Stealth Wealth

[Route246]

For those who have substantial investable assets I'm wondering if you maintain stealth or do people know you have what you have?

We don't belong to the country club and we don't associate with the "upper class" and most of our friends and acquaintances have modest means as you get cues from them regarding loans, car leases, children with student loans, etc. and other issues we are fortunate enough not to have to deal with.

One FIRE neighbor sold a business and an office building and have no heirs so they live a nice comfortable life and they have sensed we are also comfortable based on cues in casual conversation. I even let it slip that I was working because I enjoyed it and the husband caught on immediately, oops.

I have some high net worth friends and those are the only ones that I feel comfortable complaining about high taxes and AMT, discussing the virtues of Vanguard vs Fidelity, SPY vs VTI, etc. The other popular topic is gifting to our adult children as a form of estate planning. These are not topics you can easily discuss with anyone and they sometimes fall into the "nice problem to have, but don't expect sympathy from Joe Sixpack."

BTW, I do feel comfortable mentioning the perils of AMT, etc. here in these forums. I'm a newcomer but have been welcomed and this is a great place for like minded people to learn from each other.

Lastly, have you ever had your net worth exposed inadvertently to perhaps family members and it causes problems such as characterizations of being miserly, selfish, stingy, parsimonious or uncaring. I have a female classmate from high school who was very popular and still remains quite attractive but some of her self-destructive tendencies have left her financially struggling in her senior years and she remains bitter towards her brother who became a successful doctor, lecturer, author and entrepreneur (in other words, self-made wealthy) and she snipes about how he has all of this money and he won't give any to his poor sister. Personally, I think her brother brought this on himself and if he had been a little more low-key she would have never figured out he's rich. I don't need that sort of family stress in my life.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

Pretty Stealthy, we live in Florida, most folks outside our development are poor, lower middle class, or just scraping by.

 

[BruinBones]

Pretty Stealth, we live in Florida, most folks are poor. Or just scraping by.

Ditto.

 

[CardsFan]

Pretty Stealthy, we live in Florida, most folks outside our development are poor, lower middle class, or just scraping by.

But since you DO live in that development, are you really stealthy? Do the poor folks seeing you drive out think you are just like them?

Not trying to pick on you, just pointing out that it is hard to hide SOME level wealth/well-to-do-ness.

We don't hide it, we don't flaunt it. We live in an "middle class" condo development. I know that some folks are just squeaking by, and some are more comfortable than we are. Most are in the middle. And SOME are actually still w*rking

 

[Philliefan33]

I think we are pretty stealthy, but friends have likely figured out that we are comfortable, as would acquaintances that pay attention. Certain things come up in conversation that would lead people to believe that we either are comfortable or carrying a lot of debt.

For example, we have a vacation home. Anyone who can afford a second home is doing pretty well. We also spend a winter month snowbirding in Naples FL. These are things that we freely talk about. However, we do not discuss that we do not have a mortgage on either house and that our kids did not have to take student loans for college.

 

[razztazz]

Vis a vis non-family: Stealth. Wrt Family: It's hard to be too stealthy with your family. They don't know dollar amounts but they know I have, what they would consider, "a ton of money." I don't constantly complain about things like getting a new hot water tank, and how expensive things are in general.

 

[FrankiesGirl]

My husband and I are definitely in the "big cattle, no hat" category. (FIREd and don't look at all rich).

My family knows we're FIRE. His family has a basic idea, but they're not really savvy about money in general so they don't understand the whole FIRE concept. We've told a few friends that we are retired, and since it's several decades before we should have been able to by traditional means, we have explained that we figured out how to invest using simple low cost funds and the money works for us, not the other way round. To casual friends/acquaintances, we mention we freelance and/or are self employed doing very select projects.

I don't understand blaming the doctor brother for doing what he wants with his earned wealth - he "brought this on himself" for being hard working, smart and/or lucky? He shouldn't have to hide it even if his sister is bitter and entitled, and if a friend continually griped about this, I am not sure I'd be friends with someone like that. I definitely would distance myself from negative people like that.

