Not to say that we don’t work, I have a masters from Harvard and spend my time busy, but it involves charity work and other non paid volunteer type activities or reviewing investments.

I have many friends and none of them are rich. I admit there are times when I hold my tongue about where I was on vacation, what I drive or things like that because I know people won’t be able to share in the experiences. I try to be cognizant of that fact.

A big issue for me is when it comes to vacations. I love to travel but none of my friends can afford to go or find the time. I usually help out my friends by covering the hotels rooms and maybe will transfer them some frequent flyer miles to help with the flight. I admit alot of this is just because I don’t want to travel alone.

Meeting new friends is the trickiest part. I try not to bring people over to my house when I first meet them because it can be a little much. It can feel like the Eddie Murphy character on Coming to America where I am trying to downplay it a little. I have seen the reaction and how people’s attitude can change when they think you are just like them to thinking you are some multi-millioniare. I tried living more plainly but I don’t think I should change my comfort level to acquiesce to those around me.

I grew up in a family that wasn’t necessarily poor, but unbalanced in a way. We had a big house, took frequent vacations, had a pool… but these things came at the expense of things like plentiful quality food, good clothing (we often shopped at Good Will), and working vehicles (we always were buying crappy used cars that constantly broke down). So it was kind of like… as long as our house was big and looked good, and we were able to “afford” yearly vacations… we probably had the appearance of being better off than we really were. The truth was my parents were always struggling with debt and fighting over money. Looking back, I would have gladly given up a lot of things in exchange for working cars and food and parents who weren’t always on the verge of divorce.

That being said, today I am grown and married and we own a house, both my husband and I having college degrees… it took a lot of college loans for me to get through.. my parents didn’t have a penny for college. My husband and I both worked after college, and my husband has moved through a number of different jobs. Currently, he works at a great job, so great in fact, that he keeps moving up the ladder and making more. Two years ago, it was enough that there was really no point in me working, and me, having always been attracted to the traditional wife stuff, was more than happy about this.. feeling that my dream of being a caretaker somehow had come true… despite my belief in college, and what I was told, insisting that the days of being a housewife were over… and that I had better accept the fact that women should work full time.

I have found however, that having money also has its challenges. Having grown up living paycheck to paycheck, and using credit cards, to, as my mother once said… “pay for things you can’t afford right now, but don’t mind paying for slowly over time,” – having enough money to cover everything and still having some left over is a very odd feeling for me.

It does affect family and friendships and I find we are constantly trying to “hide” how much we make. My father always told me growing up that “rich people were bad people, greedy, and didn’t know the value of hard work.” I wonder if he would say the same thing about me if he knew our finances now. We want to maintain our old friendships, but sometimes it becomes clear that our friends and family are uncomfortable. We buy new cars now, which seems to bother some of our friends and family.. who have made comments to us about not having bought used. Even though it is unsaid, it seems clear that the area and type of house we are planning on moving to is making our friends and family uncomfortable. Some of the comments have been less than positive. One comment being, “why would you want to move there… snobby people live there.

So I think it is hard. Even politics and the media have a lot of fun with wealthy people… often painting people with money in a negative light. I think this sometimes bleeds over onto my friends and family. I don’t know how they would feel about us if they really knew how much we made. Would they realize that not all wealthy people are bad, greedy, lazy? Or would they just assume the same about us, too, even though they’ve seen us struggle to get to the point we are at now? It seems like friends and family love to see you struggle to make it to the top, and offer endless encouragement to get there… but it almost seems as if they weren’t prepared for you to really make it, and were much more comfortable with the thought of you constantly struggling rather than finally being successful. Sometimes it’s almost like a survivors’ guilt. Sometimes I feel guilty, even though I know we only got here through struggle, sacrifice, and hard work.

You are what you eat…. in other words what im exposed to the most will reflect on my actions, mindset, etc…

Thanks for sharing in this post my friend

Todd Dowell

If anything it did teach me a lesson – I’m not very uncomfortable around the few friends who make less than me partially because I don’t complain like my friend did. I also hope that my other friends realize how hard I’ve worked to be making the money I make and that it’s not like someone handed it to me…..and what with student loans the money in my pocket at the end of the week is still near minimum wage