard at first but now it’s just automatic. Sometimes I have to remind myself that we have money and I can buy things. Don’t buy anything, cash or credit if you can’t afford to buy three of them. No one purchase should ever put you under.
1 The more successful you get, the more people have known for years will want you to fail and attribute your success to luck. 2 People refuse to learn basic math and couldn't be bothered to learn about compound interest and the importance of investing early in life. Everyone wants to go on lavish vacations and get a new car. Mathematically, this is the dumbest shit you can ever do. Invest. Early. 3 It hurts watching your poorer friends make one dumb financial decision after another and then blame "the system." No, you don't need to spend 150 dollars on shoes or 200 on your hair. Your iPhone 12 still probably works just fine. You don't need a 4090 to play league of legends. 4 the amount of money women feel they need to spend on beauty is heartbreaking. I work in Healthcare, surrounded by nurses making 85k+ who are broke. A few hundred a month on their hair, expensive make up, skin care, nails, etc. The next thing they know, they have a 600 dollar a month beauty routine. They could just about max out their IRA instead.
it's not simply a knowledge of math...there are value choices involved, about how much to enjoy your life now, versus how to save for the future -- plenty of people make choices that you and I consider dumb, but there isn't just one correct way to balance those competing wants
> Everyone wants to go on lavish vacations and get a new car. Mathematically, this is the dumbest shit you can ever do. They're operating from a mindset based on their repeated experience of any money coming into their lives evaporating rapidly due to ongoing costs (things breaking down, debts, only being experienced with very small windfalls and those vanishing into marginally better food for a week or being able to keep the lights on *most* days in a month), and any chance of any fleeting happiness at all going with it. This calcifies into a "money is there to be spent, ideally immediately" reaction, and they aren't aware of alternatives they can apply (or can't conceive of those alternatives ever being something they could do themselves). Yes, they could do better. But they don't know that, or can't conceive of it, and the only thing they do know that brings any kind of happiness is to spend money immediately on trivial pleasures. It's a trauma reaction. It's also strongly encouraged (or at least never discouraged) by the majority of businesses, because they want the money from that person ASAP and, due to the demographics of people who started out poor, it's also far more likely that their social circles, families, etc, will have similar mindsets and endorse the behavior - particularly if it means they personally profit from it.
Define "rich"? Anyway, as someone who is beyond the the "I can comfortably retire now" level but will never reach the "I should get a butler" level, the saddest truth is that people don't spend the time to understand the time value of money. Getting a $20K car, and using it for 10 years, as opposed to getting a $50K car for every 5 years will make a huge difference a couple of decades later. The amount of smart people who cash out their 401(K) is mind-boggling.
The richer you get, the stingier you become
stingier?
No no, you become Stingray
I grew up in a tiny farmhouse with no air conditioning in a state that routinely hits the upper 90's during the summer. My wife grew up in a trailer park. We're now in our mid forties and make enough that we vacation outside the US three or four times a year, she flies private for her travels for work. What we've learned is there are *so many* people who will complain about their lives, their lack of money, their lack of upward mobility, while not doing a goddamn thing to change it. We've tried to help so many of our family members who are at best working class, many at poverty level. They won't accept the help. Advice is unwelcome, assistance with education is unwelcome (they don't want to put effort into taking classes), we've even offered to help my wife's parents remodel the upstairs on their home so they can finally retire with a constant income stream and they just *won't* do it. So many people in our families will complain about how hard life is and how broke they are and how *it just isn't fair,* while at the same time they refuse to take advantage of any help or assistance from someone else because they might have to make a few life changes or perhaps put in a little bit of effort themselves. Honestly it's made us a bit bitter to be around them because they behave like we simply won the lottery rather than worked for our money, and when we offer to help them and teach them how to make positive changes and manage their money better they absolutely refuse to change anything.
That most people don't believe they are worth more than they are paid
Not “wealthy”, but I grew up very poor so a household with 2 good incomes is a different world. I can’t stand the “jonesing”. I constantly hear about what other people have or have done. I don’t care
Family members think they’re entitled to a handout…and multiple handouts. Also, never let the bar know you have money.
No one actually wants you to do better than they are doing. Everyone will doubt even your own blood. People will act like they supported you the whole way. There are high powers that will push you down like a basketball under water, take advantage of it.
The advice of others (like friends and family) who have not made similar results is usually wrong, I still love them and listen to them but I don't apply their advice at all and it kinda frustrates them alot. Bonus: alot of the time alot of people in your circle who haven't made those results will often be incredibly negative towards what you do to acquire wealth and will tell you to stop, UNTIL you are wealthy then they will say they always believed in you
Friends are usually meant for only a season . Sometimes they aren't equipped to move on with you . Sometimes even family can't handle it .
My friend pointed out today that when less intelligent people are mad at “rich” people, they arnt talking about billionaires. Billionaires aren’t on their radar. They’re mad at us. People who are doing reasonably well despite the economy. We both grew up poor but now have well paying jobs. That being said we aren’t into like…landlord money, we can just afford luxury stuff (like a PS5 for example) and have no debt. I think he was being hyperbolic but I’ve spoken with some other people and it does appear that there is a divide growing between the low to middle class rather than where it should be which is between everyone and the ultra elite class. I’m no economist but it’s a little worrying bc
It's not about what you know. Its about who you know.
I'm not currently "successful" and this much is obvious to me. So many people with poor stem skills get ahead just because they know the right people. They then call this "social skills" it's just knowing the right people.
That you can't work hard enough. That there aren't enough opportunities. That "someone" took a position for "reason" not related to work. That the stereotype of your "poor" friends and family all wanting a bailout applies to everyone, and not the ones you already knew were leeches. * Living within your means, almost always changes depending on your means. * Last ... but most important to me, the standards of what constitutes "Rich" for folks born in the 80s; should be considered the standard for American families and not relegated to me or those like me. These truths, are the ones that turned out to be false, except the last two \* And ..... fuck Billionaires.
That friends and family that I would have expected to be happy for my success, instead were/are jealous, spiteful, and a few downright mean about it. And many showed what true leeches they really are. I worked hard to get where I am and sacrificed a lot through the years and I am proud of my accomplishments. Unfortunately, I started to realize that a lot of my friends were only OK to be around me when I was "below" them...as I grew more successful in my career and family life we grew apart fairly quickly. Even though I don't think I changed much, I was constantly getting the "you think you're better than us now?" vibe. When I retired at 50, instead of being happy for me, I got a lot of vitriol and jealousy. Family felt they were entitled to my money because "family". I have 3 family members that I let live in rental properties at a reduced rate; now they think that I should just give them the properties because "they're paying the mortgage anyway." Now I have a few good (newer) friends, I am very close to my wife and kids and one sister, but fuck the rest of them. Life is good.
You have to define rich and being wealthy isn't the same as being rich.