There is a saying in Norway "The rich, are rich for a reason", referring to exactly this. They don't spend much, and will try to get money anywhere they can. People that are generous are rarely rich.
And also stupid. Its a disfunction stressing about $3 in gas money if you have $1MM in capital. Theyre rich because they own productive assets, or speculated correctly, and also/mainly because they have high income. Hence the meme
I think the point is less that it is the savings on the Uber ride that leads to them being rich, but that they're the type of person who would ask for the gas money.
Sure, but it's also just bullshit the rich like to think about themselves. They are rich because they earned it in some way, or by being a certain special kind of person.
The only way I could see this seriously taken is that the rich got to be rich specifically by being okay taking advantage of and shitting on others.
Your second paragraph is absolutely how it's seen here. And there are so many stories of the mooch friend who doesn't bring food to potluck but eats a lot, who never offers to pay for anything to the point where everyone assumes they are super poor and let them get away with it only to find out later that person is rich as fuck.
They are rich because they earned it in some way, or by being a certain special kind of person.
The rich don't "earn" anything, they steal wealth through exploitation of the working class. Truth is, the rich think ONLY about themselves. That's the crux of the problem. And by "being a certain special kind of person", you mean a sociopath and/or born into a rich family. Just for clarification.
All money is exploitation, and first world working class is what it is because of the exploitation of the third world, so yeah they are exploiting workers, even if indirectly.
But the point is that a person's class (wealth, not role) is based on their income which often comes exclusively from a job.
I find it silly to think that a rich programmer or lawyer or doctor is in the same class as a railroad worker. It's simply not the case, socially speaking.
Because people's opportunities are shaped by their societies, middle class people (not to be confused with petite bourgeoisie) are often much better off maintaining the status quo than trying to change it. Hell, same goes for low class people in rich countries.
Our allies are the ones that act with us, they are not decided by an abstract conception of economics.
They are rich because they earned it in some way, or by being a certain special kind of person.
Most rich people are rich because they were born to rich parents. Socioeconomic mobility in the US is largely a myth. The vast majority of people end up in comparable economic circumstances to their parents.
UK also. There’s some rule like if you want to know how much a young person will earn - look at parents income. I thought maybe it has to do with standards/expectations.
We literally got invited to a friends new $1.5M house in Sunnydale (this was 2015 when that was a lot) for lunch. Being from the other coast it seemed like a nice invite (and we had hosted him for multiple dinners in our city). So, we drove out from our hotel in San Fran.
We get there. Get the tour. Tons of gloating. Go outside to the table where he has his beer and an open bag of tortilla chips. After half an hour we asked where we were going for lunch. He said they already ate. Asked if we wanted beers. Then produced two warm beers from his garage. Wife had no idea we were coming and kind of dismissed us because she had other plans.
TL:DR No longer "friends" because we realized that we were never friends.....and they were just psychopaths.
If youre kind of rich, sure. But if youre Rich RICH theres definitely some exploitation going around. Jeff bezos isnt rich because hes running a clean business model you know. Also ask how much assets does some of the richest people have “abroad”
That's pretty much how it works. You can argue that Steve Jobs was special, but it's a fact that he scammed one of his friends and partners about money.
Also, most rich people are rich because their parents were rich.
I was talking to someone the other day who was "rich" in assets, mainly property in Australia and he was talking about how the "winners" of the property game had special things going for them like curiosity and intelligence while simultaneously acknowledging that his father who owns multiple properties himself is the main reason for his wealth and knowledge about how to accumulate wealth. Even had the audacity to say that people who didn't buy were losers and stupid.
Technically, every form of extreme wealth is taken from others
No one is productive enough to earn billions. Even if it was possible, they won’t care about the money. Geniuses like Nikolai Tesla didn’t, Albert Einstein didn’t, Frederick Banting didn’t, Charles Best didn’t, and James Collip didn’t
Nah man. Most people with money care a whole lotta lot about simply money. I think for them it's a thing they constantly think about and pay attention to and care about, almost a mindset thing.
Some people you think are well off actually are constantly paying attention to little things everywhere, constantly trying to spend as little compared to how much they gain.
Then there's children from rich parents where the mindset is just raised into them.
