Awkward Wealth

[MBAustin]

DS is finding this out already. He's been working (good engineering job) for a little over a year and inherited his family's frugal ways. He was planning to keep driving my old car (15 yrs old) for a few more years but it developed a terminal condition recently. He paid cash for a nice 3-year old car (which he researched, found, and bought on his own), even though he could easily afford to buy new as many of his friends have. After that, he wasn't accustomed to seeing his bank account at such a low level so decided to cut back on some frills like going out on the town every Friday night. He remarked to one of his friends that "things were a little tight". Friend said "oh, paycheck to paycheck, I get it". DS got quite a chuckle out of that. We are proud parents.

 

[Lsbcal]

I just look at the mortgage as one line item on the net worth balance sheet -- not necessarily good or bad. It does not have to be paid off but it's fine to do so. Taxes make this an interesting personal exercise in money management.

 

[rayvt]

This is why we keep seeing threads on "Do you tell people you are retired?". I usually tell a little white lie or an incomplete truth.

Right after I retired, I would tell people "I'm between jobs right now." They assumed that I lost my job, and that shut them up. I never told them "My next job will be .... NEVER."

 

[FUEGO]

Right after I retired, I would tell people "I'm between jobs right now." They assumed that I lost my job, and that shut them up. I never told them "My next job will be .... NEVER."

I used to say that. It was true for the first day or two or ER before I decided this really was my ER.

Haven't thought of using that particular line in a while. I'll have to put it in the rotation.

 

[tmm99]

This might be an interesting experiment - Demonstrate that you only use cash for all your purchases and mention you are retired. (Some people would assume you are a drug dealer...) That's what I would think anyway Now that would eliminate the need to explain why you are retired.

 

[haha]

This might be an interesting experiment - Demonstrate that you only use cash for all your purchases and mention you are retired. (Some people would assume you are a drug dealer...) That's what I would think anyway Now that would eliminate the need to explain why you are retired.

Not at all clever, unless you want your door to come down some night under the onslaught of a battering ram, with a bunch of wannabe Elliott Nesses coming in with their assault rifles pointed at you.

I like having white hair and not much of it, and I'm happy to sing the praises of social security old age assistance and say a kind hello to all the old ladies in my neighborhood.

Ha.

 

[tmm99]

Not at all clever, unless you want your door to come down some night under the onslaught of a battering ram, with a bunch of wannabe Elliott Nesses coming in with their assault rifles pointed at you.

I like having white hair and not much of it, and I'm happy to sing the praises of social security old age assistance and say a kind hello to all the old ladies in my neighborhood.

Ha.

You are just cool like that, Ha.

 

[jayc]

Why is it awkward? You post your finances on a public blog for reimbursement with money. You can't have it both ways. It looks to me like just a blown up event to generate an article to increase blog traffic.

 

[rayvt]

This might be an interesting experiment - Demonstrate that you only use cash for all your purchases and mention you are retired. (Some people would assume you are a drug dealer...) That's what I would think anyway Now that would eliminate the need to explain why you are retired.

Better yet, pay with all crumpled $20 bills.

 

[Sea Kayaker]

Why is it awkward? You post your finances on a public blog for reimbursement with money. You can't have it both ways. It looks to me like just a blown up event to generate an article to increase blog traffic.

This crossed my mind as well.

 

[simple girl]

I had one woman get a bit snarky saying that it must be nice that I only work on a part time basis...that my DH must be a great guy who lets me do that since we definitely must need the money to pay for all the child support and college. I told her that I have all the money....that shut her up really quick ....loved doing it just to see her face!

Ha! Love that! I'm in a similar situation, in that I work part-time while DH works full-time (soon to be part-time, too). I think many people think the same thing about me, they just never say it. Wow. Glad you put her in her place.

 

[pullmyfinger]

Ask her what she paid for the Funyuns or the boxwine when you have visitors and this problem will go away very quickly.

Hahaha! That is perfect.

