Those Money Haters are Gonna Hate

Recently, I created a Facebook post that brought on a ton of heat. It was so much heat that friends reached out to me to say how this was crazy, uncalled for heat, and everything I said was not what other people made it out to be. What I learned was money haters are gonna hate.

Let’s Start off with the post:

“Only 21% of millionaires received an inheritance.

16% inherited more than $100,000.

3% inherited $1,000,000+.

Reality is the majority of millionaires got there through their own hard work.

Believing the opposite is dangerously corrosive to your wealth building capabilities.

There are a lot of millionaires living next door to you. They don't look it because they drive used cars, live a modest life, and save more than they earn.”

 I had taken these stats from a Chris Hogan article. If you do not know who Chris Hogan is, well… he is a black financial podcaster and blogger. He wrote a post about how millionaires didn’t inherit their wealth as most people think. 

His article is  “How Many Millionaires Actually Inherited their wealth” To find out, 74% of Millennials believe millionaires inherited their money. Even worse, 52% of Boomers believe the same thing. 

In reality, through his survey and the Federal Reserves’ numbers only 21% of millionaires inherit their money. 

If you really want to do some deep dive thinking. The interesting stat is 90% of wealthy families lose their wealth by the 3rd generation. You can find this information in the article “How Wealthy Families Go Broke.”

The Heat from the Post:

Now you may be asking why I took so much heat from this article. One thing for sure was that I was busting people’s financial myths and possibly ruining their day. People are often fed lies to help control them. 

The belief that millionaires are self-made can really break someone’s thinking. Don’t you see all the rich people buying big houses, driving expensive cars, and wonder why they get preferred treatments. 

In reality, these people are also keeping up with the Joneses. My friend Lionel Piguet wrote a great blog post called “Comparing Yourself to Others is Expensive.”

Lionel explains  how people will compare themselves with others, how social media influences others, and how peer pressure can really influence our financial decisions.

This will bring up the belief that we all need to fit in. So people will pay for big things to live the rich life, while still being in that paycheck to paycheck lifestyle.

This will eventually bring other people that cannot afford these luxuries to really be a money hater that is gonna hate.

One of my haters:

One of the haters on the post thought the post was racially problematic. He thought the post showed that only white people had the chance of success. I am not sure where he drew his conclusion from.

It is quite interesting he called this racially problematic. My father-in-law is a Cantonese Australian, and he moved to Australia to create a family, a business, and rose from nothing to something. 

That speaks to me because it shows that anyone can move up in the world. 

Last fall, I read Quit Like a Millionaire. It is the story of Kristy Shen on how she went from having a family income of $0.44 a day in China to quitting at the age of 31 a millionaire in Canada. 

Of course people may point out these are exceptions and economic data does not support this analysis. If you look at so many people that are succeeding from nothing there has to be something said about that. 

If you tell me that it is not possible to succeed as a non-white then maybe you are the racist individual keeping people down and taking away their hope. I believe in people and believe that if people save, invest, work hard, and avoid debt they can truly achieve so much. 

There is the belief that if we limit the excuses we hear that we can overcome so much in the world.

Haters are gonna hate, but friends will stay by your side.

Yes there is discrimination all over, but this Facebook post that I made points out that 80% of people that are millionaires are self-made. According to Fidelity, 88% of millionaires are self-made. So the data is coming in. 

The amazing thing is that so many of my friends, aquaintances, and family reached out to me, and told me about how I was helping them with their finances. 

They were in disbelief of how the haters tried to tear down the idea of people struggling and finally succeeding. 

Money haters are gonna hate those that can overcome obstacles. We all have the ability to rise above all circumstances. It may be hard with many external factors, but there is hope. 

Other Money Bloggers and their Haters:

People really do hate things that they believe are true. Where does all this hate come from? Maybe they have built up anger, or maybe sees others with money as a threat. 

Oftentimes, people see others as a threat and use that to fuel their strategic takedown of other people. 

J.Money got some hate about what he did with money. He blogged about it on his blog Budgetsaresexy. The article was called “What Haters Are Like”

Here are some of the hate he got.

“I just paid off my debt! (You shouldn’t have had any to begin with)

I just invested in my first stock! (You need to diversify more)

I just saved for retirement! (Why? YOLO!)

