Upworthy's book GOOD PEOPLE, now available - take a look!

Shop
 Explore 

wealth

Education

A guy and his friends shared their travel plans. The results perfectly explain the wealth gap.

What on Jeff Bezos's green earth did we just watch?

TikTok/@tcruznc

Sometimes you see something so mind-boggling you have to take a minute to digest what just happened in your brain. Be prepared to take that moment while watching these videos.

Real estate investor and TikTok user Tom Cruz shared two (now deleted) videos explaining the spreadsheets he and his friends use to plan vacations. They call it the "Forbes List" and it's...well...something. Watch the first one, kindly posted by @Radio_Reem on X:

What in the wealth is thispic.twitter.com/NTPTKT5CZG
— Karim Alammuri (@Karim Alammuri) 1629292830

So, "Broke Bobby" makes $125,000 a year. There's that.

How about the fact that his guy has more than zero friends who budget $80,000 for a 3-day getaway? Y'all, I wouldn't know how to spend $80,000 in three days if you paid me to. Especially if we're talking about a trip with friends where we're all splitting the cost. Like what does this even look like? Are they flying in private jets that burn dollar bills as fuel? Are they bathing in hot tubs full of cocaine? I genuinely don't get it.

But that's not even the full spreadsheet. It might make sense if this guy was just rich, had always been rich, and only knew rich people, therefore making have a friend group made up of multiple millionaires his norm. Surely that's the reality for some born into the 1%.

But that's not the case here. Though the video is no longer gracing TikTok, Cruz shared that he also has a "Welfare 10 List." He says this group of friends who make less than $100K a year call themselves that, and perhaps that's true. (If I were a part of this group, I might call myself a welfare case too because everything's relative and some of these dudes spend more in an hour of vacation than I spend on my mortgage each month.)

To be crystal clear, the top 5 friends on the "Forbes List" are willing to spend more than double what the guy at the bottom of the "Welfare 10 List "makes per year on a 3-day guy's trip. I don't know what to do with this information.

It's like we can see our society's wealth gap all laid out nice and neatly in a spreadsheet, only these people aren't even the uber-wealthy and uber-poor. This is just the range of this one guy's friends.

I have nothing against people who build success and wealth for themselves, and even $5 million per year is hardly obscenely wealthy by billionaire standards. But Cruz says he's known most of his "welfare" friends since college, which presumably means most of those guys have college degrees and are making a pittance in comparison with the "Forbes List." One could claim the guy making $5 million a year just works harder, but does he really work 100 times harder than the guy making $50,000? Doubt it.

Money makes money, and after a certain threshold of wealth or income, it's actually quite easy to get and stay rich without actually "earning" more money (assuming you're reasonably wise and responsible). So, maybe the guys who are willing to shell out $125,000 for a week-long trip should offer to pay the travel expenses of the friends they "hang out with regardless of income" who don't even make that in a year, since that's probably just the interest they're making on their wealth anyway.

But what do I know? This is like an entirely different world to me and probably 99+% of Americans, as evidenced by some of the responses.

Naturally, there will be a range of incomes in any group of people, but 1) most of us don't actually know how much our friends make, and 2) even fewer of us make spreadsheets with that information in order to rank our friends and figure out who can go on which vacations.

People are just endlessly fascinating. That's all I've got.

This article originally appeared three years ago.

From Your Site Articles

culture

Education

A story about two pairs of boots illustrates how rich people get richer in ways poor people can't

It’s got nothing to do with bootstraps.

Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash

The Sam Vimes "Boots" Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness explains one way the rich get richer.

Any time conversations about wealth and poverty come up, people inevitably start talking about boots. The standard phrase that comes up is "pull yourself up by your bootstraps," which is usually shorthand for "work harder and don't ask for or expect help." (The fact that the phrase was originally used sarcastically because pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps is literally, physically impossible is rarely acknowledged, but c'est la vie.)

The idea that people who build wealth do so because they individually work harder than poor people is baked into the American consciousness and wrapped up in the ideal of the American dream. A different take on boots and building wealth, however, paints a more accurate picture of what it takes to get out of poverty.

Author Terry Pratchett is no longer with us, but his writing lives on and is occasionally shared on his official social media accounts. Recently, his Twitter page shared the "Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness" from Pratchett's 1993 book "Men At Arms." This boots theory explains that one reason the rich are able to get richer is because they are able to spend less money.

