Is My Family’s Definition of Success Leading Me to Financial Mediocrity?

What does it mean to be financially successful? A Reddit poster is grappling with this question right now. As he explained, there’s a lot of focus on status rather than on quality of life within his family. He’s worried that buying into this version of success, where the goal is to impress the neighbors, could set him up for a life of mediocrity.

So, what should the poster do? How can he define and achieve his own version of success instead of falling into the trap that his family has where appearances matter more than security and building a life you truly want?

Far too many people focus on impressing the Joneses 

The OP told the story of his family’s money philosophy, and it’s familiar to many people. He said his brother has an important-sounding job as a consultant, which leads his parents to beam with pride, but his brother is also stressed all the time, working 70-hour weeks, and not really doing much to build wealth

His cousin, on the other hand, works in HVAC, has a job no one really brags about, but bought a second rental property, takes three-day weekends, and is enjoying life.

His family’s attitude towards the differing situations of the brother and the cousin has the OP worried that he could fall into the trap of “doing what sounds good at parties instead of what actually builds wealth,” when in reality, “maybe the goal shouldn’t be impressing relatives with your job title but actually creating something that works for you financially.”

How to build your own version of financial success

The OP is absolutely right that a focus on external status symbols, like job titles, is not really as important as what you’re actually doing to build financial security and to create a life that you want.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having a good job. And earning a generous income absolutely makes it easier to build a good life. However, that’s only true if:

• You have a reasonable work/life balance, or enjoy working the long hours the job requires
• You’re using the money from the good job to create long-term financial security by investing wisely in a good brokerage account

Some people thrive on working a big job, with long hours and a huge paycheck. If the OP’s brother is one of them, there’s nothing wrong with him doing that. There’s also nothing wrong with finding a job that might pay less and provide more flexibility, as long as it earns enough to cover your costs and allow you to invest for your future. 

Ultimately, the key is to create a vision of the life you want and figure out how much money you need to achieve it both now and in the future. If you want a job where you work fewer hours and work less hard, then you may need to accept that you have to live in a smaller house and keep fixed costs lower so you can invest despite the smaller paycheck.  

You also need to have clear financial goals, no matter what job you have or how much you are earning, and make sure you have a detailed, measurable path to achieve them that you are following. Plenty of people with big incomes don’t end up financially secure because they don’t invest, so it’s not so much what you earn but what you do with the money that counts. 

Setting your financial goals and making them a reality

If you want to avoid the life of financial mediocrity that the OP is worried about, you should:

• Define what financial success and happiness look like to you: This may mean finding a way to work fewer hours while still investing for retirement, or it may mean earning the most you can now to build a more secure future later. 
• Make detailed financial projections about how to achieve that vision. If you want to retire at 55 with $1 million in the bank, for example, you should be very specific about what it will take to get there and how much to invest each month to make that happen
• Set short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals that are specific, that you can measure the success of, and that you have time deadlines — and always break big goals down into small ones. If you dream of early retirement, for example, figure out exactly how much you have to save each month  to make that happen
• Build a budget that prioritizes your goals. Before any discretionary spending, you should automatically transfer the money you need into savings and investment accounts, so the default is that you grow your wealth. 
• Automate your saving and investing so you don’t lose sight of your objectives. Making the process automatic helps to ensure that you stick to your plan. Most good brokerage firms will allow you to make automatic transfers of funds into your account so you can stay on track. 
• Invest in a good brokerage account as investing helps you to grow your wealth, so you can more easily achieve your dreams. 

If you do this, you can develop the type of true financial success the OP is looking for. You won’t just have a nice title, or nice-looking possessions to impress neighbors at parties — you’ll have th nice life you deserve with the peace of mind of knowing you built it and can afford it thanks to your saving and investing efforts.

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