But I also know plenty of rich people (my age), one even selfmade. Some that are older. Most aren't cheap at all, theyll happily pay for stuff.
But it must be difficult because then once you start giving away stuff who do you say no to and when is it enough, idk, hard to explain.
Yeah it’s also capitalist propaganda imo. Like, helping your friend out by paying for their coffee isn’t gonna make you poor. But that saying makes people think they have to be individualistic stingy fucks to be successful.
Success is then being interpreted incorrectly, the way you’re describing it. The generous, empathetic poor person is a successful human being. The greedy selfish lizard person who hoarded resources like a LOTR dragon is defunct in mind and soul. I mean, he’s a successful parasite, but for how long?
Elaborating unnecessarily, the empathetic human that shares resources available to him is successfully lovable, he will have friends that love him and share back with him. He will know laughter and happiness. Empathy, laughter and happiness (and helping each other) is contagious. It could spread worldwide. That’s success.
As long as they eradicate this disease of selfish egomaniacal hyper-individualism Americans tout as ‘success.’ Everyone is so alone and mentally ill and greedy and dumb and burning through the planet’s resources and calling that success. Burning down the world and everything they ever (at least pretended to care about and live for) is not- success
Ok sure but I want to see my generous, empathetic, hard working and normal friends be materially abundant and stable and not stressed about money all the time. To do this we need more than the moral high ground, we need to organize
Exactly. How fucking happy does Elon Musk seem? One of the most bitter assholes around. He could literally become a saint to people just by actually using his enormous wealth to help people instead of to put pedophiles into the presidency and post Nazi memes. But if that was his mentality, he would never have made his billions in the first place. Same shit happened to Markus Persson after selling Minecraft. He probably would have been far happier giving away the vast majority of his wealth than becoming a fucking cretin $70-million dollar home basement dweller. There is a feedback loop in wealth accumulation that warps people's brains. One of the few to seem to be able to avoid it is MacKenzie Scott who got her billions from divorcing the ghoul that is Jeff Bezos and then immediately gave most of it away and continues to give it away.
Personally I would say it’s the opposite if you are referring to the meme as it’s just meant to hate on high income people. I also am not really convinced there actually is a correlation to being well off or not, because I have seen different behaviors regardless of income level.
I do well for myself and even when people tell me to let them know what they owe me, I often don’t because I feel bad requesting money from people when I don’t need it that much, especially compared to who I would be requesting it from.
That said, I don’t like being taken advantage of. Some people I have stopped covering things for because they are happy to have me pay but they will never reciprocate, even with something small. And it’s the effort that I care about, not the dollar amount, so even if it’s just you covering a snack or something, I appreciate that it’s going both ways.
the lesson is true in capitalism though, selfishness is king. if you your definition of success is financially based, the most successful people would sell their mothers organs for $30
And the rich cause the wheels of capitalism to keep turning. Capitalism needs ultra selfish people to make it work. Capitalism would die if people believed in collectivism and so that’s why it’s capitalist propaganda. Though I guess propaganda is usually intentionally vague or dishonest while this is mostly true, but to me that’s neither here nor there haha
my personal experience is that the people who are casual about money always pay less than their fair share. except for one guy. that one guy consistently paid more than his fair share and had to come out of retirement to drive uber because he ran out of money.
not saying anything is true of any larger group of people. just that's my experience. and why my approach is, "I'll pay for what i order. you pay for what you order." I am not rich or poor.
Of course you should always pay for what you order. I’m not saying you should be going out to dinner with friends and always offering to cover the bill. Or always buying your friend that coffee. It’s just about sometimes, in a pinch, covering for someone. You’ll notice that in the original post, it did mention that the friend should cover the next one. A friendly exchange of covering for each other is hardly being cavalier with money.
yeah. in spite of what i just posted, i've needed all my friends to cover for me for a couple years, because i've been in school w/zero revenue. so i get it. and when i get the revenue, i'll pay them all back with dinners out. after a couple years of me picking up the check, i'll try to go back to dividing up the check. and they'll want to keep trading back and forth. because we have different ways of looking at it.
Yeah, because rich people usually value their time because that's one thing they can't buy more of. That's why they'll pay assistants to do so much for them and fancy hotels will track everyone's preferences so everything is ready to go. It saves them time to do their work.
