The Guilt of Wealth

@ Karen (comment #9) — Consider yourself lucky that your parents made good choices that enabled you to go to college without need-based scholarships.

I used to teach high school so I’ve seen the circumstances some students have to deal with — parents’ job loss, divorce, death of one or both parents, abuse, critical illness, natural disaster, etc. No amount of money is worth what these kids go through, and many of them would be trapped without a way to build a better life for themselves.

I felt guilty all throughout my undergrad because my family could afford to send me to school, but I lived very frugally compared to my friends who had lots of student loan money. Looking back, I think my guilt helped me form better financial habits

We have an opposite problem in my extended family. My parents inherited and then built up wealth. My brothers jumped on the family business -which went belly up after my dad left it.Dad has since passed away. My mother feels guilty and gives all kinds of things (season passes, private school tuition, cars, house motgages, vacations) to the boys since she WANTS them to continue to live wealthy. When they make money(sales commission), they immediately spend it on toys- begging for more from mom when they are out.
Anyway- just another side of guilt. What will your children expect from you? Even your very Adult children?
A tough – but real- issue.

I’ll continue to help as many people as possible improve their financial situation. Maybe if I can help others achieve wealth, I won’t feel guilty about my own.

Absolutely. I am not one of these people who see guilt as an entirely negative emotion. Guilt can be a negative emotion. It can also lead one to spiritual growth.

You have worked hard to achieve what you have achieved, J.D. You have also been lucky. Both things are so. So you should be enjoying the fruits of your labor without experiencing feelings of guilt. But to do that, you need to give back. You need to help others too. That needs to be part of the mix.

I don’t view the guilt feelings as a sign that you have not already found the right mix. I view them as a sign that you have not thought things through to the extent necessary to be sure yourself that you have found the right mix. Just keeping thinking it through, not going into denial over the feelings of guilt and not allowing them to be the only thing you pay attention to either. You will eventually come to know what is the right balance.

Rob

I can totally relate to this. My extended family is a mix of the ridiculously wealthy and the dirt poor. Some of it is through choice, some of it isn’t. I’m middle class right now, but when my SO graduates pharmacy school, I will be living quite well. Supposedly.

I feel fortunate, though, that I am able to do things like take one of my cousins for the best meal she’s ever had in her life, or I can give my sister $1000 without it really costing me anything.

“He worries that his kids will grow up to take for granted those things he views as blessings.” My fiancee and I struggle with this the most. His parents struggled to make ends meet when he was younger but through hard work, perseverance, and good fortune have become quite wealthy. He is old enough to remember his family struggling and so appreciates the position we have gained for ourselves (We both have college degrees and the potential for great jobs with time, we have saved enough money to pay for our wedding and to get us through if one of us loses our job) But his younger brother only remembers being wealthy and so takes material possessions for granted and thinks nothing of spending money he did not earn for himself. We do not want our future children to take wealth for granted and struggle with how to raise them to be appreciative.

JD–
Thanks for this blog post. I know I have posted this before, but I am working through a federal service program called AmeriCorps*VISTA this year. That stands for Volunteer In Service to America–and my pay reflects my title. If I were to average out an hourly wage based on my monthly living allowance, I’m making below $5.00/hour. My fiance and I share a household, and he is working his way through nursing school with a full-time job that pays under $8.00/hour. We qualify for and receive food stamps, and even with this extra help we struggle with money, always worrying about the littlest expenses.

According to the federal government, we live in poverty. But I work with people in poverty everyday who are far worse off than we are. Unlike many of my clients, we have zero credit car debt. And while we were in college getting an education, we started saving for an emergency fund (and a wedding). I am proud to say no matter what is going on in our lives, we have added a sizeable portion of our (albeit limited) income to those accounts every month. Our hope is that we won’t live in poverty forever and we recognize the only way to move into the middle class is to save.

That being said, I struggle everyday with feelings of guilt for not wanting to live like this forever, for wanting more financial security. Because I work with the poorest people in my portion of the state, I feel like I am abandoning them to save our money and move into the middle class.

