r/RichPeoplePF

Throwaway account obviously. I'm currently a 38 year old software engineer and I make a good amount, about 165k a year, and take care of my Wife and I. I own a house and have a really cushy savings, but now I feel like my life is about to change completely.

The money itself is in a trust from an LLC, so it's already been taxed as far as I understand (Another rich people thing I am not familiar with, go figure). The salary part will be from my part ownership of the company and, having seen the tax documents, will range from like 2 mil to 15 mil a year. My older cousin is also inheriting part of the company, and is our representative on the board.

My main questions are

1. What should I do immediately once I get that money? I'm already setting up a post-nuptial to protect the company in the (incredibly unlikely) event I get divorced. I'll be putting the money in a separate account and then feeding it into my personal accounts for whatever use
2. How do I make sure that I morally invest that money? I'm very worried about getting an investor or someone that is just like "Hey, you know what makes good money right now? Drones." To which I can obviously say no, but I also want to make sure I'm as philanthropic as I can be without jeopardizing myself or my family. I want to make my closest friends' lives better, and I want to help my family too (though they are also inheriting large swathes of money, so I don't have to worry about them much).
3. Can I quit my job? Start building a new house? Make investing my full time job? The choices feel overwhelming.

Thank you for any advice y'all can give, I'm like a babe in the jungle here.

Hello all, throw away account for obvious reasons.

Let me start with some basic stats:

• Spouse and I are mid 40's
• 2 teenage kids, one going to college
• Current combined gross income $400,000 (pre-bonus)
• both jobs are secure as can be (we know nothing is pre-ordained)
• 529 accounts fully funded
• Both contribute %15 to retirements
• Home value $1.1M - We owe $390,000 @ 2.85% rate
• Total net worth with all assets/liabilities
• $2.12M - Financial planner in place monitoring and investing
• $150,000 in HYSA
• Total monthly bills are ~$5k/mo (mortgage, phones, internet..etc)
• Only debt is house, we own everything else outright. No other debts.

Situation: I had a relative pass away recently and left me roughly $270,000.

I'd like to sell our house and purchase a nicer one (about 1.6-1.8M) with better amenities/location/etc. I'd also like to buy a 'fun' car. I've many "fun" cars before, so this isn't an issue with maintenance or knowing what cars need. I've owned many higher-end cars before, I'm well very versed in cars.

Here's what I'd like to do with the latest windfall (this keeps the 'assets' but converts the cash into "stuff" assets): - "fun" car $120k - House down payment $100k - Vacation - $15k - Save $35k

Does anyone see an issue with this plan? Both of us have good paying jobs and would sell our current home to buy the new one if we execute this plan.

I make about $60-$100k more than all of my friends. My family does not make very much money at all (and their financial habits are TERRIBLE). I don’t have anyone in my life I can talk to about money other than coworkers, but that would be awkward because I’m also making significantly more than many of them. I’m single, so all financial decisions are my own. I have just over $100k in savings, but no debt (bought my car cash even). I feel like there’s next steps I need to take that I just don’t know about. I don’t own a home because I’m in an area it’s not feasible. My rent is quite high but not astronomical like it can be in this area. Not sure if there’s a better ub for this type of question. Not even sure what my questions is because I don’t know what I don’t know!

For anyone that reads this and feels like I’m bragging, there’s so much more to everyone’s story. I’ve come out of digging myself out of a massive pile of debt- refinancing credit cards into huge loans. I’ve worked up to 4 jobs at once. Until last year I still had a second job. I also am very good at my job and still at the low range because asking for more money is hard for me. It’s a long story to how I got here, and that adds even more complexity to my fear and insecurities around money. I will always have the huge part in me that thinks it could all disappear at any second.

Throwaway for privacy. I own a single family rental house in Anna, TX, which is growing city about 40 min north of Dallas. Bought it new construction in March 2024 for 402k, paid off in full, no mortgage. My parents are semi retired and manage it for basically free so it's been a super hands off experience for me.

Only issue is the city is way oversaturated with rentals, more than half the houses in the same neighborhood are rentals too, and the single family homes prices have been steadily dropping in Dallas the last year or so. My tenant's been there since the house was new and it's been smooth until recently, they've started being more difficult. Not sure I want to deal with new tenants and re-leasing this thing into a soft market if they leave.

