Guilt about doing well financially

[spokey doke]

I think the OP's situation calls for feeling gratitude (and compassion), rather than guilt...a VERY different mindset

[BudgetSlasher]

My least favorite are the people that try to inflict guilt due to our situation.

People in worse positions love to toss this comment around... "Well, it must be nice."  That comment is intended to inflict shame or guilt for what we have.  I try to comment back like "It's just due to certain choices."  Then they scowl and walk away.

This is why we are quiet to all but our immediate family and a few people in similar situations to ourselves.

While many people outside of that know that we are saving, they have no idea of the rate or what are debts (or lack thereof) look like. If you are quiet about the details most people will simply paint their situation onto you.

[oldtoyota]

I never share details IRL, except with one person. It would be nice to talk about it with friends, but that is not a luxury I can risk. The only person I tell anything at all to has way more money than I do. She inherited at a young age. I had talked to her about my FIRE dream, so I mentioned when I was getting closer...but I didn't talk numbers or other specifics.

I find people who claim to be poor but they have multiple homes, etc. So I wonder if people are crying and complaining about things that are not a real and true problem. I know others who really are lower on the income chain, and they don't complain. So maybe this complaint of "I'm poor" is really just for the rich?

[FireLane]

I wrestle with this too. I'm doing well financially, better than most people I know, and it's uncomfortable to think about that when I see friends and family struggling to stay afloat.

Admittedly, in some cases, it's due to their own questionable decisions (took out huge loans for degrees with low earning potential, chronically disorganized and late on bills, buying unnecessary shit on credit - the usual).

But I also recognize that I've had a lot of privilege in my life, and some of the choices that worked out the best for me were just dumb luck, not anything I can take credit for. I know people who work a lot harder than me, at far more important jobs, and don't get paid anywhere near as much as I do. I can't help feeling some guilt about that.

I want to help, and on a few occasions I've tried to. But there's a thin line between giving useful advice and coming off as condescending or preachy, especially when you don't know all the details of their situation, so I usually err on the side of keeping quiet. Just giving people money is even more of a minefield, although I've also done that a few times.

Ultimately, the best thing you can do is to be a responsible steward of your wealth. I try to live simply and avoid wasteful consumption, to be helpful and generous to my friends, and to donate to worthwhile charities as a way of repaying the good fortune I've had. And it really helps to have this forum, because it's one of the few places I can talk about this stuff openly.

[chasesfish]

You shouldn't feel guilt, but you should feel empathy.

I remember one of my friends seemed financially strapped when they moved cross country for a project.  I know he's well compensated, but couldn't figure out why they were in such a rush for his wife to work with two small kids, cost of daycare, and the hellish commute in the area.  I had empathy for their situation, but not guilt.  It used to be slightly akward when my wife wasn't working, but she now owns the "I'm retired" and people laugh because they think she's joking (retired at 33 with a DVM).

That same friend moved back across the country and purchased a Tesla for $80,000.  I doubt he feels guilty driving that around while I'm in my 11 year old compact truck.

[Hargrove]

(Edited to remove rogue apostrophe's)

Lol! ... Wait... pun intended?

I tried to talk to a friend who is horrible with money. A few times, even. He views my "ability" with the stock market as a kind of voodoo. More than once, he has suggested just mirroring my trades (which is not at all the major source of my stock income - it's time and index funds). I try to tell him that while my play money has done very well, and who doesn't like to have picked x stock and gone up 65% in two years, it's for peanuts, because my real plan is just a big fat index fund that I add to blindly every month, never evaluate, never check market opinions on, never "buy low and sell high," and still they send me piles of dividends. His answer was mostly "well I don't have that kind of money." Uh. Right, ok.

We talked about houses once. I said I didn't like the idea of buying a house without a lot of money already growing, since the bank kind of owns your house even when you're almost done paying for it, until that last payment gets made. Also, houses don't necessarily appreciate very well, and add on a part-time job to your week. My rent is so advantageous that it doesn't make sense to buy a place just to make it mine or "force myself to save." He was, well, offended I would think of the bank as owning the house. Which, really, is an understandable emotional position when you spend every dollar, and getting a down payment to work on a house at all was a major achievement. No one wants to be told their achievements don't matter or are on an unhelpful scale, and that makes life-changing financial conversations really, really hard.

When it comes to guilt, there's no need to dwell on feeling bad. Guilt is just a signal you think you did something wrong. Think about what and why. For some, it's important to give back in some way after becoming successful. I think that's a great impulse. Carrying around "feeling bad" is neither useful nor fun.

[MrThatsDifferent]

I discovered MMM 1 year ago and talked about like I had just discovered gold. I was obsessed and told everyone and everyone but 1 person ignored me. They weren’t interested in reading, they didn’t feel the urgency, they didn’t want to confront their spending or they didn’t trust the advice. My one friend who did listen has made changes like I have and put together a plan for FIRE. He’s just accepted a much higher paying role, which he would have ignored because of the increased responsibility but we talked about it accelerating his FIRE plan and that was all he needed to hear. My own SO is a non-believer and we’re now managing finances that aren’t shared separately.  I don’t talk about MMM anymore because most people aren’t ready for it and they either prefer the illusion of wealth or they are stuck in the quicksand of poverty and they aren’t in the right place to do what needs to be done.

I won’t feel guilty when I achieve FI. I’ll say, I’m living the proof and if you’re curious how I did it, I’ll tell you.