So I know firsthand that it’s a difficult place to be in, but I have learned a few things about this feeling. I think you’re exactly right–you should not feel as guilty if you know that you are doing something to share the privileges you have with others and lift them up with you. If we were doing everything to help ourselves and nothing to help our neighbors, then that guilt would certainly be more applicable. But by continuing to give to other people–through time, money, advice in this blog, etc.–that guilt should fade over time as you know you have made a difference in the lives of others less fortunate.

Comment #40 — “A car is just metal on rubber. In the long run it will not make you a better or happier person.”

I insanely disagree. My cars are my life… I’m definitely better because of them and much, much happier because they’re in my life. I also have many awesome friends because of them, and someday hope to make money doing something car-related.

Just had to add that in; I’m sick of people acting like having a nice car makes you a horrible, awful, shallow person.

@Foxie || CarsxGirl :
As condescending as it sounds, it’s easy to feel the way you do when you’re 21. Then you grow up. I did it — I poured time and money into a Mustang and the community that came with it. Ultimately what did it get me? Nothing. Sure, I had fun with it for a while. I had friends in Mustang clubs and track days and car shows to go to. And to be sure, owning a nice car doesn’t make you a bad or shallow person. But still, like comment #40 says, you’ll probably look back in a couple years and think “It was just a car”.

To put it in perspective, imagine some a decade younger than you. Maybe a 12-year-old girl who got her first cell phone for her birthday. How excited she is about that little device. How she wanted it in pink. How she was accepted into the cool kids group at school because she got whatever phone’s currently the stylish one. She outfitted it it with all the cool accessories, and showed them off to her new friends, who said “wow, that’s awesome I wish I could afford a turbo kit (or cell phone case or whatever)!”. Imagine her saying “My phone is my life… I’m definitely better because of it and much, much happier because it’s in my life.”

And you’d look at her and think “in a few years you wont even remember that phone, but you’re a kid, so I understand your excitement.” Everyone ten years older can do the same to you and your cars.

There are some really great comments on this particular GRS post. I think Charles (#7) said it best. I would like to add, however, that a great amount of guilt felt by those who have money to burn has to do with the plundering of the Earth’s limited resources. There is no doubt that the human impacts on climate change, and environmental degradation in general, caused by excessive consumption is truly manifesting itself in consumer consciousness. If you feel guilty about buying unnecessary material items, you should. It means that you care about the health of life on Earth and preserving precious resources for future generations. If you don’t feel guilty, you need a lesson in morality.

First off, I love this topic. I talk about it whenever the opportunity arises because so many people are so torn on how wealth could and should be distributed in society. I am among them! Even so, in the dozen years since college graduation and especially over the past few years as my husband and I have watched our net worth grow into a shockingly substantial number I have developed some thoughts serve as my guideposts. Perhaps they will provide direction for you and others as well, J.D.

I should start off by saying that we don’t have the guilt that you write of, but instead we feel a strong sense of responsibility. We are thrifty by nature, took advantage of great educations (full scholarship for one and part for the other), work hard, blah, blah, blah and all the “right” things to get us into this situation in the first place. So we could certainly argue that we have every right to enjoy, horde, and even flaunt what we have. That, however, is not in keeping with who we are.

Like many people, we don’t want our children to grow up knowing how rich we are. I think most of us would agree that breeding a sense of entitlement into children (or adults!) has very negative outcomes both for the individuals and for greater society. We choose not to live in the very high end neighborhoods we could afford, and from the outside our lives look very much like those of our neighbors. So in that sense, our kids could just blend in. But at the same time, we want to teach our children that we are incredibly well off, and that a lot of that came to us through opportunities that we were equipped to accept. Although many of us middle and upper class folks point to various program guidelines and say, “See, everyone has the same opportunity we did to be successful,” the more that you actually interact with the destitute and working poor, the more you realize that they are not remotely equipped to take advantage of so many of those opportunities.