I personally don't give a flying fig what others think about me in regards of how I choose to spend/gift money. I'd say care less about those that would judge you harshly for their own perceived entitlement.

 

[RetiredHappy]

We live in a luxurious resort community, with a ton of $100M+ and billionaires. No one talks about money. About half of the people living here are probably as poor as us, in other words, very comfortable and live on $200K+ a year. The other half live on way more. So, who cares who is rich or not as rich!? You need to have money to live here.

 

[Aerides]

Family: We are a small and close knit bunch, but still only talk finances in the basic sense. They know we are ER and are comfortable. I give tips to my sister - only when asked - for her 401k. That's about it.

Friends: I can think of nothing more boring than talking about finances with them. I didn't go out and get new ones after I reached my financial goals, so that's a non issue.

Acquaintances/Neighbors: It would be intrusive and anything beyond "what do you do?" (for which we have a simple answer) becomes a bit rude imo.

 

[Route246]

Many people carry a lot of debt to maintain their lifestyle. I guess I shouldn't mention so much that we are debt-free moving forward, I didn't even think about that. I know colleagues are complaining about gas prices, food prices and interest rates, things I never give a second thought to. To be perfectly honest I don't mind high interest rates for my fixed-income assets but that is a small part of the story.

Regarding my classmate's brother I know him and he can be very pretentious and off-putting and not afraid to show it. He's not stealth in any way. In a sense he lords it over his sister so I get it when she feels resentment. He should just keep his mouth shut instead of rubbing it in.

I think we are pretty stealthy, but friends have likely figured out that we are comfortable, as would acquaintances that pay attention. Certain things come up in conversation that would lead people to believe that we either are comfortable or carrying a lot of debt.

For example, we have a vacation home. Anyone who can afford a second home is doing pretty well. We also spend a winter month snowbirding in Naples FL. These are things that we freely talk about. However, we do not discuss that we do not have a mortgage on either house and that our kids did not have to take student loans for college.

 

[Gumby]

I've mentioned before that I've been the highest earning one in my family since the day I graduated from college (so far, the only one in the family to do that). So they all assume I'm rich, although I have never, ever talked about it with any of them.

As far as non-family, I've never discussed it with people. I live in a historic house in a nice neighborhood on the harbor (which anyone could look up on Zillow, although they wouldn't know that we have no mortgage), but I look like one of the guys who sleeps behind the library. Most days, I have raggedy old khaki shorts with ground-in dirt from the garden and t-shirts that have holes in them and paint smears. I don't have fancy cars and I do my own maintenance on them. I also do all the lawn and garden care and most other maintenance around the house. And I grow a lot of our food. We don't belong to the yacht club, like several of our neighbors. So, I have no idea what they think.

 

[Texas Proud]

Stealthy.... well, as best as I can be... My normal dress makes me look poor as I wear shorts and a T-shirt with sandals...



But sometimes it can slip.. maybe 8 or so years ago I was gong to pick up my DD from soccer practice and they stopped early so I was 'late'... the coach asked my daughter what car I would be driving to pick her up... she said 'I do not know, we have 4 of them'... (most cheap at the time but still)...


The other parents also wondered how I made money... I just never talked about it so they had to imagine...

 

[athena53]

Family: siblings and I are all very comfortable; I'm sure we all have net worth in the millions (based on careers, not over-spending, no complaints from anyone about debts), but we don't talk numbers. I told my son my net worth once and he made a bad joke about cutting my brake lines but he hasn't yet- maybe because my grandchildren kinda like me.

I've told two close friends. That's it. My only conspicuous consumption is travel so I'm not that flashy. I donate a lot to charity but keep it between God, me, the IRS and sometimes the recipient- with my donor-advised fund the recipient may not know!

I see no advantage to being obvious about my wealth and many disadvantages.

