Wow, a bit of discussion about my wife. Not my intention to incite that.
I may not completely agree with her, but can understand her perspective. She is entitled to it. Spoiled is a relative term. We don’t have nannies or servants. Some friends do, others don’t.
Please don’t call me rich, I work for a living. That is a word better used for people with far more capital than I have. I do well enough to buy what I can buy and provide for a large extended family, but that does not mean what most people think that it means. I know enough people with obscene amounts of money to be clear that I am not one of them.
If I have to work for my money rather than my money working for me to support my lifestyle, then by definition, I am not rich. I live below my means, but I have to work to support my means. That is not rich. If I loose my job, Houston we have a problem. After a few years of cushion I need to find a similar job to support my lifestyle or start slashing expenses.
A rich person does not need a job to support a lavish lifestyle. Donald Trump does not need his job, nor Bill Gates, nor many ibankers who lived below their means, nor trust fund kids, nor an inventor who sold his invention for $500 million. There are of course lots of folks who don’t need jobs, because they live modestly and saved the little they did make. They are rich by another definition of rich, financial freedom. Lots of people who make gobs of money are not financially independent because they live above their means. I don’t live above my means, but I am not financially independent either.
My wife may appear spoiled, and while she collects shoes and handbags like some people collect baseball cards and while she may be stay-at-home, she is not a lazy person, quite the contrary. Heck, I can be spoiled too. I have a wasteful obession with nice cars and watches. Nobody is perfect. She wants what she wants, simple as that. I am trying to give her that as long as it is within my boundries and means.
Neither my wife nor I were born into any kind of wealth. We grew up poor actually (not middle class, lower class). I am not ashamed of that, so have no problem saying it in an open public forum. Nothing builds character like the gift of struggle. I paid attention in school and did well and went to gobs and gobs of college and grad school paid for from work study and scholarships (not rich daddi) and then worked my butt off and tried to make smart decisions. It has worked out so far.