If that sounds confusing, read on:

\u2026 He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of okay for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars\u2026\n2/5
— Terry Pratchett (@Terry Pratchett) 1643144843

Pratchett wrote:

"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet."

In other words, people who have the money to spend a little more upfront often end up spending less in the long run. A $50 pair of boots that last five years essentially cost you $10 a year. But if you can only afford $10 upfront for a pair of boots that last six months, that's what you buy—and you end up paying twice as much over a five-year period.

There are so many areas in which this principle applies when you're poor. Buying in bulk saves you money over the long run, but you have to be able to afford the bulk cost up front. A reliable car that doesn't require regular repairs will cost more than a beater, but if the beater is all you can afford, that's what you're stuck with. You'll likely spend the same or more over time than if you'd bought a newer/higher quality car, but without the capital (or the credit rating) to begin with, you don't have much choice.

People who can afford larger down payments pay lower interest rates, saving them money both immediately and in the long run. People who can afford to buy more can spend more with credit cards, pay off the balances, build up good credit and qualify for lower interest rate loans.

There are lots of good financial decisions and strategies one can utilize if one has the ability to build up some cash. But if you are living paycheck to paycheck, you can't.

Climbing the financial ladder requires getting to the bottom rung first. Those who started off anywhere on the ladder can make all kinds of pronouncements about how to climb it—good, sound advice that really does work if you're already on the ladder. But for people living in poverty, the bottom rung is just out of reach, and the walls you have to climb to get to it are slippery. It's expensive to be poor.

When people talk about how hard it is to climb out of poverty, this is a big part of what they mean. Ladder-climbing advice is useless if you can't actually get to the ladder. And yet, far too many people decry offering people assistance that might help them reach the ladder so they can start taking advantage of all that great financial advice. Why? Perhaps because they were born somewhere on the ladder—even if it was the bottom rung—and aren't aware that there are people for whom the ladder is out of reach. Or perhaps they're unaware of how expensive it is to be poor and how the costs of poverty keep people stuck in the pit. Hopefully, this theory will help more people understand and sympathize with the reality of being poor.

Money makes money, but having money also saves you money. The more money you have, the more wealth you're able to build not only because you have extra money to save, but also because you buy higher quality things that last, therefore spending less in the long run. (There's also the reality that the uber-wealthy will pay $5,000 for shoes they'll only wear a few times, but that's a whole other kind of boots story.)

Thanks, Terry Pratchett, for the simple explanation.

This story originally appeared two years ago.

From Your Site Articles

culture

Videos

Shaquille O'Neal quietly paid for a random guy's engagement ring while standing in line

"I'm just trying to make people smile... That's all."

NBA on TNT/Twitter

An unsuspecting guy at a shopping mall Zales got the surprise of his life back in 2021 while trying to pay off part of his engagement ring.

As the young man talked with the clerk at the jewelry store counter about how much he still owed for his ring and when he'd be able to pay it off, an extraordinarily large hand handed the clerk a credit card. Shaquille O'Neal, the 7' 1'' basketball legend known colloquially as "Shaq," overheard their conversation and decided to take care of the bill himself. No big announcement. No fanfare. He just handed over his credit card, shook the stunned customer's hand and patted him on the back, and that was that.

Someone caught the moment on video and shared it, which prompted Shaq's co-hosts on NBA on TNT to ask him about it the next day.

One of the first questions was, "You went to the mall, and went to Zales?!?" Not exactly where one would expect a person with a $400 million net worth to be hanging out on a Monday, but Shaq pointed out that he has a jewelry line at Zales. He went in to get some hoop earrings. Alrighty.

The young man at the checkout counter was so shy, Shaq said, and when he heard him talking about paying for his engagement ring, Shaq asked him how much it was and offered to pay for it.

At first, the guy refused, but Shaq insisted. And apparently, he does these random acts of generosity all the time.

— (@)

He said he was recently in a furniture store (seriously, do multi-millionaires not shop online?) and saw a mom with an autistic daughter buying furniture. He just took care of their bill, just because.

"I'm into making people happy," he said. "I didn't mean for that to get out because I don't do it for that...I'm just trying to make people smile, that's all."

Shaq's generosity is well-documented, despite his preference to keep much of it under wraps. In a 2015 interview with Graham Bessinger, he explained how his father's charity—despite their family not having a lot of money—influenced him.