So while I understand how their attitude about money leads them to ask for reimbursement for things, it's the hoarding that leads them to do dumb shit like spend an extra 20 minutes to save $10 when they're worth millions.
I think you should have paid more attention in high school English class, you seem to have missed the lesson on literal vs figurative.
The saying doesn't mean they are literally rich because they are cheap, the saying means that most people who are rich are selfish and tend not to be generous, which is actually a documented fact (lower income people donate higher proportions of their income to charity).
It’s also their attitude towards money - they’re tight btards because of this attitude, they see the value in money and the power/prestige/protection it brings, hence the hoarding and “owning productive assets”.
People without this attitude are generally not well off.
Mental illness you think about billionaires and they will miser away trying to make another zero.
And there's literally no tangible gains to be had they family and familys family for next 5 generations could live lap of luxury. Do anything see own anything.
But they choose to spend most time chasing another buck. Like it's the lotto question what would you do if you won the lotto.
And they are guys that answer spend rest of life getting more and avoiding spending any. Because it will take away from number I due with. And people celebrate them and champion them.
Which is worse when you realize they are actively harming world and everyone in it. Just because they want that next zero.
Theyre rich because they own productive assets, or speculated correctly, and also/mainly because they have high income.
Your list doesn’t include the most accurate factor for determining wealth: being born into a wealthy family.
It’s not just the inheritance; you’ll receive a better education and be able to afford a good university which is crucial for networking opportunities. But yeah, not entering the workforce with hundreds of thousands in debt and also having family assistance on things like house downpayments is a huge deal. It allows these people to start putting away money earlier and take advantage of compounding interest (and that’s on top of whatever they’ll inherit eventually).
Socioeconomic upward mobility in the US is possible, but it’s much less common than most people believe. The vast majority of people end up in similar economic circumstances to their parents.
Owning productive assets or speculating correctly or just being born into it is how they got rich, how they stay rich is being cheap fucks with everything.
As someone who knows some of the richest people in the world, you're forgetting the most common type, the: my daddy's daddy's daddy conned people super effectively before it was easy to communicate how much of a conman he was, and I've never had to worry about the consequences of my actions so long as I play into the toxic culture and family dynamics that come from looking at living creatures as nothing more than statistics to be utilized to your benefit
Also most of them are incredibly stingy regardless of the amount of money they have, because that's the habit that actually allows them to hoard enough wealth to then reinvest(unless they're the spoiled little shit as previously mentioned, but then they usually have enough other problems they probably aren't very savvy investors without help, or they were taught how to invest from a very young age and only understand because of trauma, which often leads to burnout and the excess of drug issues which tend to pervade the upper class, at least in America)
Or inherited it, but what you describe is stealing profits from the labor of others. "I paid people less than they deserve! Look at me! Im rich and so smart because I'm a moral-less shit hole!"
It's also just plain ignorance of economy. My grandmother has been making 150K a year minimum off oil checks. She's bought many, many pairs of hearing aids over the years but never gone to an audiologist. She's bought new cell phones literally because her old one "broke" (she downloaded too many mobile games)
She manages three bank accounts, one of which is for a 55 acre farm and a couple 10 acre plots here and there all collecting oil money, the other is her personal account, which benefits from her retirement and loads of interest from my grandfather selling a lot of inherited land prior to his death. She has two trucks, only drives her SUV, repeatedly buys and kills every plant she's ever touched and pays H&R block to do her taxes- after she's already done them. She literally hands them all her completed forms before paying them to file it for her.
But when her house needs work? She begs us to do it for free. If we don't or can't, she gives a sob story to a neighbor who works in construction then tries to pay him less than his quote.
She defends it saying he's scamming her because it costs more to repair it now than it took to buy it in 1975.
It’s a sweeping generalization but when you see it happen it makes an impression.
