7 ms·

Not that much, but I did make a ton of money in crypto. Similar thing: bought a house, also bought myself a nice car. I didn't tell any of my friends, but did

Not that much, but I did make a ton of money in crypto. Similar thing: bought a house, also bought myself a nice car. I didn't tell any of my friends, but did mistakenly tell one of my parents, who then felt it necessary to share this information with the rest of my family. If you make a bunch of money: I would highly recommend not telling people. The will treat you differently (not in a good way).

ghaff 5y ago
It probably depends where you are in life, how much money, your relationship to family, how comfortable they are, etc. Certainly seemed like the right call in this case. On the other hand, if your family is comfortable, this happens to you when you're 35 and want to retire and travel the world at least for a while, it's probably hard to deny that you had some sort of real financial windfall.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Say you became a consultant.
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    "I'm an outside consultant to beach resorts and other interesting places."
    - MattGaiser 5y ago
      I work on globally scalable and extremely complex systems. Specifically, the ecosystem. I test it for enjoyment purposes.
    - ineedasername 5y ago
      A professional reviewer for a travel guide so prestigious it isn't even published and only has a single customer.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    In technology or really professional fields more broadly, saying you're a consultant is probably the best way to obfuscate a lot of travel, sort of vague job duties, etc. especially with friends and family who never really understood what you were paid for anyway. Now, it will presumably be obvious that you now are comfortably well off but, so long as you don't buy that penthouse suite in Manhattan, they don't need to know how well off you are.
    - TMWNN 5y ago
      >In technology or really professional fields more broadly, saying you're a consultant is probably the best way to obfuscate a lot of travel, sort of vague job duties, etc. especially with friends and family who never really understood what you were paid for anyway. This is also what young women just out of college, typically having played varsity sports, do after setting themselves up as a call girl working for a madam: They say they are working in consulting.
  - hinkley 5y ago
    What am I consulting on? My girlfriend wanted to know what the best crème brûlée is in Paris. It took weeks of research and user studies.
- garmaine 5y ago
  Sure, but you still don’t say anything.
jkereako 5y ago
I’ve wondered about this: when someone comes into a windfall and their loved ones see them differently, are they really different or is the person seeing them exactly as they are?
- hanniabu 5y ago
  Best to not tell them and let them decide.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Most people don't even understand the notion of a random windfall, financially. It's something you should just put in the bank and literally forget about, unless you have high-interest debt to pay off or the like. Drawing down on a windfall should be a very serious decision, not something done casually. That money you're spending on pure consumption is not coming back, ever, so only use it for experiences and endeavors that will meaningfully improve the life of yourself or whoever you care about.
  - hinkley 5y ago
    We didn’t have a lot when I was a kid so I didn’t understand this when I was suddenly making more than my dad. We ran up huge debts and it took a couple years of hard work and heavy discipline to pay it all off, then a couple more to be anywhere where we thought the money should make us feel like. Those images of rock stars and athletes are fundamentally exploitative. The odds you will continue to make that kind of money going forward are tiny. The odds that you can re-make that kind of money without having to compromise your ideals are virtually nonexistent. Anyone who encourages you to spend it is not your friend. You were lucky enough to get it the first time, if you blow it there might not be a next time. And I think in many cases the people who struggle their whole lives never learned that, which why they are down instead of OK. Get a little money it goes to steak or AC or a pool, or something else with additional lifetime costs. It would never go into preventative maintenance that actually saves you money later on.
  - bityard 5y ago
    /Should/ be yes, but we repeatedly see people who come into a windfall blow it all almost immediately on fancy cars and vacations and end up worse off than when they started. (See: professional athletes.) I'm doing okay but I worked for what I have. I'm pretty financially savvy compared to the median person and even /I/ can't say with 100% certainty that if I ran into $55 mil somehow that I would be able to save/invest it all responsibly.
whycombagator 5y ago
How much is a ton? (ballpark) And what car did you buy? I suppose having everyone treat you differently is a downside, but surely having the money is better than not?
bostonsre 5y ago
What if they are struggling with money issues and you want to help them? Or what if they are struggling with money issues in silence and you don't know about it? Also... what if they find out about it later and you never told them? Wouldn't they think that you are a selfish doosh?
- takeda 5y ago
  You just help them without saying you got $55M. As the GP mentioned, people, even family members will start treating you differently (nicer if you start giving them your money, worse if you don't). That's IMO a valid excuse why you didn't want to tell.
- theandrewbailey 5y ago
  What if their money issues are their own doing (they live way above their means)? If you give them money, you're an enabler.
