Grew up blue collar middle class in an upper class suburb. We were not poor but we never tried to keep up with the neighbors and lived mostly invisibly. My father worked very hard and my stay-home mother did a good job raising us while he worked very hard to save and provide for our family.
I have not deviated much from this mentality as we have a modest home, drive modest newer cars but in the process of being a workaholic managed to amass a nice asset base. My mother died first, my father died a few years ago at 99 and he had a good CPA helping him plan his finances. His 16K home bought in 1957 sold for $2.5M (it is a nice neighborhood) and he had substantial cash in the bank. He was always financially insecure up until the end. When he was in hospice care I asked my wife if it was OK to open the kimono and show him our assets as this sort of thing is never done in our families. He was worried about his 24-hour caregiving costs and always wanted to get rid of it and he said he could take care of himself. He was also having dementia setting in so not always thinking rationally. When I showed him what we had (more than 10M at the time) he was shocked, surprised, elated and puzzled and the first thing he said is, "Gee, you have that much
It is enough to retire right now if you wanted to. But, my advice is to keep working until they don't want you anymore." His next words brought a tear to my eye, "I guess I don't have to worry about money anymore, you've done a good job of saving and can take care of you and your brother if anything happens."
He died a few months later, disease free, of organ failure, but more importantly not worrying about us financially. The decision to disclose our assets was a very difficult one but it paid off. Truly, a life well lived.
