One of the most difficult drawbacks to the FIRE movement (financial independence retire early) is dealing with the judgment of our employment-dependent families, friends, and neighbors.
After all, one of the first things people ask someone they just meet is “what do you do for a living?” Saying you are retired at 35 probably will earn you another skeptic rather than a friend.
You could lie and pretend to be employed. You could also bend the truth into a gnarly pretzel and say that you’re a day trader / investor, a freelancer, or on work leave for family/medical reasons.
However, your lifestyle choices (midday Yoga, golf, and mimosas) could easily expose your lies. If you want to hide your wealth and protect your relationships, you will need to become an expert in the arcane arts of stealth wealth wizardry.
What is stealth wealth?
Its the practice of displaying outward frugality to intentionally hide your wealth and privilege from others.
Stealth wealth wizards live in every community, but they’ve woven such a powerful illusion spell, you pass by them everyday without even knowing it. They look just like the plebs and live just like the plebs, but their bank accounts tell a different story.
Why would somebody want to be a stealth wealth wizard? Simple: to fly under the radar. Class warfare is as old as civilization itself. Everybody wants privilege for themselves, but few want to flaunt it and draw judgment and hostility.
Once somebody achieves FIRE, practicing stealth wealth will protect their relationships and minimize awkward conversations. Even better, continued frugal living will not only hide your wealth, it will also preserve it for life.
Interested in joining the stealth wealth wizard guild? It’s going to take serious commitment. Buying one used a car or having one faded t-shirt is an incomplete disguise. People have a way of sniffing out inauthenticity.
Here is how you can become a true stealth wealth wizard.
1) Drive beaters
Drive the oldest duster in your neighborhood. Avoid luxury brands, avoid new, avoid having more than 2 cars, and for god’s sakes, avoid parking a mechanical toy in the driveway, like a Harley, a pimped out golf cart, or a shiny new RV. Your neighbors will rightly see privilege.
I on the other hand have two cars over 10 years old. Old Betsy for example is a 17 year old Corolla with a missing hubcap and a cracked windshield. She’s an eyesore, but she still runs like a champ.
2) Wear blue collar clothes until they fray
Luxury brand clothes, jewelry, and gadgetry scream wealth. You don’t have to replace them with second hand offerings, but you should replace it with something blue collar.
Jeans, shirts, tennis shoes, and flips flops scream utility and comfort. Bonus points if you’ve held on long enough for worn soles, loose stitching, faded graphics, or stains. Some people call this wearing “old” clothes; a stealth wealth wizard calls it vintage.
3) Send your kids to public school
Nothing marks privilege perhaps more than how we spoil our kids, especially their education. The plebs will rightly see anyone who can send their kids to private school or college as rich.
Sending your kids to public schools instead will not only preserve your wealth; it will also round out your child’s worldview by exposing them to the vast spectrum of socio-economic backgrounds.
4) Avoid social media
Never post where you are vacationing, how much you made on venture capital, or what you do with your early retired Monday through Friday routine.
Better yet, erase your entire social media presence for good. You can’t judge what you can’t see. As an added bonus, you’ll never have to see the ugly partisan politics of your friends and neighbors again, and they can’t peek into yours either . . . or into your privately wealthy lifestyle.
5) Do your own yard work
The plebs mow their own yards, trim their own trees, and plant their own vegetable gardens. So should you.
Nothing makes you look more privileged than the beater “Weed Man” work truck in your driveway blaring Tejano music, while a sun-crisped crew is doing physical work you could do yourself.
As an added bonus, physical activity is good for your long term health, so that you can a live a long healthy life with all of that wealth you are hoarding.
6) Buy an under the radar house
Your house and neighborhood are obvious class markers. While I would never dissuade a stealth wealth wizard from a safe, desirable neighborhood, you can still minimize perceptions of your wealth by choosing a house in the mid to lower tier in that neighborhood.
One with slightly less square footage, yard size, or proximity to the back nine. Maybe even one with some outdated finishings that you later update, while conveniently leaving the old pictures up on Redfin.
Regardless of the neighborhood, the largest most expensive castle on the block will draw your neighbors’ envy and should be avoided. Pick something on the lower end your of neighborhood and nosy people will find someone else’s wealth privilege to sneer at instead of yours.
7) Shop at discount stores
Skip the premium outlets, grocery stores, and uppity retailers. If you need something from there, have it shipped online in discreet packages to fool your neighbors.
Otherwise, make like the People of Walmart rockstar you are pretending to be and don your crummiest sweatpants and slides when you go out to buy your weekly groceries. Bonus points if you wear a faded hoodie, Budweiser jacket, or t-shirt that says “I’m with stupid.”
8) Skip fine dining
Sure, for a special occasion, like an anniversary, go ahead and order that $80 lobster dinner. But for the rest of the year, try to keep it 3 star or below, and avoid the $15 appetizers and $10 cocktails that are never worth it anyway.
And for god’s sake, don’t waste your money on the expensive dessert that is undoubtedly not homemade and you don’t need. You really think Porky’s BBQ Barrel is making tiramisu instead of taking it out of a box and flopping it on a cute square plate for a premium price?
Regularly dropping gangsta rolls of $20 bills on tables filled with overpriced sloth and luxury is what the privileged do. That’s the opposite behavior of a stealth wealth wizard. Save yourself the money . . . and the scorn of those less privileged.
Live a life money cannot buy
This list isn’t exhaustive and certainly isn’t a hard and fast requirement to become a stealth wealth wizard. Its more of a guideline on key actions you can take to disguise your financial privilege.
Obviously, even the most faithful stealth wealth wizards might struggle to carry on this everyday-Jose charade at all times on all fronts.
I myself live in a nice neighborhood that touches a golf course (funny thing: I hate golf). I understand this immediately builds a perception of privilege that I have to claw back with other markers of class. Fortunately, I pretty much bat 1000 on every other stealth wealth criteria listed (its how I got wealthy to begin with), and so effectively I appear to be the poorest person in my neighborhood.
Your struggles to hide wealth might be different. You might struggle with social media sharing. Or maybe you are a nice car buff, or a massive foodie.
My advice to aspiring FIRE adherents concerned for their social wellbeing? Figure out what is important to your happiness and identity, and spend your money freely there. Buy a nice house. Take a nice vacation. Eat the the cardboard tiramisu.
For everything else, save yourself the expenses (and the judgment of others) by living a simple but abundant life that money cannot buy.