Numbers wise: 2025 rent was 28,200, after property tax, insurance, HOA and the token management fee I pay my parents, net came out to 16,864, so about 4.2% return unlevered on what I paid. If I sold today I'd probably net somewhere around 350-360k, so I'd be taking a pretty big loss.

I'm in my mid 20s, run a business I started in college that's constantly growing, which I would like to put my full focus on. And my time horizon is still long. Part of me thinks this capital would be way better off in my stock portfolio such as VOO where I don't have to think about it at all. But part of me also doesn't want to sell into a soft local market and eat the loss, as well as losing the tax benefits from real estate.

Curious what you guys think, happy to answer questions on the numbers, thanks in advance!

I was recently approved for margin borrowing at my brokerage for $480k at 5.5% interest rate. This opens up a few options which I’m weighing. Appreciate any suggestions or advice.

One of my investment properties (a SFR) has a 30 year fixed mortgage with a principle of $240k. This SFR generates $2500 monthly gross rental income. 

Here are a few paths I’m considering with this newly available leverage:

1. I’m tempted to use part of the margin loan to pay off the principle on this SFR and own it outright, and use the cash flow to pay down the margin loan. However the spread between 5.5% and 6.5% is not that wide. And I would also lose the tax benefits of being able to deduct the mortgage interests, although margin loan interest is also deductible as investment expense? Also the margin interest is floating it moves with the FED it could rise above 6.5% very possibly if the FED raises interest rates, and there is also the risk of margin call. 

2. Do nothing: not touch the 6.5% mortgage and not use the margin loan. If you don’t use it then no interest, kinda like a credit card with a big limit. 

3. Not touch the 6.5% mortgage. Use the margin loan to invest in the stock market (index funds individual stocks etc) 

4. There is a triplex in my local market which I’m considering buying which is listed at $630k and can generate $4800 gross monthly rent. I could sell some equities and use the new margin loan to buy this triplex “in cash”, then use the cash flow (realistically and hopefully conservatively generate $3600ish monthly net cash flow) to pay down the margin loan. I am pretty happy with my current property manager so managing the property shouldn’t be a big headache. If going the traditional mortgage route I can possibly get a 6.2% fixed rate mortgage.

 

For context, here is a picture of our total assets: liquid assets of about $5.7M (mostly index funds and stocks in brokerage accounts and 401Ks). Rental real estate worth $1.65M with $570k mortgage, mostly low interest fixed rate mortgage such as 2.99%, 3.99% or owning outright. So it’s not like I have huge leverage on my existing real estate. Single income 2 kids family I have a $200k W-2 job I estimate I’m 5 to 10 years away from retirement. 

I think the big risk with the margin loan is the floating risk and margin call. 

And maybe there is no right answer to this, and it is a matter of personal preferences and priorities, such as more leverage versus less leverage, real estate versus stocks, cash flow versus asset value etc. 

Thank you for reading the long post. Appreciate any suggestions or advice.

im a frugal person, but i know nearly nothing about money. like nothing.

i grew up disadvantaged. less than 3 years ago i lived in a car. i found my way into an entry level job at a tech company, and did well. then i married a grad student.

i wont get into the details, but my wife and i are moving to manhattan for her new job, and her salary including bonus will be between 500-600k. for the last 2 years, we've been living on my income, roughly $70,000 plus her PhD stipend (~30k). 70k already felt insane to me. after 2 years i saved 40k, and i felt like we've lived extremely comfortably.

but this is a new realm. what do we even do with this much money? what do i need to do differently? what is step 1 here? do i set an appointment with a financial advisor? how do i go about doing that? i just want to learn how to handle this much money. this is new, exciting, and honestly a little scary to me. i'm just looking for a starting point here.

20M
I’m in a pretty fortunate position financially and have a family safety net, so I’m not really under pressure to get a job just to pay the bills.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what I actually want to do long term. I don’t really care about making a few hundred thousands a year or having a comfortable business. If I’m going to spend 10–20 years building something, I’d rather take a serious shot at building something big.

