r/wealth

So for context, met my wife 10 years ago. I was a cook, she was a business major. Her career path steered her towards $100k a year, I would make max $60k. I changed careers to an electrician, and we had to take in her family member, and was unable to work.

Union electrician in my city today makes $130k. We live in a lower cost state and rely solely on what I earn. Manage to buy a beater house for $255k, taking out a $200k loan. We’ve been scraping by for 5 years.

Mother’s Day I find out that her grandparents are going to give us her childhood home. $900k value, no mortgage, just $9k a year property tax. Now she’s comfortable going back to work, so I can devote whole paychecks to our mortgage and renovate.

This is cool, but I also found out that when the grandparents die, my wife will be the account holder for her grandparents financials, which amount to (what we can assume by family story) $1,250,000.

So in short, we went from low income, scraping by middle class, to eventually having gross $2,000,000 in the account.

I am a very proud person of my upbringing scraping by modestly, and I believe you get out what you put in. Tbh, I feel undeserving of the money, and will continue to drive used cars to work.

Anyone inherit a sum of money like this, and how did it change your life. Did you tell others? I don’t think I’ll tell many people, because I enjoy identifying as a blue collar, scrappy electrician who refuses to show up to a formal event if I can’t wear my jeans, blazer, and cowboy hat.

I wonder sometimes if there are rich folks who aren’t famous at all. It doesn’t really make sense to me, because usually money comes with connections or networks that open doors along the way. Whether you’re in business, property, or a CEO, you’re connected to other people.

But what about those who don’t have a big network? Could there be wealthy people who live lowkey, without many friends or connections? Like, imagine a trader who quietly makes money and lives peacefully without being in the spotlight. Do you think those “silent rich” actually exist?

These are for those with the Ferrari’s, multiple houses across the globe, your kids kids kids kids are set. Those who could retire and still collect interest and buy cars.

Why do you keep grinding? Why do you keep working?

I’m certainly not poor, but I do have a mortgage and bills. I do what I can where I can to get my house paid off quicker than 30 years while still making time for family.

My end goal is to be 100% debt free and my income pay my bills (at my humble “level”). My point is I want to not grind ASAP so I can cook, exercise, vacation before I’m 65 and decreped.

Those of you who could do this - right now - why haven’t you? Why chase all those extra “0’s”?

I’m just now starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together to see that you could save a lifetime’s worth of money and put it away into a tax advantaged account, but if you’re going to take a tax advantage, they’re not going to let you access those funds and stop working until you’re over 60… ETA: keyword: easily.

Same thing with health insurance. If you decide you don’t want to be someone else’s worker bee, you’re going to be hit with incredible healthcare costs until 65.

I find it fascinating that your health and your wealth is roped up until you’ve gotten to old age— and if you want to buck the system, you’re going to have to pay. Am I thinking about this wrong?

Sorry if that’s offensive, but I’m genuinely curious what wealthy men look for. Like what are you top 5 traits you like both physical and psychologically.

I have a theory that wealthier people tend to go for very thin women and lower income men like thick/BBL type women. Also since I have also achieved some substantial success so far as a woman in my 30s I’m curious if wealthy men prefer women that don’t have a mind for business and prefer to manage the home etc.

Edit to say- still no one can answer my questions directly and downvote me asking for clarification 🤦🏻‍♀️ these comments are making me lose faith in the male species

Wondering because I hear that most successful people have egos? Is that actually true from your experience?

There are some gaps in the article, like the growing number of graduates vs. people without a HS diploma which skews the distribution. But still, it seems like college is worth it for wealth building.

Edit:
TLDR for the non-readers: College graduates went from owning 50% of all US household wealth in 1989 to 76% in 2025.

Hi this is just a reality check as we want to ramp up our giving as we've gotten older and accumulated more assets. So the question is, for those who do, roughly how much do you give? (And no shade to those who don't.) Currently we are near retirement and have annual income of about $700k with about 20 M TNW, and give about 15k per year to various charities and political causes. Feels way low to me. Would love to get comparison #'s and also your thoughts on how you decide how much to give...

In 2009 study, researchers found while tracing brain activity that when people thought about their future selves, their brains reacted more like how they would think about another person (or a stranger) than like they would when thinking about themselves. The point was that your future self is a whole other person.

I now realize that “pay yourself first” is not referring to your current self and giving your current self fun money. It is referring to paying your future self. The moment you realize that, so many of your decisions change. To truly commit, you have to separate your current self from that money and realize that it is not “yours” to spend.

I swear I’ve tried every basic budgeting method at this point - spreadsheets, notes, even just tracking things in my head - and I still end up at the end of the month thinking, where did my money even go?

It’s not big purchases either. It’s all the small stuff that adds up: subscriptions I forget about, random food deliveries, impulse buys that feel harmless in the moment.

The frustrating part is I know I should be more consistent with tracking, but the second it starts to feel like work, I just stop doing it.

After a bunch of tools I used shut down, I had to find alternatives, and that’s when it clicked - the problem wasn’t that I didn’t have a system. It was that everything felt too manual and way too easy to ignore.

The only thing that’s actually helped so far is using an app that connects to my accounts and just shows how much I have left after bills, subscriptions, and savings.

Having that one you can spend this much number makes decisions so much easier without overthinking every little purchase.

It hasn’t magically fixed my habits, but it did get rid of that constant low-level stress of not really knowing where I stand.

How do you all handle this? Do you track everything manually, or just rely on automation/apps?

random thought about wealth, people always say “if i had more money everything would be better” but then you see people who already have a lot and still stressed or not satisfied, so not sure where the line is where money really makes a difference, like when does it stop solving problems and start not mattering as much, anyone who improved their income a lot did your life actually change or just different problems?

If you married into money, what is life like? what changed? how did you do it

There is no "easiest" way to build wealth

I was listening to rap music, and the song "put my money on the grave" by Drake got recommended to me...

And i was like damn, i just realized a lot of people in real life with money want to leave nothing to people in their circle

Why is that? (It's not few cases as far as i know, it's actually the majority)

At what net worth would you decide to self-insure LTC in the US?

My mom outlived her LTC policy which means she actually won that lottery, but in general with all of the limitations, costs, and possiblity we won't need it, we've so far decided to self-insure.

That said, we never ran the numbers. Has anyone here done it? 2 million, 5, 10? What is the right number?

Note that we'll have Social security, a small pension, and will generally need to live off savings/401k/securities.