DH's family immigrated to the US and their culture has very different ideas about what is polite to ask. "What did that cost?" is an easy question. How about "How much was your house?" "How much money do you make?" "How much was your bonus?" followed by "You don't deserve that much".

My all time favorite question asked of me by my MIL "How much do you weigh?"

 

[Milton]

FUEGO, don't sweat it: those awkward moments are a perfect opportunity to reenact the famous Harry Enfield sketch ("considerably richer than you"). J/K.

Sometimes I hear, "But you're too young to be retired." It's meant as a friendly compliment, and I take it as such

You're probably right, Amethyst ... although "you're so young to be retired" would sound less judgmental.

"Crap, I can't find any caviar."

Weird Al has a new song on this sort of thing.

 

[RunningBum]

Why is it awkward? You post your finances on a public blog for reimbursement with money. You can't have it both ways. It looks to me like just a blown up event to generate an article to increase blog traffic.

Huh? Who did what for what?

 

[Cheesehead]

I’ve read ALL the posts with interest, I see some tangents (who'd eat fish eggs?) but a couple of main points are missed or some may be socially tone deaf? I think a lot of it comes down to a condition we learned in Sociology 101: Homophily, otherwise known as “birds of a feather stick together”. People like to hang with their own, they feel more comfortable whether it’s ethnically, politically, age-wise, denominationally and yes, socio-economically.

I remember 29 years ago we joined a babies group with our first born, hosted at a McMansion, the son of a Fortune 100 CEO. Chit-chat started about starting a college savings fund and he said “my parents have taken care of that”, meaning the full ride. My wife expressed interest that we get together as couples but I had no interest, having grown up next to super affluent suburbs I knew the personality type from high school. Life on Easy Street.

However, my entire life I’ve divided folks who’ve “made it” (or ER'd) into two categories, the ones who really earned it through their merit: hard work, intelligence, saving, initiative. And then the ones who got it handed to them. I am in my early sixties and I can’t tell you how many of our friends the last five years or so came into enough inheritance that they are now on Easy Street, or what many call ER here. It becomes hard to relate to them after that happens, really. They no longer have the kinds of concerns mere mortals do, such as keeping the old car running, ins premiums, new roof, etc. They get to exhale. Many are discreet about it, don’t want anyone to know they didn’t really earn it (not cool) so they don’t up their lifestyle. Those are the ones we can still go out with but others become the Howells from Gilligan’s Island! When you see the new Land Rover in the drive it’s a give away someone died.

Me, I’m winding up a 38 year career having my own biz in the creative services field so that’s basically a fancy way of saying I’ve been freelance my entire post-college life, a term my old man equated with unemployed, akin in the old days to the term consultant (you don’t have a job). So I’m the guy for 4 decades at the end of the driveway at 8:30AM in a bathrobe picking up the newspaper, or at the dog park, yoga class and coffee shop in the middle of the day on a weekday and I know the drill, especially if I’m dressed down and didn’t shave. People are feeling you out to see how you fit socially with them, they’re curious, not impolite or nosey. Often they are unemployed, call 99’ers, meaning they have 99 weeks of unemployment insurance checks. In fact, when I hear the term ER, as in “Joe took early retirement” to me that has always meant Joe was forced out or his job became “redundant” in a merger, etc., so ER has not had a pleasant ring to my ears due to all the folks I know that were forced into it by merciless megacorps. Many of my clients were ER'd which is bad for my revenue. When I stumbled on this website I thought ER was for the Forced Out folks to compare notes.

