I recently went adventuring with some friends. As we were sitting in a hot spring at the end of a long day spent rock climbing in a national park (because we’re like biscotti: glamorous and crunchy), we started talking about money. My favorite topic!
None of these particular friends know about this blog. They don’t know I research money stuff and answer questions about personal finance for fun. So, in the tradition of thirsty voyeurs everywhere, I sat back to listen as my friends talked about negotiating higher salaries and faking it till you make it and—wait, hiring a maid? Ok, so there were clearly some differences in perspective. We’ll come back to that.
One of my friends proudly revealed that she is now making $130k a year at her new job. Babies, I am thrilled for her. She works super damn hard and she’s gifted and brilliant. But what happened next gave me pause.
“Your husband’s an art director, right? So he must be making pretty good money too by now,” I asked.
“Oh no. He only makes $70k a year. And he has student loans,” she answered, sincerely.
That response really took me back for a moment. Because fam… she was describing me exactly. I also make about $70k a year (at two whole jobs). And I also started my career with student loans. Yet I don’t feel like what I have is an “only.”
As a matter of fact, I feel filthy fucking rich.
Times have changed, but the memories remain
I know my friend didn’t mean what she said dismissively. If anything, she may have been trying to downplay her immediate family’s good fortune out of a sense of decorum. But I think it’s an interesting perspective to examine.
We’ve talked about the subjectivity of wealth before. In that piece, I was writing about a time in my life when I made $30k and was still frantically paying off student loans while trying to beat my bills into submission through sheer force of will. And I resented anyone who shrugged off my money problems like there was a handy Get Out of Jail Free card at my disposal.
That was a different time. Since then I’ve paid off my student loans in half the scheduled time, fully funded my various retirement accounts, started investing outside of retirement, bought a home, and paid for a car.
The desperation and resentment I used to feel about reaching monetary goals—nay, just paying my bills—has been replaced by an all-encompassing sense of security.
But I remember how it used to be. With vivid clarity, I recall how utterly my life would have been changed, improved by an additional $5k a year. I remember how furious it made me when people ignorantly suggested that salaries twice as high as mine were poverty wages.
Because I was making it work. And I was making it work with the knowledge that there were those who make it work on even less than I had. It’s a humbling, sobering thing, the understanding of just how people make it work on significantly less money than I make every year.
It all came flooding back in a very visceral, emotional way when my friend said her husband “only” made $70k a year. Is what I have now an “only?”
Controlling my personal narrative
I’m now looking at the subjectivity of wealth from the other side. And I had to remind myself of this to avoid lashing out at my splendid, well-meaning, golden desert mermaid of a friend. Because it doesn’t matter what she or anyone else thinks! At this stage in my #personalfinancialjourney, all that matters is my mindset.
I try to control as much as I can about the amount of money I spend and the amount of money I make. And I train others to seek that greater level of control too, because I think it’s empowering and rewarding. As much as I wish I could, I’m never fully in control of that. However, I am capable of controlling the narrative for myself.
And my narrative dictates that I am not only not “only,” but I feel filthy fucking rich. Like… filthy fucking rich. Here’s why:
I have enough
I have all the money I need, plus some extra. Do you realize how freeing that is? I’ll say it again: I HAVE ALL THE MONEY I NEED PLUS SOME EXTRA.
What unbelievable luxury! What utter opulence! The treat-yo-selfness of this state of being fills me with delirious comfort and satisfaction. I’m basically the love child of Bruce Wayne and a Louis Vuitton dog camisole!
For I have enough.
I have an emergency fund
My emergency fund is nice and fat, which means that when an emergency rears its ugly head, I can handle it without going tits-up.
Remember that time last year when I burned the everloving shitfuck out of my hand and arm? BOOM: EMERGENCY FUNDED. My backyard fence blew down in a windstorm. EMERGENCY FUNDED. My dog needed urgent veterinary care. EMERGENCY FUNDED. I, uh, really wanted some bacon. EMERGENCY FUN-DED.
Many households can’t cope easily with unexpected, large expenses. Lots of people could be financially crippled for months or even years by the wrong emergency at the wrong time. So the fact that I’m able to shrug them off makes me feel indisputably posh af.
I can afford to help
More than once now, I’ve loaned a friend an advance on her paycheck so she could pay her rent on time. I drove a friend to urgent care to get stitches after a terrifying breakfast smoothie accident, and when she didn’t have enough money in her account to cover the bill, I paid it.
Psychological studies demonstrate that wealthy people tend to be less generous with charitable donations than poorer people. The flip side of this is that most poor people probably want to give more than they already do.
I have achieved a level of financial security that allows me to help others without hurting myself. More than anything else on this list, that makes me feel rich.
I can afford most of the things that I want
As the great and glamorous Paula Pant says: “You can afford anything… just not everything.” And I feel that in the best possible way at this point in life.
When I want something, I can afford to buy it, often without the need to save up for very long.
Granted, I don’t think I want much. At least, I’m not one for stuff most of the time. I don’t have a passion for fast cars. Yet I will lustily imbibe the finest of low-range box wines. I don’t say that to virtue signal; one thing isn’t better that the other. There are some people whose fundamental driving passions are expensive. In many ways, I’m lucky that my passions are cheap—or that I’ve been able to successfully wrestle them into submissive cheapness.
But that rock climbing trip to a national park? It’s something I sure as hell wanted, despite being outside the scope of my basic necessities. And I could easily afford it.
Basically, somebody get me on Cribs because that’s the level of wealth I’m rolling in over here.