I believe that financial education is one of the keys to unlocking those doors. I financially support programs that work to make this a reality for everyone, not just people who had fathers who taught them the ins and outs at home like mine. Another way that I support these efforts is by volunteering my time as an IRS-certified volunteer tax preparer through the VITA program. I am not an accountant, and you don’t need to be. http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=119845,00.html This has opened my eyes about the disparity in access to opportunity in my own community in ways that reading statistics and writing checks never did. I have also been shocked out of my complacency by other experiences. My husband once was distributing food among weekly rate hotels in town. His team stopped at a horribly run down motel at the edge of our neighborhood. Our neighborhood mailing list includes a good bit of wishing that it would just fall down as well as several other businesses that border the neighborhood. One of the people he brought food to told him that being able to live in that falling down motel for a while now had been the best thing to happen to her in 10 years. Talk about a change in our perspective… Another time, my two-year old and I waited at a bus stop with a newly released felon who had spent all day being turned down for jobs. I knew about agencies in town who offer lots of services to help, but his parole officer hadn’t told him about them. He asked good questions that revolved around access – like whether they were on a bus route. (I didn’t know.) While we waited, he flagged down a garbage truck as it passed and asked the driver if he knew how he could get a job driving garbage trucks – he had heard that the city waste service was willing to hire felons. Are we falling short as a society if we don’t make sure he even knows how to step onto the first rung of rejoining society? If we instead leave him alone to be tempted by the easier path of committing another crime to be “taken care of” again? These aren’t easy questions, and I wrestle with them regularly.

My message to you is that guilt is not productive. Leave it behind. Decide what kind of life you want to live and what kind of person you want to be. Then make sure your money follows your mouth, whichever way that may be. If particular purchases make you feel guilty, it’s probably not something about that purchase specifically that is bothering you but rather a more general uncertainly about whether your wallet is following your values. You mentioned surprise that charitable giving doesn’t take care of the guilt. That doesn’t surprise me one bit. We have been giving substantial sums to charity ever since graduating from college, even before our debt was paid off. But the kind of engagement I described above over a period of several years has really changed how we view and relate to our money. I like FrugalBachelor’s terming of this as a fourth stage of personal finance. When it comes to charitable giving, many people say that you should give until it hurts, but I think that totally misses the mark. When it comes to charity, you should give until it feels good. In other words, once you’ve got your giving directions and amounts aligned with your values and goals, you’ll know you’ve hit the mark. It is never a completely done deal, and you’ll still wrestle with exactly what to do each year. But it sure feels good to watch your money dance to a tune of your making.

Very interesting, JD, and a great discussion thread going on now. I often feel the same way around our main group of friends, all of which have a couple of kids and where the wife only works part-time, if at all, and who therefore have much less disposable income than my husband and I do (although we are expecting our first child next year).

But what I feel is not guilt, and I wonder if yours really is as well. Rather, I feel *embarrassed*. Embarrassed that we can buy a new house, that we went out to this or that restaurant, whatever. I don’t feel guilty because I’ve not done anything wrong, they’re just on a different path to us. They made choices and while they sometimes make comments about us having it easy that we can do this or that, they are happy with their choice, as we are with ours. But I am conscious that I don’t want to look like I’m bragging to them, so I downplay our news. Because it’s embarrassing.

We have other sets of friends who are childless, and who all work, often in much more lucrative fields than us. I don’t feel embarrassed talking about these things with them at all, in fact most of them are doing better than we are. It’s a relief to spend time with them sometimes.

I don’t think you should feel guilty–you should feel proud. Not everyone has gotten to where you have. I am on my way to your realm–I am already proud of the progress I’ve made, and will never feel guilty

Another great post JD and so many good comments here. I am well off, debt free, and have a very significant savings. The only guilt I ever feel is when I hold back from my children. I’d like to give them everything they desire but I know that by teaching them how to earn and save for it themselves they will be far better off. At ages 26, 24 and 22 now I can see the fruit of this harder path as they each make their own way in such a positive, debt free fashion.

