I recently finished the book The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. In chapter 9 Morgan begins with the statement, “wealth is what you don’t see”. We tend to equate being rich with being wealthy & vice versa, but this is seldom true. Throughout the book Morgan references, and expands upon, the differences between being rich and being wealthy.

I believe the polarity of the rich vs wealthy man is extremely relevant to the gay community. When I first came out of the closet in the late 90’s and early 2000’s I recall older gay men warning me about being too open at work or too flamboyant. I distinctly remember forcing myself to speak less when I was in the Navy because I had been told I sounded gay. Many of us who came out during the great gay awakening of the 2000’s burst out of the closet to the theme song, “Let’s get soaking wet!” This experience was liberating, exciting & IN YOUR FACE. Combine the launch of the U.S. version of QAF in 2000 with the success of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in 2003 and the average gay kid during this time didn’t stand a chance of developing good financial role models. Heck, I remember my conservative, Republican, Catholic mother from the mid-west asking why I couldn’t find find a fabulous boyfriend like one of the men on Queer Eye ?.

In a later chapter Morgan connects the lack of financial literacy in the U.S. to the fact that, “wealth is what you don’t see.” People tend to emulate behaviors and lifestyles of the rich, their role models, because that is what they see. Most financially wealthy people achieve their wealth by living a modest life while saving & investing. Financially wealthy people are seldom selected by our consumerist society as role models because, in most cases, there is nothing to see. Furthermore, working hard, living within your means, saving often and investing wisely just isn’t as sexy as having multiple cars, living in a converted industrial loft and flying to Ibiza à la Brian Kinney.

While the entire U.S. population struggles to identify good financial role models I think this is especially true for the gay community. Many of us feel a need to out perform, strive for perfection, and be the life of the party. I believe this need for perfection has only grown as we are becoming more accepted in general society. The gayborhoods of the past are declining and many of my friends now live & raise their adopted & surrogate born children in primarily straight neighborhoods. Fabulous dinner parties, mc mansions and new cars seem to be the norm. As a single gay man making a good salary I struggle to comprehend how I would achieve any of these things. Working through this blog post has reinforced my belief that this website & blog is necessary. Like it or not, money is a necessity in modern society. Additionally, the accumulation of wealth is the surest way to buy your time back from the future. If I can support others in this endeavor by being a sane, sensible, likeminded financial role model, it’s worth it.

In closing this post I want to touch on the opposing polarity of the wealthy and talk a bit about the rich. Morgan’s opinion, which I happen to agree with, is that most people are either wealthy OR rich. As with most things in life there are exceptions to this. There are some hard working, more often very lucky, people in this world who appear rich AND are financially wealthy. Additionally, the focus of this website is financial wealth, not emotional and spiritual wealth. I have some friends who are very emotionally and spiritually wealthy. Some of these friends live a life of extravagance with all the outward displays of being rich and others are 100% content to live paycheck to paycheck, but neither is financially wealthy. Again, this website is about building financial wealth and buying your time back through financial independence. I’m not here to judge, if your emotional & spiritual wealth makes you happy while living the outwardly rich lifestyle, more power to you! I say cheers and support your happiness. If you are perfectly happy living paycheck to paycheck and enjoying life in the moment we are probably kindred spirits on some level, but my anxiety of working until I’m 65 and dying the next day like my father prevents me from adopting this lifestyle at the moment. My goal is to walk the middle path, save for the future and live in the moment once it is paid for by a passive income stream derived mostly from low-cost index funds & rental properties.

Cheers Queers 🍻