My bills are all on auto-pay
Once upon a time I had to carefully schedule my bills so that my account was never overdrawn. Now all of my bills are set up to be automatically paid. I don’t have to sweat buckets wondering if my insurance will lapse or my water will be shut off because of precarious bill-juggling.
When bills are forgotten or paid from the wrong account at the wrong time, fees accumulate. And fees make it that much harder to dig out of a financial hole—especially if those fees are from the state or a court. Plus, the act of actively shuffling and managing money is stressful and time-consuming. Calling someone to beg them not to cash the check you sent them is a formative humiliation for a lot of people. It ain’t fun.
Now the bills get paid and I go about my day without noticing. I don’t notice or care about the money leaving my account. How fucking decadent is that shit?! In comparison, that’s Scrooge McDuck levels of opulence!
I save steadily and easily
You know what else is automated? My savings and investments.
People often set aside saving and investing for “someday.” To actually start doing it, you need a confluence of stability, focus, and financial literacy.
And even if you have those three things, you also need a healthy period of good luck. If your apartment catches fire, or you get sick, or you break up with your live-in romantic partner, you could be back to square one despite the best intentions.
I have multiple savings, investment, and retirement accounts, all with different purposes. Just the very fact of having enough money socked away to warrant multiple accounts speaks of absurd levels of wealth. Guys, that’s so much money.
I own my car outright
I don’t have a car payment! Do you realize how fucking liberating that shit is? I bought the damn thing cheap and had it paid off in two fucking years. I’m rolling around town in a vehicle I fully own like
Oh yeah, and if you want to know how I pulled off that action, I wrote all about it here:
The personal finance mediasphere loves to shit on cars. And not needing a car is awesome. But we don’t talk enough about how controlling your own reliable method of transportation is an under-appreciated major life stabilizer. When you’re at the mercy of Lyfting through traffic, bikes that drench you in bad weather, and bus schedules that STRAIGHT UP LIE—it becomes a lot harder to be the reliable person you want to be.
Student loans: managed
I don’t need to tell y’all that student loans are a crushing millstone around the neck of every single generation in America right now. Student loan debt is among the few kinds of debt that can’t easily be discharged (or “got the fuck rid of”) in bankruptcy.
Despite the absurd costs, a four-year degree requirement guards the gates of most stable career paths like a monstrous, classist Cerberus. Nine out of every ten new jobs are going to someone with a college degree. The debt crisis grows on and on.
I’m lucky. I graduated with $28,000 in loans, which is below the current average of $38,000. My industry wasn’t exactly tiptoeing through the daffodils during the Great Recession, but we also weren’t as pummeled as others. The result is that I paid my student loans off years ago. This one event, more than anything else, changed my financial life.
It was like suddenly getting a massive raise without having to ask for it—without the negotiating, justifying, pleading, and awkward boss confrontations! I just sent in that last payment and suddenly more of my money was truly mine again.
Coins may jingle, children, but paper folds soooo nicely.
I feel rich af…
For all of these reasons, I am filthy fucking rich. And I “only” make $70,000 a year at two jobs.
I’m a fucking baller, you guys! Watch me pay my bills like it ain’t no thang! You need $20 for gas this week? I got you, friend! Fender bender? Check out how I pay that shit from my thicc emergency fund! (Is this proper use of “thicc”? Because in addition to being rich I am also deeply, deeply old.)
“Rich” is not a dollar amount to me. It’s a practical function. I have enough and then some. Therefore, I’m rich. And admitting that, embracing that, has opened me up to both satisfaction and generosity in a way I couldn’t before I was rich.
Taking stock of my advantages, assessing how my personal finances have improved over the years has done wonders for my outlook on the present and the future. My friend’s perspective on her husband’s income definitely shook me for a hot second! But other people’s subjective idea of wealth doesn’t have to have any bearing whatsoever on me.
After all, what do I care? I’m hella rich, bitches!
… but maybe what I really am is “middle class”?
The middle class! I have heard the Mystics speak of it! It was in the Before Times: before the coming of the Skeksis and the sundering of the Crystal.
Looking back on all the benchmarks that make me feel rich, I’m struck by how eminently reasonable they are. Humane, even.
How low have my expectations fallen that a comfortable, modest lifestyle feels so decadent? That visiting national parks (A THING I PARTIALLY OWN, AS A TAX-PAYING CITIZEN, BALD EAGLE SCREEEEECH) feels luxurious? That having a lifestyle that can withstand an injury, or a major repair bill, feels downright elite?
My state of richness is entirely internal, rather than based on social comparison. I’m not rich in comparison to Beyoncé, hallowed be her name. I’m not rich next to Warren Buffett, though I have mad respect for his game. I certainly do not have Jeff Bezos money, an amount so bloated and disgusting it manifests pitchforks and torches into my hands. And though I may not even be rich compared to my friend who makes $130k a year, both of us can meet all of our needs and wants.
I’ve been dancing around a point, but here it is: listening to rich people refer to themselves as “middle class” makes my skin crawl. I once nannied for a millionaire with a heated koi pond in his house’s courtyard who told my husband, “Not bad for a middle class family, eh?” It made me want to break things.
Yet I cannot deny that everything that makes me feel rich, all the comfort and security I have achieved at my level of wealth… doesn’t seem unreasonable. I don’t actually believe that an emergency fund and the ability to automate one’s bills denotes staggering luxury. These things are normal. Or they damn well should be, anyway.
I feel rich, but I wish I felt middle class. I wish my lifestyle were more common, that none of what makes me feel rich were out of the ordinary for ordinary people. Yet it is.