Right now I keep going back and forth between boring businesses like industrial equipment, infrastructure, manufacturing, export/import, agriculture, etc. I’m not particularly interested in the whole startup/VC/personal-brand thing.
I also don’t love businesses where your entire life becomes finding customers and selling. I’d much rather build something where operations, capital, assets, contracts, financing and eventually acquisitions matter more.

The problem is that at 20 I obviously don’t know what I don’t know.
So I’m curious about people here who’ve actually built businesses or made serious money:
If you were 20 again, with some money behind you but basically no real business experience, what would you do?

Would you start something immediately, work for someone first, buy a small existing business, or something else?
And more importantly, what did you think was a good business when you were younger that you later realised was actually shit?
Not looking for motivational advice. Just genuinely curious what someone who’s already been through it would do differently.

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I’m curious about how financially successful people think about and manage their money. What mindset, habits, or principles helped you grow your wealth over time? I’d especially like to hear from people who built their wealth themselves.

I would wire/ACH round number amounts into my brokerage and get frustrated that wires weren't available instantly and ACHs weren't available first thing in the morning on the day available.

I either saw something on my brokerage website or asked a customer service rep about this (not *today* disclaimer, a few months ago). I learned that because there are so many transfers moving through, it helps match them to the right accounts faster if you use the last four digits of your brokerage account number in the dollar amount.

So for an account ending in 1234, transfer $5012.34 instead of $5000.

It works, I see my money show up faster with fewer delays. Maybe the rest of you already knew this, but I thought I'd share just in case.

So I have a TD Canada bank account, and after hearing about TD Private Banking, I contacted a Senior Private Banker I found on TD’s website and was onboarded as a client.

Private Banking is useful for me because I don’t live in Canada, so being able to send wire transfers and handle other banking requests remotely without visiting a branch is important.

The problem is that I’ve been getting very poor service from my current banker. I often have to follow up multiple times just to get a simple request completed. Emails sometimes go unanswered, calls aren’t returned, and basic tasks can take much longer than they should.

Was it unusual for me to contact a Private Banker directly like this, or are clients normally referred or contacted by TD?

Also, what would you recommend I do about the poor service? Should I simply contact another TD Private Banker and ask to have my relationship transferred to them?

Liquid NW is 1.3M. Total NW is 1.5M. I own a very low risk mail order business. Do I need an LLC to protect my assets or can I continue to operate as a sole proprietor? Thanks for any and all help/advice.

We gift $1k to our 2 daughters who are in their early 20s and $300 to our teenager (who has a spending problem) annually. We then gift the remainder in stock up to the annual gifting limit (before needing to complete a form 709). We will probably double the cash portion this year. I'm aware of the kiddie tax but I'd rather move the large amounts now regardless of the tax. Kids are vaguely aware of the stock gifts that are meant for their upcoming needs - housing, etc. Trying to balance movement of assets, discretionary spend and motivation. How are you handling?

Idk if I fit here but I make 20K a month post taxes and want to become rich. Any advice on how to have a net worth in 7-8 figures?

Say a business venture pays off and you suddenly have 10s of millions of dollars and can afford a great amount of discretionary spending even after appropriately planning for the future.

Hello everyone, my question is specifically for rich men, how do you know if your partner or future partners isn’t here only for your money and benefit it can get from being with you ?

My problem is a lot of this book is kinda for people that are just really bad with money. Like idk about you but I never spend on something unless it’s an investment for my and if I do it’s like once a year. A lot of this book kinda says just don’t spend stupid which I’m sure most people don’t really do but as someone that started reading this in the hopes to actually learn new stuff it hasn’t really impressed me yet. Any book recommendations specifically on how to think better or “be rich”? And also does this book get better? It had me in the first half near lesson 1 but it started to kinda slow down at the second lesson for me

Sorry if this is not a suitable topic to discuss here but do you also find yourselves having much free time on your hands?

I feel a bit guilty because I was very fortunate to make a lot of money both in the stock market and with my job in big corporate while still having a lot of free time for hobbies and family. My friends are much more middle class and always complain that they have so much to do and are burnt out from their jobs, making barely 6 figures a year. I often end up doing stuff alone or with my SO.

Do you guys feel something similar in your friends circle? How do you deal with that? Look for new friends? Sorry these questions sound quite autistic but I ask myself these a lot.