  - DamnYuppie 5y ago
    Not sure why this is getting down voted. Most people who have money problems have them because of their own behaviors. I agree giving money to someone who is bad with money doesn't really help them it only wastes your money.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    What if they're not? It seems like the type of thing that requires individual judgement instead of a flat rule.
  - bostonsre 5y ago
    As long as you aren't giving them money to piss away on drugs or something similar, so what? You would give your family and/or friends an easier and happier life.
    - theandrewbailey 5y ago
      Maybe, but be careful. It doesn't have to be drugs. You can cover their food and some of their house payment, because they're broke, but they bought a new boat (or similar expensive item) anyways. Surely, they can't ask their rich relative for too many vacations, right? Or vacation houses? For someone who keeps their word and is honest about their finances and asks for such-and-such, fine. For those who don't care for paying off the debt they have and always gets more, and you give them money, you're feeding their entitlement, and ultimately making no one happy.
speeder 5y ago
When I was right out of college, I got a contract. The contract was for 1/3 of the wages a person with that job would get, and zero benefits! Thing is... for many people in my family it was still the most money they had ever seen, after I told my parents what my wages were, soon the entire family knew, and people started to treat me in weird ways, like making a tons of "jokes" asking money.
hncurious 5y ago
What was your experience? How did they treat you differently once they found out?
TheMerovingian 5y ago
I don't think you need to win the lottery to be in this situation. Imagine having a cushy job in a FAANG company, where your base salary is probably more than what your parents make combined. It is in my case. I made the mistake of telling them (roughly) what I earn and it definitely has changed the way they interact with me. I get remarks about my 'wealth' and that I can easily drop $10K on something frivolous. I get other remarks that compare their hard job to my 'easy' job that has catering and long lunch breaks. No one asks how my mental state is. No one asks whether I take my work home with me at the end of the day. No one asks how many hours I put in. All they see is a family member that will drop a ton of cash on a nice vacation or a larger house. Word of advice: don't tell your family how much you make either.
- mbesto 5y ago
  > Word of advice: don't tell your family how much you make either. YMMV. I don't have any immediate family members who are at risk for monetary issues (luckily) and I have not had any issues with them knowing how much I earn. I'm also lucky that my family has been taught the value of a dollar since I was little. Not everyone has that advantage so I can definitely see why the default advice should be "don't tell them". My dad's sisters and some cousins on the other hand...ya...they don't need to know.
  - edgyquant 5y ago
    Yeah I told my parents when I started making six figures and the only thing that changed was now my dad doesn’t pay for all my food when I’m visiting.
    - ChefboyOG 5y ago
      Which, admittedly, is a real loss.
    - jzb 5y ago
      Before my father passed he still grumbled about me buying a meal and he was retired!
shellfishgene 5y ago
Reminds me of the Filipino maid friends living in the middle east had working for them. The pay included airfare for going home for a few weeks once a year, but somehow she always declined and rather wanted to go on holiday with her employers (and the kids, so not really a holiday for her). After 3 years they finally found out she actually really wanted to go home and see friends and family again. However she was so scared her family would guilt her into giving them all the money she had earned abroad, and making her dreams of what she would do with it impossible, she could never bring herself to book the ticket.
- donretag 5y ago
  I have a friend from Croatia that lives in NYC. Does not earn much, especially by NYC standards. He loathes returning to Croatia because everyone thinks since he lives in the USA, he must make a lot of money.
- csa 5y ago
  I’ve heard lots of stories like this from folks who married into Filipino families. The general idea I get is that the money of the extended family is considered accessible (at least to some extent) by the entire pool. This seems especially true for medical expenses, but also seems true for “investments”. The boundaries seem really unhealthy to me, but I’m not part of that culture, so I don’t know how it really works (esp. for families with wealth disparities). One “feel good” story I have heard was when a friend of mine flew from the US to the Philippines with a large sum of cash that paid for a life-saving surgery for grandmother (had to pay in advance). I’d love to hear other stories.
  - throwaway_pinoy 5y ago
    A significant chunk of the Philippine economy is fueled by remittances from overseas workers (in absolute amount, it's comparable to Mexico and behind only India and China). So it is pretty common for people to "share". On the other hand, there are people like my father, who worked until he died because he didn't want to rely on his kids for support. He even got mad at me when I got his bank account number from my mom, and did a test wire transfer of $1000.

ghaff 5y ago

It probably depends where you are in life, how much money, your relationship to family, how comfortable they are, etc. Certainly seemed like the right call in this case. On the other hand, if your family is comfortable, this happens to you when you're 35 and want to retire and travel the world at least for a while, it's probably hard to deny that you had some sort of real financial windfall.