After giving the family's bag of hamburgers to a homeless veteran, his father got into the family car and told him, "If you ever make it big time, make sure you help those in need."

Shaq remembered those words and engages in charity in a range of ways, "because of what a man who made $30,000 a year taught me," he said. "And a woman who was a secretary who probably made $20,000 a year—they taught me that."

His giving comes "from the heart," he said. He's not looking for attention or accolades—he just wants to make people happy.

"I'm doing this because this is what I was taught," he said. "I'm doing it because to walk in there and see a family, put a smile on their face for a day, that's just awesome to me."

Shaq on helping others when no one is lookingwww.youtube.com

"That's my thing. I just want to make you smile," he said.

Shaq once asked a restaurant server how much of a tip she wanted, and when she quipped "$4,000," he gave it to her. When a 12-year-old was paralyzed by a stray bullet in a shooting, Shaq donated a whole house to his family. A fan who saw Shaq in a Best Buy offered condolences to the star for the untimely death of Shaq's friend and former teammate Kobe Bryant, as well as Shaq's sister Ayesha, who had recently passed away from cancer. He was treated to a new laptop—the best one in the store.

Many of us like to daydream about what we'd do if we had more money than we know what to do with. And many of us like to picture ourselves being generous with our wealth, helping out random folks who could use some help.

Charitable giving looks like a lot of different things, from funding organizations to distributing money through a foundation to handing over a bag of burgers to someone who's hungry. It's just delightful to see wealthy people who not only support official charitable organizations with money and time (Shaq serves as a national spokesperson for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and is a member of the national Board of Directors for Communities in Schools in addition to raising and donating millions of dollars to various causes) but who also just help out random people everywhere they go.

Kudos to Shaq's parents for teaching him so well, and kudos to him for taking their lessons to heart.

This article originally appeared on 4.7.21

From Your Site Articles

kindness

Education

Why every American should be poor at least once in their life

People who've always been financially comfortable really have no idea.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya/Pexels

Being poor for a while is an eye-opening experience.

Let me start by saying that no one should have to live in poverty. I do, however, believe that every American should experience being poor at least once in their life.

I've never lived in true poverty, thankfully, but I've been poor. I've eaten government cheese. I've internalized the principals of "The Complete Tightwad Gazette" out of necessity. I know what it's like to pinch every penny and to not even think about buying anything "extra." I know the anxiety of paying for a car repair with a credit card that I can only afford minimum payments on, knowing the interest I can't afford will keep piling up.

I've also been fortunate to experience financial comfort. Not enormous wealth, but having enough to not be concerned about affording every little thing I buy. I know how it feels to go to the grocery store without a calculator. I've blown a tire and had the money to cover it. I've been annoyed instead of terrified when I have to replace an appliance. I've been able to take a vacation and splurge a little.

Being financially comfortable is better than being poor, of course. But I don't think people who've never known true financial struggle have any idea how much better it is. They may joke about being "poor" when they have to save their money for something, but they've never experienced not having any money to save.

Being poor teaches you so many things, far beyond just how to budget. You learn that it's hard as hell to climb your way out of financial trouble, how it can feel like you're stuck in a toilet bowl that's constantly swirling and pulling you back down. You learn how expensive it is to be poor—knowing you could save money in the long run shopping at Costco and buying in bulk or stocking up on things during big sales, but you have to have extra means in the moment to be able to do that.

You learn that a few hundred dollars is actually a huge amount of money. You learn that a lot of what people spend money on is totally wasteful. You learn which things are actually worth spending money on (brand names don't matter, shoe quality does). You learn to make excuses for not being able to go on fun outings with friends because you don't want to say, "Sorry, I can't afford that" and feel the awkwardness of it all.

What's surprising, though, is how much more you learn about being poor once you do have some financial ease. When you apply for a loan and get the best interest rates and the lowest fees because you have good credit and some money in the bank, you learn how much the system screws over poor people. When you are able to buy a car that doesn't constantly need repairs and furniture that doesn't fall apart after a year, it really sinks in how much more it costs to not have money. When you're able to pay less overall because you can afford the annual payment instead of the monthly payment for a service, you learn that having money saves money in ways you never imagined.

You learn gratitude for small things if you've been poor. The joy of treating yourself to a fancy coffee or some fresh flowers hits different when it's something you couldn't afford before.

