Stealth Wealth: Why the Richest People Don't Look Rich

Your Next Dollar: Money Management for High Earners

Host Andrew Giancola and guest JC Rodriguez from The Frugal Rich explore the concept of 'stealth wealth'—how many real millionaires live mod

Key takeaways

• Most true millionaires are not easily identifiable by luxury possessions; they often drive older vehicles and wear modest clothing.
• Consistency over time—such as saving and investing for 20-30 years—is a key factor in building generational wealth.

Main topics

• Stealth wealth habits
• Long-term financial consistency

Notable quotes

"Most people who look the richest are usually the ones with the least. And the people who are quietly worth millions are just practicing these boring habits."

Conclusion

True wealth is often quiet and built through disciplined, consistent habits over

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Most people think millionaires are easy to spot. They have the big house, they have the new car, and the watch that costs more than a semester of college. But the real ones, the stealth wealthy, are almost impossible to pick out of a crowd. And they are standing next to you at the grocery store, they are driving the 10-year-old Toyota or Honda, and they are wearing the $30 shirt. Yet nobody has any idea that they are actually millionaires. Here's the truth. Most people who look the richest are usually the ones with the least. And the people who are quietly worth millions are just practicing these boring habits. So today I have JC Rodriguez from The Frugal Rich with me. And JC does something most people never get to see. he actually gets to interview real stealth wealth millionaires on the street. So JC has talked to so many different people. And this is why we wanted to have him on this episode, because I am really, really excited to dive into this. So JC, welcome as the first guest to Your Next Dollar. Speaker 1 (1:02) Thanks for having me, Andrew. No, this is really exciting to dive into the quiet habits of these millionaires. And in fact, what you described as stealth wealth is probably the majority of millionaires in America. So excited to dive into what people can realistically do to also build generational wealth without having to be super flashy. Speaker 2 (1:23) Exactly. I agree. And I think that's one of the areas that I think just most people don't realize is that most of the millionaires out there are folks who live right next door to you and you wouldn't even know it. Before we dive into some of the things that lead to Stealth Wealth Millionaires, tell me kind of when you go and look to interview Stealth Wealth Millionaires on the street, what are some of the things that you quietly look for? Are there things that kind of tell you, hey, this is probably someone I want to interview so that I can have a conversation with them? Speaker 1 (1:50) Yeah, funny enough, we've been doing this for the last year and a half. And my team on the street of this study that we're doing on these quiet millionaires, it's just me and my filmer. So when it comes to qualifying someone, we don't have an assistant producer going around qualifying people to convince them to come on this video. It's me approaching these strangers. And at this point, we want to be more efficient with who we end up approaching. So there's a little bit of a time where we need a judge who is... probably most likely a quiet millionaire and so over the time that we've been doing this survey of these quiet millionaires if we realize most of them dress very modestly it's not what social media depicts i usually call out people and say it looks like they bought their outfits from costco which is not a knock on costco they have great premium stuff there even some brand names but they're not about the luxury goods the luxury designer bags in fact a lot of them just have a very clean modest look and funny enough a lot of them take care of their feet they have nice shoes typically a good old pair of brooks good old pair of hokas and that seems to be one of their priorities so that's one little fun fact if you're trying to look for a millionaire on the streets one thing i do want to note is that a quiet millionaire will not admit they're a millionaire from to a stranger that's approaching them on the street so we do ask a few questions that eventually lead up to the question of after building wealth all these years are you now a net worth millionaire but before we even get to that point i ask a few questions always for example how long have you been married for how long have you been investing and funny enough the people who have been married and investing are usually they've usually been doing that for the last 20 to 30 years and once i know that that's almost a given that oh this person is a millionaire after if they've been keeping up these habits for the last 20 30 years then it's it's it's an easier lob up for them to just alley-oop that question of if they're a millionaire Speaker 2 (3:52) Exactly. It's because you and I both know that consistency is the big key when it comes to this. When it comes to how they manage their money, have you ever seen any kind of consistencies with do they combine finances? Do they keep them separate? Or does it just depend on Speaker 1 (4:05) the situation? I will definitely say the older people I interview who have been married 30, 40 years, when they got married, they