MattGaiser 5y ago
Say you became a consultant.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  "I'm an outside consultant to beach resorts and other interesting places."
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    I work on globally scalable and extremely complex systems. Specifically, the ecosystem. I test it for enjoyment purposes.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    A professional reviewer for a travel guide so prestigious it isn't even published and only has a single customer.
- ghaff 5y ago
  In technology or really professional fields more broadly, saying you're a consultant is probably the best way to obfuscate a lot of travel, sort of vague job duties, etc. especially with friends and family who never really understood what you were paid for anyway. Now, it will presumably be obvious that you now are comfortably well off but, so long as you don't buy that penthouse suite in Manhattan, they don't need to know how well off you are.
  - TMWNN 5y ago
    >In technology or really professional fields more broadly, saying you're a consultant is probably the best way to obfuscate a lot of travel, sort of vague job duties, etc. especially with friends and family who never really understood what you were paid for anyway. This is also what young women just out of college, typically having played varsity sports, do after setting themselves up as a call girl working for a madam: They say they are working in consulting.
- hinkley 5y ago
  What am I consulting on? My girlfriend wanted to know what the best crème brûlée is in Paris. It took weeks of research and user studies.
garmaine 5y ago
Sure, but you still don’t say anything.

jkereako 5y ago

I’ve wondered about this: when someone comes into a windfall and their loved ones see them differently, are they really different or is the person seeing them exactly as they are?

hanniabu 5y ago
Best to not tell them and let them decide.
zozbot234 5y ago
Most people don't even understand the notion of a random windfall, financially. It's something you should just put in the bank and literally forget about, unless you have high-interest debt to pay off or the like. Drawing down on a windfall should be a very serious decision, not something done casually. That money you're spending on pure consumption is not coming back, ever, so only use it for experiences and endeavors that will meaningfully improve the life of yourself or whoever you care about.
- hinkley 5y ago
  We didn’t have a lot when I was a kid so I didn’t understand this when I was suddenly making more than my dad. We ran up huge debts and it took a couple years of hard work and heavy discipline to pay it all off, then a couple more to be anywhere where we thought the money should make us feel like. Those images of rock stars and athletes are fundamentally exploitative. The odds you will continue to make that kind of money going forward are tiny. The odds that you can re-make that kind of money without having to compromise your ideals are virtually nonexistent. Anyone who encourages you to spend it is not your friend. You were lucky enough to get it the first time, if you blow it there might not be a next time. And I think in many cases the people who struggle their whole lives never learned that, which why they are down instead of OK. Get a little money it goes to steak or AC or a pool, or something else with additional lifetime costs. It would never go into preventative maintenance that actually saves you money later on.
- bityard 5y ago
  /Should/ be yes, but we repeatedly see people who come into a windfall blow it all almost immediately on fancy cars and vacations and end up worse off than when they started. (See: professional athletes.) I'm doing okay but I worked for what I have. I'm pretty financially savvy compared to the median person and even /I/ can't say with 100% certainty that if I ran into $55 mil somehow that I would be able to save/invest it all responsibly.

whycombagator 5y ago

How much is a ton? (ballpark) And what car did you buy? I suppose having everyone treat you differently is a downside, but surely having the money is better than not?

bostonsre 5y ago

What if they are struggling with money issues and you want to help them? Or what if they are struggling with money issues in silence and you don't know about it? Also... what if they find out about it later and you never told them? Wouldn't they think that you are a selfish doosh?

