I made the mistake of telling them (roughly) what I earn and it definitely has changed the way they interact with me. I get remarks about my 'wealth' and that I can easily drop $10K on something frivolous. I get other remarks that compare their hard job to my 'easy' job that has catering and long lunch breaks. No one asks how my mental state is. No one asks whether I take my work home with me at the end of the day. No one asks how many hours I put in. All they see is a family member that will drop a ton of cash on a nice vacation or a larger house.
Word of advice: don't tell your family how much you make either.
YMMV. I don't have any immediate family members who are at risk for monetary issues (luckily) and I have not had any issues with them knowing how much I earn. I'm also lucky that my family has been taught the value of a dollar since I was little. Not everyone has that advantage so I can definitely see why the default advice should be "don't tell them".
My dad's sisters and some cousins on the other hand...ya...they don't need to know.
For all the weird shit I put up with in my family, at least money doesn't really come up as an issue in that sense.
I suffer from ADD and depression(some anxiety). I drink too much too often as self-medication.
Yet somehow I'm grossing just over 300k this year not working for a FAANG company. It's incredibly easy for me to get a job and offers and has been for nearly a decade. I've received multiple offers after passing interviews quite hung over(hey, when your interviewing at a few companies interviews are bound to collide with drinks nights haha).
I consider my self extremely lucky that I'm somehow successful career wise despite myself. And it's a trope that people who are successful monetarily but have a lacking family situation look at those with a great family situation and believe them to be lucky. And vice versa.
Some people are able to quit smoking relatively "easy". Some people are not able to, or need to be exposed to the right method of quitting. Some never get exposed to the right method, and some try everything and still can't quit.
Sometimes I feel like we are all just riding out life experiencing something we have little control over. And what we believe we have control over, we don't actually have control over having that control. This outlook doesn't take away from trying to maximize my personal experience, but it makes me think more than twice before considering the difference between myself and others as "hard working" vs "lazy".
Just because it may be human nature to be jealous of those with success doesn't mean they weren't actually lucky. The best or worst luck anyone will ever get is probably the parents they were born to and the genes they inherited from them..
People with greater wealth don’t necessarily “deserve” it, whatever that means.
It could come down to your first job working out super well, paying well, and maybe you also happen to not find it extremely depressing. It helps if you're parents are still together and didn't have their own mental health issues, or less likely it helps of your family is so screwed that you had no other option than sacrificing yourself fully for money. That carries you forward. If however anything happened to impair that, you could be screwed.
Parents at their peak earned maybe $60k together. Most of life they earned less and our house we got when growing up was only $120k. (They didn’t have a house until they were in their 40’s btw)
They have no envy. They still pay for dinner if I visit. You know why? Cause they know how hard I worked for it - they saw how many years I spent grinding. They’re proud more than envious by a large margin. They’ll brag to their peer group while still conveying that it wasn’t them that made it happen.
I think if you worked hard for it. I think if it’s apparent how much effort went in and that you’re not a person who is callous to others then people will treat you with respect.
This is one area of my life that does differ from some. I’m very upfront with how much I’ve struggled to get where I am. Extremely upfront. No one has a single ounce of envy for my life. I’ve professed many times that if I end up being a billionaire - I’d never relive my life even knowing I’d be a billionaire later because no amount of money will make up for the pain, suffering, and agony that I had to endure. Even now, it’s not like things are fantastic. I still don’t have what I want because what I want requires 10x what I have for SFBA. If I moved to BFE then it’d be no problem but then I wouldn’t have a job or a hope of a social life.
If you have none in your family, consider yourself extremely blessed. Most of us are not so lucky.
Your advice is cynical and unhelpful.
I have a healthy relationship with my family where talking about wealth, money, and unexpected windfalls is not a problem. Or, conversely, talking about death, disease, unemployment, or breakups. Of course, a healthy non-toxic relationship needs years of hard work and maintenance.
The kind of work most people don't want to put in.
By all parties involved.
You only have control over what you put in, but if the other side isn't interested in playing by the same rules there's often nothing you can do.
I also have a good relationship with my family, but I didn't realize how good I had it until I went to college and met students who were on bad terms with their families, weren't on speaking terms, or were completely estranged. It shocked me at the time, but this is the reality for a lot of people.
The general idea I get is that the money of the extended family is considered accessible (at least to some extent) by the entire pool. This seems especially true for medical expenses, but also seems true for “investments”.
The boundaries seem really unhealthy to me, but I’m not part of that culture, so I don’t know how it really works (esp. for families with wealth disparities).
One “feel good” story I have heard was when a friend of mine flew from the US to the Philippines with a large sum of cash that paid for a life-saving surgery for grandmother (had to pay in advance).
I’d love to hear other stories.