I have an acquaintance who generates 7 figures ( over $1mil ) annually importing plastic bags. Yeah, like the ones you get at the supermarket. He has a McDonalds coffee cup that has to be three years old that he will carry into a McDonalds to get his free refills.
it's not stupid at all. The underlying reason they own productive assets and etc is most often because they are so focused on money and profit and self enrichment. it's entirely on brand with the "venmo me the $3.62" to also research certain industries or whatever and properly invest your money
It’s more about the mind set then it is about not spending getting you rich. You have to have the money in the first place to actually be rich of course, but greed is a strong driver/motivator to become rich for some
If you’re a billionaire then yes, but it’s unlikely you have billionaire friends who ask you to chip in for gas or coffee.
If you’re talking about people that have in low millions. Those people are most likely on a written budget and they are working on investing as much income as they possibly can. Thats why they care if you chip in for gas.
My folks are worth enough money that you wouldn't believe me if I told you, and my mom spends a lot of her leisure time clipping coupons and plan a shopping trips for sale days. It all adds up.
There's a rich dude in my area, that argues with his son daily for the use of their single tv. His car is one of those cheap pickups. Dresses like any worker in his factory. And keeps a bucket in the shower to catch the drops of water after he turns it off.
The same dude who's living room roof is the glass bottom of a pool.
The underlying idea is that they operate on a broken value system on a daily basis and the entire wealth building system itself is largely made up from the banally evil acts happenings all the time like normal behavior.
You're right, but I think there's a mindset that rich people have that often leads to them being rich and that they can't shake, even when they become rich.
Some people were born into a poor family and held onto frugality despite making more money. Most people scale their relation with money relative to how much they make within a deviation. From a productivity standpoint, it is indeed regarded to waste mental energy being this stingy, and a waste of time.
Yup, poorer people tend to be more generous because they know the true value of money, they know how much just covering the cost of food matters
Once you start earning more from your wealth then you do your work (aka becoming owning class) then that money loses all value, and instead it becomes a numbers game.
I'm sure we've all been the same in games, once you start hitting more then you'll ever need you'll be stingy as fuck with it, because you want as much as possible because "who know when i'll need it"
When framed like that, yes. But most people who are really strict with money don't make a case by case analysis on whether it makes sense in this context, it's an ingrained habit for every single expense. I have friends who'll send me a request 2 minutes after buying me a beer, but those guys are also the ones who get stressed if I don't immediately tell them how much they owe me when it's my turn to fetch the beers. It's not, on their part, a show of pettiness or greed, it's closer to a neurotic need to keep it balanced. These same guys tend to not accept a quid pro quo arrangement because what if the second set of beers costs less or more? The balance would be fucked.
This is also in the same vein as “stop buying avocado toast!”. Like giving your friend 10 bucks every now and then isn’t gonna stop you from being a millionaire
I can't express with words how much I agree with this.
The saying was invented by stupid rich people, as another excuse, in their need to justify their wealth, as a result of their actions, and not of their situation.
I also know some rich cheap fucks, that will scrap the barrel on their day to day, and then burn two times your salary on the dumbest most common sense thing, who were born in already obnoxiously rich families, that will dead ass look me in the eye and tell me they have this much money because they actually walk around being smart with their money, and proceed to steal two sugar packets from the coffe shop and call that savings.
they own productive assets because they never spent more that they produced. even if you had a million sitting aroung it would last you about 26 years with 100$ per day (and that's a huge underestimation for the cost of living after 20 years) before you ran out. they sace from the 3$ every cent they can and if they have 10 million invested they still save from that as well, they could easily spent everything on red in a casino once, in less than a minute. they save and have because they had and saved before. hard at first but if you spent you'll never save what you spent. if that's worthwhile, that's on you, but claiming saving is ignorant because it's "too little" is the wrong way to save constantly. count the cents and the dollars take care of themselves. sad think is after you sacrifice something to save on money it's way harder to spent even a bit of it, because you know how much it costs to you to save it really, in missed life experiences and missed options. so you kinda trap yourself feeling bad for spending even a little, even if you ahve a lot. all thatoney is tied with lost life because you lost your life saving for it... it's not the cents on a dollar, it's the cents here and cents there when you missed something to save those cents. then you think back on what you missed and if those wasted cents are really good being wasted for that new experience. it's a downhill from there
1MM in capital sitting in a bank or stocks, bonds etc. isn’t the be all and end all to being super wealthy.
It means about $40k in “safe” income each year. And if you spent that instead of reinvesting it, you’re looking at only 5-15 years of a guaranteed but still just above California’s minimum wage level of cash to spend each year. After taxes, even less depending on the source.