takeda 5y ago
You just help them without saying you got $55M. As the GP mentioned, people, even family members will start treating you differently (nicer if you start giving them your money, worse if you don't). That's IMO a valid excuse why you didn't want to tell.
theandrewbailey 5y ago
What if their money issues are their own doing (they live way above their means)? If you give them money, you're an enabler.
- DamnYuppie 5y ago
  Not sure why this is getting down voted. Most people who have money problems have them because of their own behaviors. I agree giving money to someone who is bad with money doesn't really help them it only wastes your money.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  What if they're not? It seems like the type of thing that requires individual judgement instead of a flat rule.
- bostonsre 5y ago
  As long as you aren't giving them money to piss away on drugs or something similar, so what? You would give your family and/or friends an easier and happier life.
  - theandrewbailey 5y ago
    Maybe, but be careful. It doesn't have to be drugs. You can cover their food and some of their house payment, because they're broke, but they bought a new boat (or similar expensive item) anyways. Surely, they can't ask their rich relative for too many vacations, right? Or vacation houses? For someone who keeps their word and is honest about their finances and asks for such-and-such, fine. For those who don't care for paying off the debt they have and always gets more, and you give them money, you're feeding their entitlement, and ultimately making no one happy.

speeder 5y ago

When I was right out of college, I got a contract. The contract was for 1/3 of the wages a person with that job would get, and zero benefits! Thing is... for many people in my family it was still the most money they had ever seen, after I told my parents what my wages were, soon the entire family knew, and people started to treat me in weird ways, like making a tons of "jokes" asking money.

hncurious 5y ago

What was your experience? How did they treat you differently once they found out?

TheMerovingian 5y ago

I don't think you need to win the lottery to be in this situation. Imagine having a cushy job in a FAANG company, where your base salary is probably more than what your parents make combined. It is in my case. I made the mistake of telling them (roughly) what I earn and it definitely has changed the way they interact with me. I get remarks about my 'wealth' and that I can easily drop $10K on something frivolous. I get other remarks that compare their hard job to my 'easy' job that has catering and long lunch breaks. No one asks how my mental state is. No one asks whether I take my work home with me at the end of the day. No one asks how many hours I put in. All they see is a family member that will drop a ton of cash on a nice vacation or a larger house. Word of advice: don't tell your family how much you make either.

mbesto 5y ago
> Word of advice: don't tell your family how much you make either. YMMV. I don't have any immediate family members who are at risk for monetary issues (luckily) and I have not had any issues with them knowing how much I earn. I'm also lucky that my family has been taught the value of a dollar since I was little. Not everyone has that advantage so I can definitely see why the default advice should be "don't tell them". My dad's sisters and some cousins on the other hand...ya...they don't need to know.
- edgyquant 5y ago
  Yeah I told my parents when I started making six figures and the only thing that changed was now my dad doesn’t pay for all my food when I’m visiting.
  - ChefboyOG 5y ago
    Which, admittedly, is a real loss.
  - jzb 5y ago
    Before my father passed he still grumbled about me buying a meal and he was retired!

shellfishgene 5y ago

Reminds me of the Filipino maid friends living in the middle east had working for them. The pay included airfare for going home for a few weeks once a year, but somehow she always declined and rather wanted to go on holiday with her employers (and the kids, so not really a holiday for her). After 3 years they finally found out she actually really wanted to go home and see friends and family again. However she was so scared her family would guilt her into giving them all the money she had earned abroad, and making her dreams of what she would do with it impossible, she could never bring herself to book the ticket.

donretag 5y ago
I have a friend from Croatia that lives in NYC. Does not earn much, especially by NYC standards. He loathes returning to Croatia because everyone thinks since he lives in the USA, he must make a lot of money.
csa 5y ago
I’ve heard lots of stories like this from folks who married into Filipino families. The general idea I get is that the money of the extended family is considered accessible (at least to some extent) by the entire pool. This seems especially true for medical expenses, but also seems true for “investments”. The boundaries seem really unhealthy to me, but I’m not part of that culture, so I don’t know how it really works (esp. for families with wealth disparities). One “feel good” story I have heard was when a friend of mine flew from the US to the Philippines with a large sum of cash that paid for a life-saving surgery for grandmother (had to pay in advance). I’d love to hear other stories.
- throwaway_pinoy 5y ago
  A significant chunk of the Philippine economy is fueled by remittances from overseas workers (in absolute amount, it's comparable to Mexico and behind only India and China). So it is pretty common for people to "share". On the other hand, there are people like my father, who worked until he died because he didn't want to rely on his kids for support. He even got mad at me when I got his bank account number from my mom, and did a test wire transfer of $1000.