 

[MC Rider]

We're not rich but I am reluctant to tell people I don't know well that we are building a garage. Well, in planning and permits stages. Don't want to tell them about the no mortgage thing either. Contractors might think we are rich and want to charge us more.



This does not work with the garage contractor, but he knows we need to keep costs down and this is our one big project.

 

[Koolau]

When people find out I live most of the time in Hawaii I think they might assume I'm "rich." Of course, I've explained to some folks that living in Hawaii - even if you used to be rich - will make you poor very fast.

 

[Exchme]

We revealed the details to our kids as we started making gifts to them up to the gift tax exemption, but don't share our financial situation with friends or other family. I doubt most folks would bother to make assumptions about us, just as we don't bother to make assumptions about them.

 

[Route246]

I tell a few friends and only my nephew who will eventually become our primary executor. He is a finance MBA, working on FIRE now as we speak so he gets it and was a little surprised but after he thought about how many years I've been at it he did the interest compounding in his head and the numbers made sense. I told him he has more money now than we did at the same age so that inspired him a bit and that we got to here without a score from stock or a windfall. I told him just fire up a spreadsheet and watch what DCA contributions AND compounding does to your assets and you'll see that you can get to FIRE if you remain disciplined. I haven't even gotten around to telling my CPA who is my best friend from college.

I made one exception when my father was in hospice care and was agitated about leaving us behind, always worried about these things and always financially insecure being a child of the depression. He had a nice legacy for us to inherit and he was concerned that it was not enough (house in NorCal worth $3M for us two kids) plus $500K cash in his checking accounts (he didn't believe in mutual funds or stocks). My parents saved and saved and saved for our college and we grew up very modestly. When I showed him brokerage statements, paycheck stub, Zillow with his house and our house and our checking accounts he was stunned and said, "You have that much You can retire right now! But, you should never quit working, he was 99 at the time and "retired" at 80 and said he regretted it. I was very hesitant to show him this as it is something we just never did. I discussed it with my wife and she agreed that it would calm down his agitation and fear of leaving us financially struggling. Once I showed him his demeanor changed, he calmed down and he left us peacefully a few months later telling the caregiver he was going to die the next day and thanked her and the team for taking good care of him. They say some people know when they are going to die and he left peacefully right on schedule. He's my father and of course I miss him so much but I also appreciate how well planned out he took care of his finances as a modest blue collar small business owner who worked hard his entire life. He made a very difficult ordeal so much easier for us in so many ways.

So I kept stealth from my own father until near the very end. It ended well, he smiled and I know he was proud of my success and now I'm glad we made the decision to exit stealth mode with him. Regarding everyone else, we remain stealth and like it that way.

Family: siblings and I are all very comfortable; I'm sure we all have net worth in the millions (based on careers, not over-spending, no complaints from anyone about debts), but we don't talk numbers. I told my son my net worth once and he made a bad joke about cutting my brake lines but he hasn't yet- maybe because my grandchildren kinda like me.

I've told two close friends. That's it. My only conspicuous consumption is travel so I'm not that flashy. I donate a lot to charity but keep it between God, me, the IRS and sometimes the recipient- with my donor-advised fund the recipient may not know!

I see no advantage to being obvious about my wealth and many disadvantages.

 

[disneysteve]

I don't go around telling friends and family that we are multi-millionaires. But I can't hide the fact that my wife hasn't worked for a decade or so and for the past year, I've only been working about 8 hours/week. When you're doing that at 57 or 58 years old, it's sort of obvious that you've got more money than most.


We certainly don't flaunt it, which of course is why we are where we are. Low maintenance lifestyles. Modest house bought in 1994, modest cars bought used and kept for 10+ years, shopping mostly at Target and Walmart and Amazon, nice but low key vacations, you all know the routine. LBYM

 

[Koolau]

I made the mistake of telling BFF that my condo was worth (at that time) half a million. He reminded me that he was in debt that much. He then began to tell me all the things he would do if he had half a mil in equity. He'd buy this car and that boat and the other motorcycle, etc., etc. I asked him why he wouldn't pay off his debt. He just sort of shrugged. I can't understand it, but I knew him long enough to accept it. We're all very different.