However, I have experienced some very interesting challenges that are similar to the guilt you mention. I don’t consider myself “religious” but I do consider myself a spiritual person. As I’ve saved more and more money I’ve become very intrigued by the verse in Matt 19:24 that says, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

That to me speaks very heavily about the responsibility of having money. What you do with your wealth is very important. I have come to realize that a conscientious person that cares about others and the challenges around the world will wrestle with how wealth is supposed to be used. I have come to believe that the guilt you mention may really be more of a sense of deep responsibility that most of us inherently feel to our fellow man. How do we best use that wealth to better others? Having money adds a “weight” about my shoulders that I never anticipated having. For those of us with a conscience having money carries an important responsibility.

I have also found that when trying to explain this to others who don’t have such wealth they will often look at me like I have two heads! I may be a little strange looking but a two headed dude I’m not!!

So what do I do about it? Two things, first, I have continued frugal living, treating myself occasionally but not flaunting it. Second, long ago I found the only way to relieve that weight is to aggressively pursue responsible giving. Responsible giving to me means that it is NOT a handout but results in a situation where someone “learns to fish” instead of just being given a fish. I also carefully examine each organization to make sure that their overhead is VERY low. That’s why I love organizations like http://www.kiva.org. Giving to me is not only money but time!

I also discovered that for my personality I had to do it as anonymously as possible. If I was recognized for my giving I only felt worse. By giving and helping anonymously that weight has become a blessing.

Good luck in your journey JD and thanks for sharing. You’ll figure this out too!

Regarding assuaging guilt with donations: I need to remind people yet again that many, many charitable organizations need your TIME and your STRONG BACK just as much or more than your DOLLAR.

I think it’s just a variation on survivor’s guilt, not something you should actually feel guilty about.

I mean, if you’re in a car accident and other people die while you live, you’re going to feel that same kind of guilt. It’s not because you did something wrong, because you didn’t deserve to survive, or because your survival somehow cost the others their lives. It’s irrational.

Funny I always find myself in this same situation. Like it’s your fault you can afford things and others can’t.

I guess it’s human nature to sympathize with others.

There are even times we do not want to tell our relatives where we are . My wife and I would normally plan trips without announcing it to others. We are sometimes guilt stricken to afford some not too lavish vacation.

It’s crazy. Sometimes we do not give straight answers when asked if we own this business they saw. Specially if we have a hint that the question is more of just to satisfy their curiosity, we would just give a polite smile.

I think this guilt feeling is because we have been there and we know how it feels to be in their situation and so it makes us a bit careful to offend others with our display of wealth.

Even in giving to charities, we prefer to be anonymous donors than have our names posted all over the place or announced.

It is good to have brought this up. I now feel we are normal people. I’ve developed this notion that we are just being paranoid about financial stuff.

I used to feel guilty about my wealth but not any more. I have come to terms with it and I accept it. Just the same way I accept having green eyes or being born with brown hair….it is what it is. My wealth isn’t happenchance. It didn’t come my way by accident. It was worked for. It was worked for by me and my predecessors.
But I also know that just as easy as money can come your way, it is even easier to lose it. I have come to realize that money and wealth is a gift from God. As long as I am grateful for my wealth, vow to help others less fortunate than myself and never ever do harm with my money, I have learned that wealth is something not to be ashamed of or feel guilty about.

If you inherited the wealth I could see where you may feel guilty from time to time because you did not really earn the money. However if you did all the hard work and studying and sacraficed you should never feel guilty EVER.

I have been in situation since I am the guy with the money that I am the one pressured. People assume since you have it you should just give it to them! Usually these are the people that buy all the frivilous items you would never dream of buying and usually they have a story. I need it for taxes then they go and buy a drum set. When they get it home their wife puts a hammer through each drum since he did not spend the money on her. (TRUE STORY) Since I don’t waste my own money it is hard for me to give it to someone else to waste it. I prepare for a rainy day and others ask me to hand them the umbrella. I would never let a love one starve or get evicted but short of that I have learned to say no more easily every year and for the last 10 I have said No almost exclusively without any guilt. Reason….it is always the same people that come back for money. Tell them no and they figure out a way to survive.

