Personal Finance Advice

Read “Millionaire Next Door.” Excluding the fabulously wealthy, most of the people you think are rich have surprisingly little net worth. The best way to become rich is to not worry about how wealthy everyone else appears to be.

The rich who are obnoxious are only the ones most representative to you. Most rich people might not be obnoxious, it’s just the obnoxious ones we pay attention to. The same statement could be made about any group any where: men, women, certain racial, religious or political groups, activists, scientists, Peace Corps members, etc.

In order to get money flowing our way, we need to add value to other people (who got the money)

Let’s avoid the stereotypes. Sure, there are those who act obnoxious, but those that do are generally insecure and are trying to make themselves feel better. The truly rich are not going to parade around and flaunt it; they worked too hard for it.

I can definitely see where you’d get this idea–I tend to think the same way. Where I live, there are an incredible number of people with multi-million dollar homes and expensive cars. It seems like pretty much everyone who drives a BMW or a Mercedes out here drives in a predictably aggressive and excessively fast. I also work in a field where plenty of our clients are rich spoiled brats who expect people to bend over backwards for them just because they have lots of money (like I care–I’m never going to see any of it!). I won’t pretend like these people don’t make me mad and don’t make me think that all rich people are arrogant jerks with a never-ending sense of entitlement.

That being said, I have also read The Millionaire Next Door. It gives a lot of information about the lifestyles of the rich and you’d be surprised to learn that statistically, the most common car driven by a rich person is an old pickup truck, they tend to live in the same house their whole lives, and other surprisingly modest habits. And while I am not wealthy by any means, I have a lot of money for someone my age, and frankly, I don’t want anyone to know about it! Like Fern said, I worked too hard for it. I would rather blend in and not have anyone think I have anything to steal or take advantage of.

So, I think it is true that some rich people are obnoxious, but plenty of others manage to remain surprisingly pleasant and humble no matter how much money they have. Unfortunately, we don’t know about those people, because they aren’t shoving their humility in our faces. Another book, The Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker, helped me to tame some of my negative thinking about rich people. Maybe it will help you, too.

I agree with another poster, that’s its not necessarily the ones who are wealthy who act like that.

I’ve seen it with people who like to create an image of wealth even though their wealth is just about things that are on credit.

People who feel inferior act like that whether poor or rich.

I’ve seen people who aren’t well-to-do, but you would not know it because they know who they are and they are comfortable in their own skin and where they are in life.

Many wealthy people don’t trust either because they never know who their real friends are and they are the first that everyone goes to when they need money. So, it could be that they exhibit a bit of self-protectionism which could be misunderstood as something else.

I have also sometimes wondered whether you have to be very self-centered to achieve difficult goals. For example, a lot of the best people in ballroom dance class only dance with the good people and are always checking out their form in a mirror. One of my favorite piano players practices at all hours with no regard for whether his roommates are home or sick of the song he’s working on, etc.

Many of the ways to make a big pile of money sound pretty slimy to me. For example, you get lots of people to work for you and take more than your share of the profits. Use insider information to gain an unfair advantage in stock trading or real estate acquisition. Spam millions of people to get money from hundreds of suckers.

However, depending on how you define rich, I do think you can get to be quite well off without becoming a scumbag. (Similarly, I think you can also become a good dancer and a good piano player, though it might take a bit more strategizing or work.)

I’m not sure what you mean by flaunting wealth. But I do get the idea that the people driving expensive cars and wearing expensive watches, etc., are the ones who are trying to look rich, but they aren’t necessarily the same ones who actually are rich. It is really shocking how much debt some people are in.

Similarly, some people spend way more than average money on some things by scrimping on other things. If a person drives a fancy car, they might live in a tiny house on an iffy side of town. If she has fancy jewelry, all her clothes may come from thrift stores.

The funny thing is, it seems as though people who want to LOOK rich are the ones who are obnoxious. I live in San francisco. Generally when I see an older model luxury car with flashy chrome rims, driven by people my age (mid 20s) its safe to assume that the car was purchased on credit. The real rich people, even if they do drive a nice car, generally buy new ones and they are kind of low key about it.

But its true that most rich people do not appear to be rich. Society has painted a portrait for “rich” which includes bentleys, jewelry and suits whereas those items are actually wealth killers. I know of a man locally who is worth, I would guess 20-30mil. He simply does not look rich or flashy, yet his rental income alone from real estate is over 800K a year.

Think about it. If you were truly rich, as in very very wealthy, why would you want to draw extra attention to yourself?

From everything that I’ve heard, Warren Buffett is a nice, self deprecating man, who happens to be the world’s richest man.

I support #2′s opinion.

I don’t think all rich people are obnoxious. Mayb they were already obnoxious at the start, with or without the money.

Some other factors that affect how people could be:
-how they made their money
-are they the “new rich” or “old rich”
-were they rich/poor when they were small/young and how they were treated by the rich

I think a lot of people who create wealth, don’t just have it handed down to them, definitely have a different personality. They’re ambitious, driven, and money-hungry. They have to make a name for themselves and I guess a lot of times that means being a bit obnoxious, or outspoken. A very close friend of mine’s father is all of the above mentioned. He’s very flashy and loves people to know he’s loaded, so people do. But then there are the undercover rich people who drive a 92 Toyota Camry who are probably the most pleasant, humble people you could know.

Whenever I get my shoes re-soled, I think, “yay, I’m just like those people in ‘The Millionaire Next Door’ — they do it too!”

Well, in my opinion, there is a link between types of personality and wealth. In fact, I find reasonable to think that people who know how to show they are able to set up an enterprise, or a bussiness plan, use to get rich.