Our big splurge once a year is a kick ass international travel vacation, sometimes adventurous, ranges from $8-12K, and we play it down with certain friends and relatives, don’t even post on FB. We don’t brag about it. My mom gave us some great advice: when we do retire in 2 years we won’t have the guts to blow such bug wads of money so do it now. So we will save road trips to the national parks for true retirement, just did a test at Yellowstone this summer, international is tougher physically so do it now. But I digress…

So in sum, when I meet up with folks who don’t seem to be doing as well as I, and all we have in common is our dogs sharing a ball, I play it down, sometimes don’t mention my exotic profession or even the subdivision we’re in b/c I know it will trigger envy. And when the DW wants to get together socially with people who I know are trust fund babies or lucked into a big inheritance I decline. Not that they’re bad people or I’m envious but that our concerns/perspectives in life are so very different. Your relationship to money, your nest egg is a different mindset, no sweat equity is represented just custodial. You can call it envy but I have a basic lack of respect, no matter how well I like them on their other traits. We come from working class origins and are now I guess you’d say upper middle class but we EARNED it.

I love this board, the only thing better I’d like to find is one similar to this that is exclusive to micro biz/freeancers/independents since our concerns are quite unique. Well, that’s my two cents. Oh P.S. I have a billionaire client who picks me up in his private jet a few times a year. Sometimes there’s several family members on board hitching a ride. What they talk about we mortals could not relate to, such as “finding help”, decorating the fourth home on some island, etc. And yes, I am envious because they didn’t earn it, all trust fund babies, and I can’t relate to them even though one-on-one they are the nicest people!

 

[hesperus]

Cheesehead, You neglect the possibility that some people do work hard, make their own way and become financially successful, AND still come into an inheritance that changes their financial picture significantly. They weren't raised to be trust fund 'babies', but were brought up understanding the merits of hard work. That doesn't stop because all of a sudden they've moved into a new financial strata. There is a certain tone of self righteousness here that is just as annoying to many people as projected by those who expect to be taken care of by their rich parents. It's stereotyping to simply put people into one category or another.

 

[Cheesehead]

Oh, that's the Trifecta. Once they hit Easy Street do you think they are the same person? In my experience: No Way. They do change. Seen it many times. Didn't mean to come across as arrogant, just observational. Money changes people, their relationship to their old friends for instance. Ask your elders if that is not true.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote:

"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different."

 

[mrfeh]

Haven't really had to deal w/ this yet, as we keep our finances to ourselves.

We bought our current home for cash, which very few (maybe zero) people know. I plan on retiring in 18 months at 50...I think there are gonna be some shocked faces when that happens.

 

[Meadbh]

Cheesehead, You neglect the possibility that some people do work hard, make their own way and become financially successful, AND still come into an inheritance that changes their financial picture significantly. They weren't raised to be trust fund 'babies', but were brought up understanding the merits of hard work. That doesn't stop because all of a sudden they've moved into a new financial strata. There is a certain tone of self righteousness here that is just as annoying to many people as projected by those who expect to be taken care of by their rich parents. It's stereotyping to simply put people into one category or another.

+1000

And I am one of those who was raised frugally and inherited enough to be a game changer. However, I never counted on any inheritance, because my parents' end of life care could easily have whittled their savings down. As it turned out, that did not happen. After I inherited, I splurged $400 on a painting before really focusing on LBYM so I could ER 7 years later.

 

[Cheesehead]

When I hit my mid-50's and started to discuss, research, converse about retirement there were many of my peers, friends, co-workers, etc. after a few beers, confided that they only had to outlast their parents. There was enough fortune in the family, sometimes dynastic, that they just had to wait. I think knowing that you're coming into Easy Street creates a distinctly different perspective on life. Seen it a lot of times. How could it not? It takes the WORRY out of retirement. After that, health is your only worry. So that separates you from the majority of everyone you will meet. And actually that is what the OP started, how having enough money to ER separates you from the vast majority of everyone you come into contact with.

But anyway, this is getting off thread and I hate to hijack a thread.

 

[bld999]

Better yet, pay with all crumpled $20 bills.

Early in my building career, a favorite superintendent used to say about a co-worker: "Johnny's so tight, he rubs the buffalo off all his nickels"

 

[Milton]

People like to hang with their own, they feel more comfortable whether it’s ethnically, politically, age-wise, denominationally and yes, socio-economically.

Some people, certainly; but not everyone.