@Big Al[86]:

One of the most true sayings I know: “Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime. Or at least until all the fish run out from overfishing.”

OK, So I added that last part

The best way to prevent the guilt is to purchase the item as a gift for someone you love. My husband would have a hard time going out and buying a PS3 for himself, however if I’m the one who wants to get it for him as a birthday gift there is no guilt. So JD, learn to think of the furniture as a gift to your wife because not only has she earned but it also serves as a reminder of how much you love her. Furniture> roses

You also do not talk about your finances or brag about the stuff that you do have. Think modesty.

People will not see a purchase as being wasteful if they know that it is something that you love, have done your whole life, and have made sacrifices for. A large fishing boat for a man in his 50s who has gone fishing several times a year since he is a little boy is not outrageous.

It would be a tragedy to let yourself feel guilty for a feeling that someone else may or may not be having. If someone cares about you then the only feelings they will have are good ones when they see how much you enjoy your purchase. No one else matters since they don’t care about you anyways.

Ask yourself these questions:

Did I work hard? Did I get where I am without cheating someone else? Did I live by my values?

If you can answer yes to all three, you have nothing to feel guilty about.

Does your brother really want (or need) more material possessions? Perhaps the best thing you could do for him is just “be there” and support him. I noticed you didn’t mention feeling guilty about your Mini, but you did about the furniture – perhaps your old furniture was just fine and you didn’t really need the new stuff?

@April, #90 – You’d think that people wouldn’t judge someone who loves fishing who buys a fishing boat in their 50′s – at last! But people do.

My husband and I have worked hard, saved a lot, bought a house and a business. Some of this has been done on our own, and some of it with assistance from family. However, my in-laws are children of the depression, so to *them*, anything that isn’t housing and basic food & clothing = frivolous.

Whereas DH and I work hard on the concept of balance, since we see them in their 70′s, unable to enjoy the fruits of their hard work. So we DO travel. We DO have nice cars. We DO save 15%+ for retirement. We DO give to friends in need.

Yet, to my in-laws, the idea that I might buy a new car is HORRIFYING. The idea that we bought jet skis (with CASH) and have used them from May-November every year for 5 years (after renting for 10 years) is HORRIFYING. They just cannot reconcile the idea that buying something simply for FUN or because you WANT to is OK. They equate spending with a moral failure.

And recently, my husband’s brother and his wife split up. As a result, my brother-in-law is going through some financial hardships, since he needs to pay the mortgage on his own, and he needs to buy out his soon-to-be-ex from the family business. When we sent him email about planning for a holiday weekend NEXT JULY, he replied snottily, and said that he guessed he no longer ran in our “financial circle.” So yes, not only do we feel guilty, but our relatives seem to LIKE making us feel guilty.

As I told my husband several years ago – “If we’re the flighty ones in the family, your family really needs to expand their horizons.” :^)

So yes, we struggle. Sometimes a lot. Our answer has been – we’re not hurting anyone. We work hard, and we’re not achieving success by exploiting others. We save. We give. We help. We’re thoughtful when we do spend. We pay cash. So it’s NOT a moral failure to enjoy some of that result. We may not be able to work or travel forever, so we need to be OK with the idea that others might judge us, and do what’s important to us. In the end, personal finance really is personal.

>>to the person who made this comment:
>>Anyway- just another side of guilt. What will your >>children expect from you? Even your very Adult >>children?
>>A tough – but real- issue.

I can tell you how to avoid some of the the problems of parental wealth versus adult children’s expectations (based on what my family has done):

#1 – be clear from an early age that your children should not expect an inheritance. Both of my parents (divorced) have made repeated statements about not expecting anything to be left over from their lives beyond some cherished mementos. If I get a dime from either estate I will be surprised and grateful.

#2 – be generous with LOANs but charge your adult (18+) children interest. My dad has done this for both my brother and I and it has worked out well. We both have borrowed some significant sums ($2,000-8,000) at different times in our lives and we have both paid our parent back in a reasonable and timely fashion.

