People are obsessed with portraying themselves as someone they are not.
With 80% of car owners not able to afford their vehicles and 87% of Americans in some sort of âtoxic debtâ e.g. luxury good or car loans as the most common forms, following deceptive marketing tactics of luxury and appeal are dangerous and will come back to haunt consumers.
Whenever you indicate to people you have more than you want to provide or really have, you put yourself in jeopardy.
Opportunities vanish, you become distasteful to others, people expect more from you causing damaged relationships and spurring lies.
Letâs get the elephant out of the room. Money will always be a taboo in certain situations and should be.
Privacy and anonymity around our financial situations should be kept but learning about personal finance shouldnât.
Although majority of the world would rather portray money they donât have to people they donât know, advertising yourself, making others jealous of you and showing off your âfakeâ worth is pointless.
Itâs fascinating how others will go out of their way into debt and put their financial life in jeopardy to impress people they donât know. Even hinting how much you paid for something to your close-knit community can make others reliant on you and hurt your financial cushion.
It all adds up overtime.
Purely Obsessed
If someone could tell me the point of why people prioritize attention/fame over security, I would be curious to know why.
It drains your energy, relationships and bank accounts. Everything becomes fake including the individual when you spend more than you have for otherâs approval.
From social media to luxury consumerism, we are so warped and obsessed with the wrong things as society programmed to believe perception = reality.
Realistically, letâs say you are a pragmatic billionaire who more often than not doesnât publicly wear the bling, the brands and the logos as much as a middle-class consumer typically and sadly would. The real rich are truly confident that they donât need to show it offâââfor the most part. Granted, since they hold majority of the wealth in the world, itâs hard not to show off a half-a-billion dollar yacht sometimes so when they can, they preserve and hide the rest of their money elsewhere and stay humble.
My hypothesis as to why those who cannot afford buy the things the wealthy ignore is due to the fact that the top 1% donât bother showing off since everyone already knows they can afford the solar system so thereâs no point to further impress with materialistic possessions. By being alive they are already a valuable possession and the rest of the population craves that.
People always feel the need to prove something because wearing what we want and being comfortable within our $10 Target slippers and Gap sweatshirt apparently isnât enough without Prada and jewels.
Is it that people are so afraid of what strangers think of them?
Just a hypothesis. Feel free to argue. After all, that means my work is gaining attention.
Since the adoption of the new fashion era circa the dot-com bubble in the 2000s when Silicon Valley modernized the hoodie and New Balance dad shoe, the wealthy have focused less on looks and now on the future, experiences and investments, some of which I believe are the key pillars of a fruitful life while the lower and middle class are adopting 18th century victorian rich over-the-top financially desperate style.
All in all, the wealthy crave security, the rich crave image and the poor crave attention.
Why Showing More Is Dangerous
Discussing finances as a family is a staple and correlated with higher net worth since arguably it is one of the key ways to stay rich. Being comfortable discussing limits of what to spend and where money is flowing from is essential to not fall off track. Without transparency, itâs difficult to plan for the future yet that doesnât mean it should be a part of everything, especially what the outside world sees.
The more you attain, no matter if it was through pure hard work and grind coming from nothing and rising the ranks or pure inheritance from the mom and dad bank, people will always criticize those who have more than them simply due to jealousy. Iâve witnessed a lot of broken relationships due to money, status, praise and over emphasis on what one can afford.
Put yourself in the top 1%âs shoes and you would get criticized as well no matter how gracious of a philanthropist you are. These people are chastised and ridiculed because they are the main media moguls that we mainly see. We want to become who we arenât and own what others have which ruins our relationship with ourselves, family and breaks the bond of gratefulness.
Keeping your mouth shut will benefit you more than you think.
Thereâs no reason to tell someone how much you can spend/risk/lose except for the financial accountant, your spouse, children and broker.
Keep It Down
This new wave of stealth wealth is in full-force these days. People have gotten tired of debt and impressing others. Luckily, this challenging yet rewarding lifestyle offers countless benefits that outweigh the cons. Living a stealth wealth lifestyle not only indicates someone is not self-centered, but they care about other things that typically provide more impact and value such as increasing the attention and time spent on making better decisions to move the world than decide what outfit they will choose.
There are a multitude of bonuses to living a frugal lifestyle. They are seen as humble, grounded, low-key, empathetic and acknowledge how others will feel when they are around them because after a while, having an acquaintance only for their money is shallow and wonât last long. Lastly, you are seen as grateful, appreciative, focused, more intellectual and of course, safer mentally and physically from the press, thefts, and your 200m followers.
First impressions matter and paying for dinner for 4 are important but besides that, hide that wealth before people beg for it.
Family vs. the Rest Perspective
The more you portray, the more people assume you are able to donate, give, provide, and help others which usually comes in lump sum payments. People expect more from you and particularly with family members being the closest and easy, you are their first target.
P2P lending at its finest.
Sharing personal financial details and keeping tabs amongst spouse and children is imperative to live a healthy financially free responsible life. Being aware of how much the family is bringing in, where the assets are located, immediate contacts, will and trust details, etc. shouldnât and arenât necessary to be shared outside of immediate family.
Why does Facebook or your cousin need to know your median salary or how much you paid for that plane ticket?
If you reveal it, it only spirals down-hill since everyone will have some sort of opinion and start judging.
For example, if you are known for lending money to Aunt Sally, when she wants a new truck, the first person she asks is you. Of course, you donât have to say yes but that already will leave a knot in the relationship. Money complicates things.
Or
Your friend asks to go to a fancy restaurant after your trip to Hawaii. You decline and say you want to limit the spending after the big excursion. Realistically no matter how expensive the restaurant may be, thereâs a 99% chance it wonât be more than a Hawaii round-trip all-inclusive 10-day island resort but to your friend, she has different priorities and beliefs assuming an up-scale dinner wonât make a dent in your finances when it realistically could if you had a strategic budget and planned on holding off unnecessary/unessential spending after Hawaii.
With our differing priorities and tastes, no matter what decision you make, someone will argue so donât bother just say no or yes. If you have to explain, do it without mentioning what you have to make your life easier!
Everyone has their own say but what Iâve witnessed from privileged family members, colleagues, friends and myself, not disclosing what youâve paid or your money moves, besides investments in certain cases, will keep you better off.
Amongst outside family members who may be greedy and spread rumors, your finances wonât be personal no longer.
For your safety and as the golden rule, you can always share less since you canât take back what you said.
You do you but for us, we donât disclose much and that has helped us in all facets of life. We are discrete and careful about what we say. Live the frugal minimalist stealth wealth lifestyle to curate real relationships. I guarantee itâs more rewarding.
The less you say, the less people expect and want of you which in this case is good for you!
Lending can get tricky.
Family members rely on each other too much which can be detrimental to financial success. With women being a part of the 80% of widowers in the world, this means women need to pick up the slack and get caught up to speed with their finances and what their husband has allocated, left and been doing this whole time.
Money is taboo in the places where it serves as an advantage.
Overall, the less you share in life in terms of your personal life the better. If you feel eager to share how much you spent on a plane ticket to see your sister, go for it but for me, Iâm keeping that private because less assumptions, impressions and rumors, the better.
When you get to the point of not feeling the urge to impress or say youâre wealthy, youâve achieved what money cannot buy.
Money is a taboo and should be for certain reasons because rumors, expectations, and wants spread like wild fire.
People are chatty and itâs okay to reveal less as long as you are open with it amongst the ones you trust and love.