Are you low key about your wealth?

[Anonymous]

How I do move where all these low key people live? Where I live people make $300-400k and are very insecure and showy. Constantly trying to prove to others how well they are doing. We hate it and can’t wait to leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How I do move where all these low key people live? Where I live people make $300-400k and are very insecure and showy. Constantly trying to prove to others how well they are doing. We hate it and can’t wait to leave.

Maybe my DCUM-affinity is showing, but what does a 300-400K income person has to flaunt exactly? I don't even think that person can qualify for the mortgage of average SFH in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is wealthy?

Just to be clear, NW<$10M isn’t wealthy.

This.

Yeah, $10MM is the new millionaire. The movie, How to Marry a Millionaire Came out in 1953, which would be the equivalent of $11.55 million in 2024.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How I do move where all these low key people live? Where I live people make $300-400k and are very insecure and showy. Constantly trying to prove to others how well they are doing. We hate it and can’t wait to leave.

are you in the dc area? Where?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are at ~$7M NW in our early 50s. We feel secure and have no worries about money but we prefer to be flashy by giving large charitable donations because we love how that makes us feel. Just gave $2,000 to a local organization this past week and the director reached out personally to share her excitement. Great way to spend money when you have everything you need already.

I don't give a lot to charity myself but I admire those who do and I think being flashy about it can inspire others to give.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I worked at a financial company doing concierge for high net-worth clients. This included paying their bills for them (and their staff etc). This was about 20 years ago and you had to have at least $5 million invested with the company for this service. I had five clients. One (about $40 million in investments) very much lived an obvious lifestyle. One (about $15 million in investments) routinely had a credit card bill that included places / amounts similar to what I would spend (ie eating at chipotle, shopping at the Gap etc). The others were somewhere in between.

Was this service free?

DP but my experience with these kinds of firms is that the management fees are pretty comparable everywhere and quite high in the end (even though they get lower for each level of millions but it still comes out to a lot). So the firms compete with what services are included. Obviously management of the investments but then also some kind of wrap around stuff like advising on trusts, philanthropy etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at ~$7M NW in our early 50s. We feel secure and have no worries about money but we prefer to be flashy by giving large charitable donations because we love how that makes us feel. Just gave $2,000 to a local organization this past week and the director reached out personally to share her excitement. Great way to spend money when you have everything you need already.

I don't give a lot to charity myself but I admire those who do and I think being flashy about it can inspire others to give.

I do but it’s because we have a family foundation which is, in the end, as much of an estate tax work around as a desire to do good. Philanthropy is great but whenever people have a family foundation it may well be like Monopoly money to them. So curb your admiration until/unless you know more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How I do move where all these low key people live? Where I live people make $300-400k and are very insecure and showy. Constantly trying to prove to others how well they are doing. We hate it and can’t wait to leave.

Maybe my DCUM-affinity is showing, but what does a 300-400K income person has to flaunt exactly? I don't even think that person can qualify for the mortgage of average SFH in DC.

I think something else is showing here...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at ~$7M NW in our early 50s. We feel secure and have no worries about money but we prefer to be flashy by giving large charitable donations because we love how that makes us feel. Just gave $2,000 to a local organization this past week and the director reached out personally to share her excitement. Great way to spend money when you have everything you need already.

I don't give a lot to charity myself but I admire those who do and I think being flashy about it can inspire others to give.

I do but it’s because we have a family foundation which is, in the end, as much of an estate tax work around as a desire to do good. Philanthropy is great but whenever people have a family foundation it may well be like Monopoly money to them. So curb your admiration until/unless you know more.

DP
This is so obvious yet somehow never crossed my mind when I too had admiration for foundations

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at ~$7M NW in our early 50s. We feel secure and have no worries about money but we prefer to be flashy by giving large charitable donations because we love how that makes us feel. Just gave $2,000 to a local organization this past week and the director reached out personally to share her excitement. Great way to spend money when you have everything you need already.

I don't give a lot to charity myself but I admire those who do and I think being flashy about it can inspire others to give.

I do but it’s because we have a family foundation which is, in the end, as much of an estate tax work around as a desire to do good. Philanthropy is great but whenever people have a family foundation it may well be like Monopoly money to them. So curb your admiration until/unless you know more.

DP
This is so obvious yet somehow never crossed my mind when I too had admiration for foundations

Yeah, in fact we give less of our actual personal money to charity as a result (because we can use foundation funds). The money in the foundation was never really in our hot little hands. I’m sure some people load their family foundations with money they could otherwise spend, but a lot of the time not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do consider myself low-key in that I wear inexpensive clothes and keep them a long time, we have one car and it's older, and I don't do any cosmetic treatments or wear fancy jewelry. This year we renovated part of our house and that's going to show that we had some money. We also extended my spouse's business trip to Orlando into a Disney vacation. So we are obviously not poor, but I don't think people realize that we have as much as we do in retirement accounts or what we give to charity. I also own a condo that I rent out, but that never comes up in conversation. In terms of privacy/flaunting, I tend to try and match with whoever I am talking to. Like if someone says they went to Disney World, I will talk about my trip there. If instead I am talking to someone who is struggling to pay rent, I will talk about TV shows or a recipe I cooked or something else where we can relate.