#3 – the best advice I got from Suzie Ormon was the idea that you pay people back before corporations, darn your credit score if need be. Teach your children to understand the value of preserving personal relationships, and they will be able to borrow money even if a bank won’t lend to them.

I think this post really hit a nerve. So many people have responded but I might as well put in my 2 cents. Living a frugal lifestyle had always been a difficult goal for my husband and I to reach. We lived in an area where living frugally is like trying to lose weight being surrounded by an all you can eat buffet. We found ourselves constantly hungry for more “stuff” and novel experiences.
Fortunately, we hadn’t managed to have kids yet. I knew for me having kids would be where the rubber would hit the road financially. Because my dad passed away when I was a kid, my mom had to go to work instead of staying home with my brother and I. I knew no matter what, I was going to find a way to stay home. So here I am 7 years into the parenting odyssey and making good on that commitment has changed my life.
If I could name the one thing that has changed for me it is learning a deep sense of gratitude. Living on just my husband’s income proved to be quite challenging and without prayer and an abiding trust in God’s care for us, I would have given up. For quite a while I complained to God about how hard this life we had chosen had turned out to be. However over time, my thinking started to change. I began to see managing our household and its finances as a game to see how far I could stretch a buck. This is where gratitude became so instrumental: I started to look at everything we had as gift from God and I learned to really enjoy it. Gradually, it became easier and easier to say to no spending money because I looked at what we had and I knew it served our needs just fine. I found I was becoming emotionally attached to the worn items we already had because they were a gift from my Creator and like a gift from a really good friend, I treasured it because of the relationship it represented. I started considering myself VERY well taken care of because that was precisely the case.
Seemingly without even knowing it, we gravitated from barely making ends meet to having extra money to save every month. To say the least, I am overjoyed at this development. The clincher is I knew it wasn’t me that did it. It was the work that God did in my heart and I am delighted by His kindness. Loving the treasured less, I am much happier now than I have ever been.
Are you wondering what guilt has to do with this post? Here’s the thing: Because we finally have money to get a few nice things, I find I don’t really want them. I can’t think of a good reason to get a fancy new _____ because the one we already have works fine and I like it. I find I am constantly talking myself out of spending money. Finding the reason to purchase something is now proving to be the challenge. At present I am working on how to spend money with integrity of purpose. I want to know that every dollar I spend supports the principles I know to be of highest value in my life. When I do that, I am satisfied and so is my guilt.

I think guilt can be healthy because that is what makes you step forward and do good for others. But I also think that many people do things simply to assuage guilt that may actually hurt others in the long run. It was pointed out early in this list of posts that when we give people things (food, clothing, whatever) we can stunt their drive to do for themselves and we can undercut people who provide those things as their own livelihood. Or we mean to give aid to starving people in Africa and the warlords take it an enrich themselves that makes the conflict last that much longer.

But I think that often people who feel guilty are people who are otherwise optimists. It isn’t so much that you ARE fortunate as you FEEL fortunate. For example I am often waiting for the other shoe to drop in my life because I feel so blessed: I’m due some misery. But when I say that out loud my friends look at me like I’m crazy and they ask about the tenant that cheated me or the unexpected need to remodel my house (huge leak due to problems a previous remodel just painted over). But I take those things in stride. It’s part of life.

I remember being in the fourth grade and feeling really guilty because I was by far the highest performer in the class. It wasn’t fair that I was smarter, it was a twist of fate. And a couple minutes later I was thinking how unfair it was that my family was poor and my classmates had gotten so many more cool toys for Xmas. Then it hit me: LIFE ISN’T FAIR. We play the hand we’re dealt. Money isn’t the only thing that isn’t even. I know wealthy people and high earners who are lonely, bitter, have cancer, are crippled, or any number of problems money can’t insulate you from. And I know poor people who sing like the residents of Whoville on Christmas morning. Life is what you make of it, money is just one part.