The general idea is too complex for me to give a solid, single piece of advice on how to identify genuine vs not, but what I can tell you is this:
I recently became aware of a very real death of a close Philippine friend’s grandmother and I knew their family couldn’t afford a proper burial. So I requested to talk to the eldest of the family, offered to cover cost (less than the price of a new iPad) with their approval to do so, and for my name to not be included in the justification.
For context - I’ve personally been to the Philippines a few times and seen some of the ups and downs (white American since birth). Never sent that friend or their family anything before nor felt compelled to do this. I’m grateful for what I have in life and for those who have done good toward me, so simply paying it forward.
On the other hand, there are people like my father, who worked until he died because he didn't want to rely on his kids for support. He even got mad at me when I got his bank account number from my mom, and did a test wire transfer of $1000.
On the other hand, if your family is comfortable, this happens to you when you're 35 and want to retire and travel the world at least for a while, it's probably hard to deny that you had some sort of real financial windfall.
Now, it will presumably be obvious that you now are comfortably well off but, so long as you don't buy that penthouse suite in Manhattan, they don't need to know how well off you are.
This is also what young women just out of college, typically having played varsity sports, do after setting themselves up as a call girl working for a madam: They say they are working in consulting.
Specifically, the ecosystem. I test it for enjoyment purposes.
The contract was for 1/3 of the wages a person with that job would get, and zero benefits!
Thing is... for many people in my family it was still the most money they had ever seen, after I told my parents what my wages were, soon the entire family knew, and people started to treat me in weird ways, like making a tons of "jokes" asking money.
Also... what if they find out about it later and you never told them? Wouldn't they think that you are a selfish doosh?
As the GP mentioned, people, even family members will start treating you differently (nicer if you start giving them your money, worse if you don't). That's IMO a valid excuse why you didn't want to tell.
I never cease to be amazed at how terrified people commonly are of trivial confrontation and worthless opinions.
A life spent placating other people to live by their low value opinions, will be a life very poorly lived. Rather than spending the effort on fretting about their low value opinions, that effort should go into mentally reducing the incorrect value being placed on said opinions.
People twist themselves into grotesque knots living under the unreasonable expectations of others, even living under the fantay projection opinions of those people (thoughts/opinions they don't even know to be the case, just things they fear may be the case), even when they quietly don't care about the person/s.
The sister in this story for example, she can go right fuck off. This guy wins $55m and is terrified of his own shadow, can't even deal with the sister (who he doesn't like at all, has zero interest in speaking to) he's afraid will demand that he donate half his wealth to her church. It's unbelievable behavior.
So... you don't care if your family never talks to you again? I would.
Also, yea, I could see not sharing some of that wealth with your family could come off as bad as well.
It's not about paying them off. If you love someone, you want to help them and make them happy. Not doing so seems selfish and the opposite of that.
1) If you have wealth, you are obligated to share your wealth with your extended family.
2) If you make a decision to not share your wealth with your extended family, they have a right to be mad at you.
This must be a cultural thing because I can't wrap my head around it. In my culture, money and family relationships are completely separate things. Our family connections are based on staying in touch with each other and spending time with the ones who are worth your time and attention. Money doesn't enter into the relationship at all. In fact, I'm reasonably certain that if I were to offer money anyone in my family, they would be deeply offended.
> If you love someone, you want to help them and make them happy.
This is a fallacy: money does not solve problems and it does not make anyone happy. You'll figure that out on your own eventually, though.
For someone who keeps their word and is honest about their finances and asks for such-and-such, fine. For those who don't care for paying off the debt they have and always gets more, and you give them money, you're feeding their entitlement, and ultimately making no one happy.
Drawing down on a windfall should be a very serious decision, not something done casually. That money you're spending on pure consumption is not coming back, ever, so only use it for experiences and endeavors that will meaningfully improve the life of yourself or whoever you care about.
Those images of rock stars and athletes are fundamentally exploitative. The odds you will continue to make that kind of money going forward are tiny. The odds that you can re-make that kind of money without having to compromise your ideals are virtually nonexistent. Anyone who encourages you to spend it is not your friend.
You were lucky enough to get it the first time, if you blow it there might not be a next time. And I think in many cases the people who struggle their whole lives never learned that, which why they are down instead of OK. Get a little money it goes to steak or AC or a pool, or something else with additional lifetime costs. It would never go into preventative maintenance that actually saves you money later on.
I'm doing okay but I worked for what I have. I'm pretty financially savvy compared to the median person and even /I/ can't say with 100% certainty that if I ran into $55 mil somehow that I would be able to save/invest it all responsibly.
And what car did you buy?
I suppose having everyone treat you differently is a downside, but surely having the money is better than not?
I didn't tell any of my friends, but did mistakenly tell one of my parents, who then felt it necessary to share this information with the rest of my family.
If you make a bunch of money: I would highly recommend not telling people. The will treat you differently (not in a good way).