I do the same, it depends with whom I talk to and can relate. At work, for some reason when everybody is complaining about the money and how is everything so expensive ( rents/mortgages, cars etc.), I nod and agree with them. Little do people know at work, that our house is paid off long time ago, we have great savings, no debt and I could technically quit job anytime.

[Anonymous]

We have a net worth of about $14 million (all earned) and will inherit $10 million or so at some point.

I wear Banana Republic clothes and sometimes Gap or Old Navy. My husband wears $30 t shirts only if I can find them on sale. He did have custom suits made on a trip to Thailand but he is semi retired and works from home so he wears old t shirts and shorts all day. He spends almost nothing on himself.

Our house is worth about $2.2 million but we do a lot of work ourselves (mostly because contractors do shoddy work). My husband fixes my 8 year old Mercedes SUV if there are issues.

Our kids are a different story. They go to public school but have private lessons for sports, tutors, expensive clothes and sports equipment. My 17 yr old has a new $45,000 SUV though we also use it sometimes. (Safety was a priority.)

So kids think my kids are rich but our friends don’t suspect we are! And while they are adorable and kind kids who don’t expect these things (or ask), I do think they might not understand how hard it is to earn a decent living. However, my 17 year old did say he feels bad that college costs so much so he wants to find a cheaper school. That made me sad. We’ve never mentioned that college is an issue or source of stress.

I suspect my husband and I will live relatively frugally forever buying used cars, clothes on sale and doing repairs ourselves. It’s just who we are.

My husband wants to leave most of our money to our kids. One has a degenerative illness and might struggle later in life. The other child will be fine but will get his share.

Money has eliminated that specific area of stress (which can be significant). It hasn’t made us happier or changed our friendships. Our friends know we aren’t poor but don’t know how comfortable we are. They were our friends when we earned very little.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a net worth of about $14 million (all earned) and will inherit $10 million or so at some point.

I wear Banana Republic clothes and sometimes Gap or Old Navy. My husband wears $30 t shirts only if I can find them on sale. He did have custom suits made on a trip to Thailand but he is semi retired and works from home so he wears old t shirts and shorts all day. He spends almost nothing on himself.

Our house is worth about $2.2 million but we do a lot of work ourselves (mostly because contractors do shoddy work). My husband fixes my 8 year old Mercedes SUV if there are issues.

Our kids are a different story. They go to public school but have private lessons for sports, tutors, expensive clothes and sports equipment. My 17 yr old has a new $45,000 SUV though we also use it sometimes. (Safety was a priority.)

So kids think my kids are rich but our friends don’t suspect we are! And while they are adorable and kind kids who don’t expect these things (or ask), I do think they might not understand how hard it is to earn a decent living. However, my 17 year old did say he feels bad that college costs so much so he wants to find a cheaper school. That made me sad. We’ve never mentioned that college is an issue or source of stress.

I suspect my husband and I will live relatively frugally forever buying used cars, clothes on sale and doing repairs ourselves. It’s just who we are.

My husband wants to leave most of our money to our kids. One has a degenerative illness and might struggle later in life. The other child will be fine but will get his share.

Money has eliminated that specific area of stress (which can be significant). It hasn’t made us happier or changed our friendships. Our friends know we aren’t poor but don’t know how comfortable we are. They were our friends when we earned very little.

You’re delusional. If I had friends as you describe, I’d assume they were worth $5-15m. Obviously a range but nobody is confused about your overall position.

[Anonymous]

Why does everyone feel the need to cosplay as being poor?

It's like the equivalent of a teenage girl acting dumb to meet boys, because she thinks that's what other teenage boys want.

No one cares if you have money, and you're holding your happiness back if you have a scarcity mindset with your millions.

If you have family who need extra aid, I get it. But most people on this board are like, "I can't possibly enjoy jet skis for myself because then my son wouldn't be able to buy jet skis." I think you'll both be able to buy the jet skis. Live bigger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does everyone feel the need to cosplay as being poor?

It's like the equivalent of a teenage girl acting dumb to meet boys, because she thinks that's what other teenage boys want.

No one cares if you have money, and you're holding your happiness back if you have a scarcity mindset with your millions.

If you have family who need extra aid, I get it. But most people on this board are like, "I can't possibly enjoy jet skis for myself because then my son wouldn't be able to buy jet skis." I think you'll both be able to buy the jet skis. Live bigger.

We would like to believe people don't care, but they do. People can easily become envious if they think you have money. They may start asking you for money, only want to be friends with you because you have money, look to steal from you, etc. There is a lot of danger in flaunting or showing off your money. Hence, why people who are used to having a lot of money are low key. Life is much easier when people don't know you have money.