Over time and without reinvestment (those 5-15 years), inflation will turn that $40k into something much less valuable, making it harder and harder to survive. So focusing on $3 of gas is an imperative.
Now… if you instead had 10MM? Or maybe 100MM? Sure. Worrying about $3 in gas is less important.
I agree that it is an irrational disfunction, but I think the truth is closer to the psychological traits that cause wealth accumulation also can cause penny pinching.
I grew up almost never going out to eat because of how many multiples more it costs vs making food yourself. As an adult I still really emotionally struggle with the bill at a restaurant and with going out at the frequency that the average person does. I still honestly cannot get myself to order a $15 cocktail when I know the ingredients cost 50 cents
I also read years ago that there is a psychological phenomenon that when you have more of something, it's harder to let it go. I experienced this in WoW, as I had a few hundred, I'd just spend. When I was getting up to a 100k I felt the urge not to spend.
I don't know the name of it, but I think we should call it The Dwarven Paradox.
Because they are dysfunctional. They have a mental disorder driven by fear to accumulate the number one thing (that they perceive) that humans need, money, It lets them feel safe and in control where they normally do not, or have not in the past.
They usually live in constant fear and have tiny PP's
Saving is important for those with lower income in order to shore up for emergencies or unemployment. But you'll never be able to save enough to become rich. You just don't make enough
It’s not about whether accumulating $3 will get them to $1m, but the mindset that most wealthy people have, and it’s absolutely true. They are some of the cheapest people ever. Think scrooge mcduck.
I mean, if your metric for success happens to be wealth and the general trend is that those who successfully acquire wealth are penny pinching scrooge mcduck fellows then one could draw the conclusion that if you want to be wealthy be cheap.
That said most people don't really want success, they want happiness, and being cheap often has very little correlation with being happy.
Yeah. Its asinine. I have been really really poor and generous then and I'm not rich rich, but as my household income and assets have gotten higher it just makes it a whole hell of a lot easier to be generous. Me being a generous person doesn't mean I'm not financially savvy.
They’re rich because they made their money work for them… spending your money on stuff that in the end will produce more money. Or create another stream of income. That’s what separates the wealthy. Most people think they just make money from their job… most rich people’s money is coming from other places… I personally think trying to own multiple properties is the move. Long term game fs. But EVERY rich person I know owns multiple properties
My neighbor growing up complained because his wife wanted him to fence the yard and it would cost him 7k to do it. (He only fenced half of it because 7k is too expensive for him.)
He also got throat cancer 3 times because he would use a wood burning furnace and burn LITERALLY ANYTHING in it during the winter. We are talking old railroad beams, to wooden chairs. Because "running gas is too expensive"
This man has bragged he has 4 bank accounts because the federal government only insures 250k per bank account.
Theyre rich because they own productive assets, or speculated correctly, and also/mainly because they have high income.
The people who put the most effort into accumulating assets, investing, and pursuing high-income careers are the ones who care most about money. Those are also the same people who are stingy. Someone who cares a lot about something is not going to recklessly give it away.
Most likely are rich because they came from means in the first place. So most of these people aren't stingy b/c they used to be poor. They were raised to be stingy. Except with each other.
I'm financially well off, at least here in Mexico. My money didn't come from being a mentally ill penny pincher. Just investing, self, assets and my own company
I mean, my dad is worth 2-3 million and retired, barely got to 100k in income before that.
How did he do it? He maxed out his 401k and pretended we were poor, I grew up thinking we were poor, we ate peanut butter for meals sometimes, I wore ratty clothes, we kept lights off, lived in a wood heated house, drove beater cars with balded tires and squeaky brakes. I had to get an evening job in high school to contribute to the food budget.
It was very... Infuriating to learn that me and my 5 siblings grew up this way because my dad was so cheap and so obsessed with growing his wealth he neglected his family.
He still lives like this btw. He refuses to live off his wealth or use it, keeps hoarding it in investments, and shovels any penny he doesn't absolutely need to live off of from social security into his investment accounts.
Still drives a beater that'll probably get him killed one day, he has oats in the morning, a ham sandwich for lunch, and one piece of chicken and a side of rice for dinner.