Budgets are sexy! (No they’re not, they’re boring)

I just rode my bike to work! (You’re gonna get hit by a car one day!)

I just bought a used car! (It’s gonna break down, you know)

I  just bought insurance! (You would have been better off saving it)

I just saved $20.00 doing it myself! (My time is worth way more than that)

I just got a raise! (I just got two)”

The hate is real. Why do people really choose to hate on personal financial bloggers?

Some Wisdom about some of the haters.

From the words of Mr. Money Mustache who describes hate from the prehistoric times of people trying to take down the Alpha in order to get a woman. Here is his quote:

“All this silliness may have made sense when life, death, and sex were at stake. But to see it applied in modern times to a financial blogger who attempts to share the benefits of a lower-consumption lifestyle with the rest of the world can be pretty funny.”

Money haters are gonna hate on whoever doesn’t agree with them. If you are a finance blogger and you wreck someone’s thinking by saying 80% of millionaires are self-made that will really put a dent into someone’s psyche.

Even if you say, you do not have to retire by the age of 65. You can retire early in life. That really breaks up these myths that people believe in. 

All the lies and myths that have been fed to them to alter how they think will really make someone think deeply.

Financial bloggers Give Hope:

The hate comes from something within. What do financial bloggers do? 

They give hope, they give goals, plans, and advice on how to change your life. We need to learn to plan. If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. 

Saving money can be hard for many people, but why hate on advice when you have nothing to offer. No plan to help those that struggle with money. 

JL Collins help change the lives of so many people by writing the Simple Path to Wealth. I have embraced it to walk my own simple path to wealth. 

It is not good to bring people down, but the money haters are gonna hate on anything that disagrees with what they say.

How to change your money hating thinking.

I posed the thought to social media: “ People need to think outside the box. Creativity can be hard, but through practice you make anything happen. Start thinking differently.”

My father’s cousin gave some helpful advice. This goes with anything and how to open your mind from being a hater to being a lover. 

He says “Think that works by befriending others that think differently, change your habits, make new friends, and change the world.”

1. Befriending Others that think differently

Being able to change your mind starts with you learning from different people. If you are constantly learning from the same types of people, you will be in an echo chamber hearing what you think all the time. 

You will never be able to learn from new things, new experiences, and will be stuck on hating on what is new. 

Take a chance and learn from others.

2. Change Your Habits

Our habits are what define our systems in life. If our habit is to spend spend spend, then we will constantly be in a system of spending. 

Create new habits, learn new different ways of doing something, and create a system to constantly improve your life 1% of the time. 

James Clear writes in his book Atomic Habits “Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement”

As we create new habits this will compound to create a person that you will eventually become. Look at creating good habits that will make you a better person.

3. Make New Friends

We all have friends that will support us, but oftentimes there are people that will not support us or even help us grow. It is said “You are the average of the five people you spend time with.”

If you want to go from being a money hater that is gonna hate to someone that loves, creates, and produces then you need to find your own tribe. 

People influence others. Find those people that will be a good influence on your life and strive to make a difference in the world. 

The world has enough haters it is time to stop being a money hater that is gonna hate. It is time to be someone that tries to improve the lives of others.

4. Change the World

Now we have all the tools to make a difference in our thinking, it is time to change the world.

Let’s stop hating and start thinking about how we can make plans to help people. We can spew hate all we want, but that does nothing. It is time for action. 

In the finance world, we talk about compound interest. It is time to work on making the world a better place 1% at a time, and let that compound over time to create a better place to live in. 

We all have skills, talents, and the ability to make a difference. Let’s do something.

Some Last Thoughts:

In reality money is just a tool. It helps buy freedom, gives us options, and allows us to buy our time back. Do we really want to avoid it in order to work the rest of our lives?

Take this time to not be a hater. Learn, connect, and strive to make a better community. You can be a hater all you want, but that does nothing to change the world. 

Change your habits, make new friends, and then change the world. 

If the haters keep on hating just shake it off. 

“'Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play

And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate

Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake

I shake it off, I shake it off “ 

Taylor Swift

” Spend less than you make, stay out of debt, and invest the rest”