 

[Dash man]

We don’t flaunt it, our family has figured it thanks to DFIL who lives with us not being able to keep quiet. We had hosted a couple of family cruises and rented a large house in the Outer Banks, NC for a week’s family vacation, so some had figured it out. But they don’t ask or expect anything and are appreciative of what we do. Having two vacation homes gives it away to a few people at our church, when we tell them when we’re going away. Our Priest and the office manager see our giving and know from that.
The neighborhood we live in isn’t anything to give it away, but we’ve moved up from Hondas and Fords to BMW and MB. But there are others with luxury cars.
Nobody has ever commented to make us think they’ve figured it out or even care.
The kids we talked to last year about details, where to find things and such.

 

[Montecfo]

We do not discuss our net worth with anyone.

Everyone knows we are retired. None of our friends are. DW older sister retired this year, but I feel like their NW is not similar since they tapped SS right away. Some family members are barely getting by so no need to upset the apple cart.

Friends probably have some idea. But a lot of folks around here expect to retire with a pension. We are not pensioners so if they think that through it does add up to some money.

We are pretty stealth. We have a nice house but all our friends do. We drive much less expensive cars and keep them for longer. But we have always travelled far more than any of our friends. So if they pay attention they would know but we do not fill in any blanks.

 

[Kings over Queens]

Interesting discussion.

I've kept it under my hat for a long time, but as the discussion of FIRE has gained steam it's becoming more apparent. The kids know pretty much everything, and I hinted to my brother recently because he and my dad (they live together) were talking about the gyrations they needed to go through to finance replacement central air system. I grabbed my brother aside and told him to just order the replacement and I'd pay for it. (I recently found the blow that dough thread and have read Die with Zero).

We live in a nice house and have been mortgage free since 2015, but nobody knows that.

 

[Stormy Kromer]

We live so far under the radar we don't even show up. Fine with us. NW is approaching $9 million, we live in an old farmhouse with one bath and laundry in the basement. My truck is a 2012 and DW's car is a 2018.

We're happy as can be while everyone around us trying to live it up large.
Our investments are invisible to the world, except for my farm ( about 1/4 of our NW) which is public record. I earned that fair and square and nobody says anything.

Folks our age are Jockeying for position at the country club or lake home association.

We just take the dog for a walk, go fishing, garden and have a home cooked dinner listening to a Twins game or music on XM radio.

Life is good.

 

[Time2]

We're stealth, except for one of my breakfast buddies that I discuss investments with. He is also stealthy, I don't really know his amount and he doesn't know mine, but we each know the other is living well below their means.
He knows I bought my kids house and gave them a mortgage, I know he bought his son a house.

My home is worth about $275k inline or a little below the subdivision average price. Our newest vehicle is 2009, the oldest 1997.
At least one of my neighbors thinks we are struggling a little, he was talking about struggling financially, and then said, "well you know how it is". I just agreed. He probably thinks that, because my wife has a huge garden and grows food, he must think we need it. He also knows we lost our business 5 years ago do to hurricane Micheal. That was about the only way I was going to get the wife to retire! She got over not having the business pretty quickly.

 

[W2R]

Only a couple of my relatives are still alive, and they are doing as well financially as I am, or better.

Really Frank is my only close friend. We have been "going steady" for almost a quarter century. We have watched each other's financial situations go up and down over the years. Both of us know (and have seen) that wealth is evanescent and anything could happen.

As for the neighbors, they are older than we are and most have lived in their houses since they were built back in the 1960's. I suppose many are "old money" people. Definitely not the "nouveau riche" types. So who knows. We don't know any of them very well. Many have last names that are well known around here, but they don't flaunt their money if they have any. Neither do we.

Personally I think flaunting one's money to impress other people is kind of a younger person's game. Doesn't interest us, anyway.