Hope everyone had a great 4th of July
weekend. It’s my favorite holiday every
year, and this year I was fortunate enough to meet some of my neighbors and see
some fireworks on Saturday evening.
Friday evening, I heard loud music from a house – sounded like
a great party. It seemed like one of my
neighbors, but as I went to investigate, I realized that the music was coming
from a large house across the lake. It
was a huge party. Music was loud and the
lights were bright.
Anyway, when I was at the neighbor’s house on Saturday
night, I asked them if they heard the music from the night before.
Oh yeah! It was so
loud. It’s those rich people across the
lake!
It was strange to hear these neighbors mention “the rich
people across the lake.” Their house was
on the lake itself, nicely furnished, and even had a dock and a boat. Yet, they referred to the “rich people” and
did not consider themselves rich.
I suppose it’s all relative.
The people across the lake certainly had a huge, beautiful house. My neighbors also had a nice house on the
lake. And their house makes my house
look like a shack, and I’m certainly not on the lake.
To paraphrase numerous studies, people always look up to
people with higher in comes. People who
make $25k per year think those who make $50k are rich. People who make $50k per year think those who
make $100k are rich. And so on. I suppose it’s not a surprise that there was
a hint of house envy. And trying to “keep
up with the Jones” is a very dangerous financial game.
It is also important to note that there’s a difference
between income and wealth. It has been
studied and shown that people, in general, who have conspicuous displays of income
– large houses, cars, boats, etc. – do not correlate with high levels of wealth.
So those people across the lake – the big house, the big
party, loud music – could simply have high income. They could have a big mortgage and credit
card debt up to their eyeballs. Who
knows?
There’s no way I could – or even want to keep up with those
Jones. But I hope they invite me to
their party next year!