Although I'm not particularly gregarious, I can sincerely say that my own circle of friends includes people of different ages, genders, nationalities, occupations, political leanings, races, religions, sexual orientations and yes, wealth.

It is easy, and pleasant, to find shared experiences and interests with just about anyone. We human beings all have much in common, regardless of where we grew up, what car we drive (if any), etc.

My wife expressed interest that we get together as couples but I had no interest, having grown up next to super affluent suburbs I knew the personality type from high school. Life on Easy Street.

[M]y entire life I’ve divided folks who’ve “made it” (or ER'd) into two categories, the ones who really earned it through their merit: hard work, intelligence, saving, initiative. And then the ones who got it handed to them….

[W]hen the DW wants to get together socially with people who I know are trust fund babies or lucked into a big inheritance I decline. Not that they’re bad people or I’m envious but that our concerns/perspectives in life are so very different. Your relationship to money, your nest egg is a different mindset, no sweat equity is represented just custodial. You can call it envy but I have a basic lack of respect, no matter how well I like them on their other traits. We come from working class origins and are now I guess you’d say upper middle class but we EARNED it....

I have a billionaire client who picks me up in his private jet a few times a year. Sometimes there’s several family members on board hitching a ride. What they talk about we mortals could not relate to, such as “finding help”, decorating the fourth home on some island, etc. And yes, I am envious because they didn’t earn it, all trust fund babies, and I can’t relate to them even though one-on-one they are the nicest people!

Sad.

Reverse snobbery is no less unattractive, or personally limiting, than the traditional kind.

 

[simple girl]

Cheesehead, if you inherited money, do you think it would change you into this stereotypical type of person you describe?

I find it hard to believe that I would change into the kind of person you describe if I inherited money. I'm not saying it doesn't change many people, but what I'm saying is - I think there are going to be some who would not let it change who they are at their core.

 

[FUEGO]

When I hit my mid-50's and started to discuss, research, converse about retirement there were many of my peers, friends, co-workers, etc. after a few beers, confided that they only had to outlast their parents. There was enough fortune in the family, sometimes dynastic, that they just had to wait. I think knowing that you're coming into Easy Street creates a distinctly different perspective on life. Seen it a lot of times. How could it not? It takes the WORRY out of retirement. After that, health is your only worry. So that separates you from the majority of everyone you will meet. And actually that is what the OP started, how having enough money to ER separates you from the vast majority of everyone you come into contact with.

I guess I'm fortunate to not know any true trust fund babies other than my old best friend and college roommate who was set to receive a six figure trust corpus at 30 or 35, and who finished his PhD and went on to save the world in his own way. My roommate struggled with "what's the point of working hard?" for a while since he knew he was going to receive what amounts to a life changing amount of money when you're a broke college student.

Working in the professional fields and coming from thrifty family stock, my parents and most of my aunts and uncles are all millionaires or more likely multi-millionaires. I figure I'll get a seven figure inheritance in another few decades (parents are 61, wealthy childless uncle who respects me a lot is 51). But I'm not counting on it and feel proud to have made my own way in life (with early initial support from my parents of course).

 

[Cheesehead]

Well, that's what I get for posting before drinking my morning coffee! Get misconstrued.

I do have friends and peeps in our social circle(s) much different than us but not in much higher financial sphere. Money does change people. From the colleges their kids are considering, vacationing as couples, etc.,etc.

And Fuego, in the back of your mind you know you'll be coming into money, and I have seen a lot of people in that situation. Or those that married into it. Knowing that you will not need to worry about money in retirement you'll have a LOT less stress in your later years concerning retirement, a LOT less stress. And that makes you different whether you like it or not, whether you admit it or not.

But you should have a Plan B in case the money doesn't materialize, which I have also seen. At the opening of the will friends who thought they would be on Easy Street learned it was left to the church, the university, etc.

Lastly, I am one of the few who try to minimize their amount of screen time to experience life, which is everything away from a computer screen.