Quote:
Originally Posted by Hoover
To be honest, I'm not all that interested in being that wealthy. In fact, I rather enjoy my life because I feel like I get to live the best of both worlds at time. My wife and I live a very comfortable lifestyle. If there is something we want, we can have it. We wanted a nice house on a nice lot so we built a house a couple of years ago. It's nothing grand, but but we live in a 350k house. On the other hand I still drive my 2002 toyota carolla that has 225k miles on it. Why? Because it's fine and I'd rather live in a nice house than drive a nice car. My wife drives a 2008 Camry. The biggest TV in my house? 27 inch tube. Yeah, it sucks, but I don't watch TV and when I buy something its going to rock. I would rather become debt free than have a nice TV.
That's my actual life, but in the world of politics and fundraising I get to live an alternative life style. I watch college football games in skyboxes and enjoy catered tailgates with free booze. I travel to major cities for business but while there we stay at the best hotels, eat at the best restaurants, and attend sporting events, concerts, and other events. Most of the time I fly coach, but sometimes I travel in private jets that pick me up a mile from my house.
All of this is fun to do. I love it when I can bring my wife along. But I'm also glad its not the norm. For as fun and as interesting as life can be at times, I love nothing more than a weekend at home with my wife and the dogs. I like mowing my yard.
Through my work I've been able to get to know and interact with some very wealthy people. I find them all to be very normal. Some of them are as crazy as the guys I like to drink beer and play cards with. To be honest, I think what they really want is to be treated like a real person, not someone who can make contributions of 100k, or 100 million. That's tough, especially in my line of business, but most of theses people don't come from wealth so it is possible to relate to them at some level.
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I live a similar lifestyle. I live pretty damn comfortably. If I want something, I buy it. I go out when I want, travel when I want, eat what I want, etc. Up until a month ago I drove a 1998 Accord and only got a new car because it was time.
Now, the difference is I do aspire to be wealthy, but not at the expense of the lifestyle I live.
I think the biggest change I'd make (other than traveling even more than I do) is I'd venture off to do something work related that I am truly passionate about. I enjoy what I do now, but I do it mostly because it's good $$, not because I love it.
I also agree, to some extent, about your experience with wealthy people. Last year at a convention I had the opportunity to meet a very recent former fund manager of one of the largest mutual funds in the world. For the rest of the convention a few of my friends and I partied with this guy until the early hours each night. He enjoyed hanging out with us because we treated him like any other dude. Looking back I can't believe we got this older, wealthy, important guy to climb the roof of the hotel with us at 4am. In retrospect, we're fortunate nothing bad happened.