You also learn that there are a lot of people who've never known financial hardship, and it blows your mind. As you spend more time in middle and upper middle class circles, you meet more and more people who aren't necessarily rich but who've never had to actually worry about money. It's not their fault, of course, but it's bizarre to witness these folks in the wild. Like, for some people, it's just normal to pay for a haircut and color at a salon every six weeks, as if it's no different than paying a phone bill. There are people who have never bought generic to save $.50 and simply wouldn't dream of doing so. There are people who set their thermostats to whatever temperature is comfortable and then just go about their day not thinking about their utility bill. It's unnerving to see things you know as luxuries just treated as the norm, to see how much freedom there is in simply not being poor.

But really, the most important lesson you (hopefully) learn from being poor is empathy. You learn not to judge someone for their financial situation. You learn that most people don't choose to be poor, and that it takes not just time and effort, but also luck and very often help, to get to a place of financial okay-ness. You learn that assuming anything about a poor person is likely wrong and that someone's financial situation is almost never a reflection of their moral character. You learn to be humble and kind and not take anything you have for granted.

I'm not saying anyone should go out and become poor on purpose. But even putting yourself through a mental exercise of trying to get by in a low-wage job or figuring out how you would handle a major financial setback can go a long way toward increasing understanding and empathy. Being poor isn't a necessity, but it does provide a valuable first-hand perspective that can be hard to get otherwise.

From Your Site Articles

finances

Humor

Canadian comedian makes a funny and thoughtful case for why he doesn't want to be rich

"Bring rich won't make history remember you."

via TED

Comedian Pardis Parker at the Global Ted COnference 2022.

In April 2022, comedian Pardis Parker performed a five-minute set at the global TED Conference in Vancouver, Canada, where he admitted he’s “terrified of wanting to be a billionaire.” The performance was a funny and bold, statement in a culture obsessed with the ultra-wealthy.

Parker’s fear of becoming a billionaire began after he left Canada for Los Angeles. “I think the biggest difference between Canada and L.A. is the extent to which people in L.A. fetishize wealth,” Parker said.

“I'm terrified, man. I'm terrified that L.A. is changing me that I'm becoming one of those people who chases money, who fetishizes wealth who wants to be a billionaire,” he continued. “When I say that people get angry they get defensive. They’re like, ‘What's wrong with being rich? What's wrong with being a billionaire? What's wrong with being financially savvy?’ It's just like yo man, if you own a billion of anything that doesn't make you savvy, that makes you a hoarder.

He then points out that billionaires are just as quickly forgotten as anyone else. “There's 2,668 billionaires on the planet right now. Name them. You can't, and that's while they're still alive,” Parker joked.

Parker finishes his chunk by sharing how almost everyone can leave a legacy long after they’re gone. For example, give kids a full-size candy bar on Halloween. “That's it, that's it. Legacy cemented. It's been 30 years since I went trick-or-treating and me and my brother still talk about 39 Grenon.”

Parker’s stand-up routine presents a fun way of rethinking what it means to be rich and leave a legacy and he’s right. In the end, people will probably forget those who impressed them with their wealth, but they’ll never forget someone who made them feel good.

From Your Site Articles

wealth

Pop Culture

Woman who was poor but has a rich girlfriend explains why 'rich people don't say they're rich'

It's all about perspective.

via Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

A woman on a shopping spree.

One of the interesting quirks about wealth and class in America is that many people have a hard time determining their socioeconomic status accurately. A poll published by Business Insider found that some Americans earning less than $50,000 feel rich, while others earning more than $100,000 feel poor. Nearly half of Americans earning $100,000 or more identify as middle class.

The same poll found that only 13% of millionaires believe they are wealthy and 60% define themselves as middle class.

A TikTokker named Geneviève explained how this disconnect could happen by using her girlfriend as an example. Geneviève grew up in a low-income family and her girlfriend was raised by affluent parents, with a live-in nanny and a maid. However, the girlfriend always thought she was middle class.

Interestingly, she tells the story in a very non-judgmental way. She simply wants to understand why people’s perceptions of wealth can be so skewed.

“Here are some culture shocks that I had as someone who grew up poor who’s now living with someone who grew up with money,” Geneviève said. “Firstly, is the fact that rich people don’t consider themselves rich because they surround themselves with people who are much richer than them.”

@gen_laforce
do y'all have any rich people experiences? i'm curious✨ #richvspoor #cultureshock #grwm #relatable

“It’s amazing that she was able to live this life, but it made me realize that everything is relative. Because although per my standard that qualifies as rich, she was by far not the richest person at her school, in her neighborhood, in her group of friends,” Geneviève said.