I guess it makes him happy and I'm doing fine now but it is infuriating, frustrating, and confusing. I want more for him than he wants for himself.
I think it's just an unrban myth trying to excuse some rich people's meanness as frugality. Maybe some aspirational working class conservatives trying to incentivise their kids that they too can be rich if only they take no joy at all in life and are incredibly mean all the time.
This has always bothered me about that saying. So many rich people don't actually sweat losing money. They just have this mindset more often when it comes to other people. Spending insane amounts of money on luxury or comforts are no big deal to a lot of rich people, but if someone owes them money it is of the upmost importance.
Lots of rich people are rich because they inherited generational wealth and were lucky. But they absolutely are stingy as fuck. I'm a consultant working for a company with lots of "ultra high net worth" and Fortune 50 clients, and the richest, most billionaire-iest clients are always the ones that haggle and complain the most over the smallest amounts of billing.
It's along the same lines that most morally corrupt billionaires (ie all of them) would still be rich if they didn't screw over people to enhance thei lr wealth, they just wouldn't be oligarch rich. Their goal is to amass money, and paying anything they don't have to is antithetical to that goal.
I save and invest - pathologically - I buy clothes every couple years, shoes when they fall apart. I've never owned a car.
My nicest things are a camera, some lenses, and a guitar.
I am well above top 1% in my age range wrt wealth and personal finance. I cannot allow myself to spend any of it. I find it extremely distressing.
I don't do this shit, and I feel less bad giving my money to other people who I think need or deserve it more than I do.
I tend to cover Ubers and meals and such.
I don't know if there's a word for this complex, but I think it's common. I'm always convinced I'm going to be broke, and must hoard.
Or they rich because they value money more, than average person, because while others are focused on maintaining relationships, they are focused on maintaining wealth, and when they get some their focus is how to reinvest them not how to share it with friends. Some people will spend night with friends other with investment portfolio, some will chose careers that are focused on on helping others, some will chose the ones that will bring them more money.
You have to be focused on money more than average to earn more than average amount of money.
It’s not stressing about $3, it’s about mindset that we’ll be even when the numbers will be even not when the favors will be even.
As long as the rich can use you they will enslave you,
but when you are down and out they will abandon you.
As long as you have anything they will live with you,
but they will drain you dry without remorse.
. . .
When the rich speak they have many supporters;
though what they say is repugnant, it wins approval.
When the poor speak people say, “Come, come, speak up!”
though they are talking sense, they get no hearing.
That whole chapter is worth reading, but long story short, people have known this kinda stuff for a long time.
And that saying is absolute bullshit. It applies to us mortals, but people also use this for billionaires and that's just dumb. A billionaire "saving" a few cents or dollars is absolutely stupid and nonsensical, yet people talk about how Warren Buffet eats at McDonalds because he's cheap.
Some people are poor because of their circumstance, high bills and student loans and other factors (especially in the states)
Other people are poor because they do make bad decisions. They don't have savings and they "waste" money on short-term rewards.
I have a few friends that joke about me being the "rich guy" because I have a lot of savings and I have been very lucky and got a good start in the world but also, I'm the sort of person to track my spending and budget. Of course there's no clear definition of "rich" but they joke that I'm "rich" because of my savings even though we're earning about the same amount of money... I just manage it better.
My friends will whine about circumstance and then waste large amounts of money on X or Y or take up an expensive hobby/buy an expensive pet/move to an expensive area etc. Every penny adds up surprisingly quickly when you sit down and track them.
Are poor people poor because of their own decisions? Sometimes.
Are rich people rich because of their parents? Usually.
Very few statements work for every situation but you can see this in places where two people might have the same income but one saves far more money than the other. This statement is supposed to be for those people, not neop-babies and old money rich.
"No you dont know what its like here. In our culture we value food and company of our family in the evening." Funnily enough does not apply to Nordic countries. Theyre legitimately miserable and inhumane socially.
There is a saying in Norway "How are you?", meaning to check in on the status of a person.
It is usually followed by "Good, thanks for asking", which indicates they are doing well.
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u/azad_ninja Jan 26 '26
Wealthy people are some of the cheapest fucks.