“So to her, she was actually middle class because she had never really come into contact with people who were properly poor, or even properly middle class,” she continued. “She had only ever really been exposed to people within her own community who were well-off until she went to college.”

Geneviève’s story is an interesting lesson on how we see ourselves and that, in the end, there’s always going to be someone richer than you and always someone who has less. The key is that if you’re genuinely grateful for what you have, you can feel like a king, regardless of what’s in your bank account. But if you’re rich and ungrateful, you’ll never have enough.

From Your Site Articles

wealth

Family

Soccer star Sadio Mané beautifully explains his approach to sharing his exceptional wealth

Dan Sutich/Facebook, Soccer Stories – Oh My Goal/YouTube

This story originally appeared on 05.13.20

I don't follow international football (soccer, for us Americans), but a viral Facebook post prompted me to look up pro soccer player Sadio Mané. I'm so glad I did.

The 28-year-old from Senegal plays for Liverpool and is widely known as one of the nicest guys in the game. He's been known to help offload items off the team's bus, treat unsuspecting fans and ballboys with gifts and even helping scrub toilets at a local mosque after a big game.

He's also known for donating much of his $14 million a year salary as a professional footballer, especially toward helping his home village in Senegal.

The viral post that caught my eye showed Mané carrying a cracked iPhone and included a quote from him explaining his approach to wealth. (The quote was not in response to being asked about the cracked iPhone, but it makes a nice visual).

According to as.com, Mané said in an interview with a Ghanaian newspaper:

"Why would I want ten Ferraris, 20 diamond watches, or two planes? What will these objects do for me and for the world? I was hungry, and I had to work in the field; I survived hard times, played football barefooted, I did not have an education and many other things, but today with what I earn thanks to football, I can help my people. I built schools, a stadium, we provide clothes, shoes, food for people who are in extreme poverty. In addition, I give 70 euros per month to all people in a very poor region of Senegal which contributes to their family economy. I do not need to display luxury cars, luxury homes, trips and even planes. I prefer that my people receive a little of what life has given me"

He's sincere about that. Mané has paid for a hospital to be built as well—a project he funded because his father had died when Mané was a child because there was no hospital in their village. Last summer, he also returned to Senegal on vacation to check up on a school he is building in his home village of Bambali.

— (@)

Mané's attitude toward his wealth and his choice to spend his money to help others are so refreshing. People are free to do what they want with their money, of course, and it's not like Mané never splurges. But he tries to stay humble. In a world with such extremes of poverty and wealth, seeing someone attempt to balance the scales voluntarily does a heart good. Imagine a society where every millionaire or billionaire were as detached from material things and as generous with what they have as Sadio Mané. While individuals aren't responsible for public welfare, imagine the wide range of good they could do nonetheless.

Thank you, Sadio Mané, for being such an excellent role model.

Learn more about Mané and the work he's done for his village here:

The touching reason Sadio Mané built a hospital in his village | Oh My Goalwww.youtube.com

From Your Site Articles

wealth

A guy and his friends shared their travel plans. The results perfectly explain the wealth gap.

What on Jeff Bezos's green earth did we just watch?

So, "Broke Bobby" makes $125,000 a year. There's that.

A story about two pairs of boots illustrates how rich people get richer in ways poor people can't

It’s got nothing to do with bootstraps.

Shaquille O'Neal quietly paid for a random guy's engagement ring while standing in line

"I'm just trying to make people smile... That's all."

Why every American should be poor at least once in their life

People who've always been financially comfortable really have no idea.

Canadian comedian makes a funny and thoughtful case for why he doesn't want to be rich

"Bring rich won't make history remember you."

Woman who was poor but has a rich girlfriend explains why 'rich people don't say they're rich'

It's all about perspective.

Soccer star Sadio Mané beautifully explains his approach to sharing his exceptional wealth

I convinced my Gen Z kids to watch 'Dead Poets Society' and their angry reactions surprised me

He's Italian. She's American. Their delightful love story has won the hearts of millions.

Mom tries to keep it together when her 3-year-old daughter demands she help her find a husband

10 awkward friendships you probably have—we all have a #9.

Meet the people using their project management skills to better the world

A dad posted his 5-year-old's paintings online and couldn't believe the huge response