didn't have squat diddly-doo-dah. They were in their early 20s. They had a $500 wedding. I always say that they could combine their finances in a cup holder. And so it was very easy for them to just merge, create one joint account. And that's how they went about their system. I found that with couples who are maybe more Gen X or even older millennial, they typically have some type of joint accounts, but they do typically also keep two separates, whether that's just for their. To pay off their credit cards so that they can still gift each other things or if they still allocate some money for just personal use as opposed to their joint account, which is used for shared expenses. I Speaker 2 (4:54) love that. And I think that is for those listening right now, if you haven't heard our episode talking about how to handle money in a relationship, we talk about all these different scenarios, combining your finances and or doing the hybrid methodology, which is where you have one joint checking account where you pay the bills and then you have two separate accounts that allow you to, you know, do some of your own personal financial goals. And I think that's a really, really powerful thing that you can have in place. And one thing to note for a lot of folks out there is it's just going to depend on your situation. For a lot of high earners, like the folks who listen to this show, if you're going into a relationship and you feel as though, you know, one person is making significant more than the other person, then you want to have these conversations early and often, even before, you know, the wedding day, so that you can make sure that you are on the same page when it comes to some of this stuff. I think it's really, really important to also consider that if you are thinking through this to make sure that you are meeting on at least a monthly basis and just talking about finances, you know, 15 minutes or so having that monthly money date is really, really helpful because it gets you both in the same page. And the key here, and this is the big mistake I made JC early on, was I used to go to my wife and I used to pull out the spreadsheet right away. And we, you know, we first were married, we weren't making much money, we were very young. And I'd pull the spreadsheet out and say, hey, we're overspending here, here, and here. That was a big mistake. And instead, what I realized is I reframed it to our financial goals and the North Star, meaning, hey, we want to travel more. We want to have more for our kids. We want to do more with our family. And so then you look at your actual outcome and you do this by the outcome because that's really, in reality, what everyone is trying to get. You want financial freedom. You want to build generational wealth. And so this is one of those areas that I think is really, really important. Is there anything? that you have seen other millionaires do or that you've done in your own life that you feel as though is Speaker 1 (6:34) helpful when Speaker 2 (6:35) it comes to a relationship? One Speaker 1 (6:36) of my favorite interviews was in Boston. And I spoke to this couple. They were in their mid-30s, and they just crossed the seven-figure net worth status. And one thing I wanted to note was the wife in this relationship, she was the nerd when it came to the finances. She was a statistician. I believe the husband was an engineer. But... When you have two nerds or at least two people who are both looking at the numbers and aligned with money, like that is a superpower right there. And funny enough, I don't think their relationship was built off of one person kind of dragging along their partner and being the... the only one obsessing over the money. Like they both were talking about the way they invest. They both told me about how they read the book, The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins. They read that book together and that's how they shaped their investing strategy. So they're all about the VT Sachses and that two fund portfolio. And it was cool to see two people just both aligned. And like you said, it's so important for them to both be having, you know, both. be involved in conversations about money. And I've seen that as a trend. Those who are both equally yoked when it comes to finances, they're the ones who end up retiring faster. Speaker 2 (7:53) It's amazing that once you become aligned... One of the things that happens is then all of a sudden, the person who may be less interested in the finances all of Speaker 1 (8:00) a Speaker 2 (8:00) sudden becomes interested because you are just working towards these common goals. And I think once you start to reframe it in that way, just like JC's example, it's just really, really cool how you can kind of work together as a team to build wealth. And that is the best position to be in when you were thinking about managing money in a relationship. Now, the second thing is that they prioritize financial independence over looking. rich. Now you alluded to this even early on that you have seen a number of, you know, stealth wealth millionaires or quiet millionaires that have been out there that you really have to kind of figure out who is who and they're really not wearing the flashy stuff. So 93 % of millionaires say they got there through hard work and discipline saving and not big salaries. And most live in ordinary neighborhoods where non millionaires outnumber roughly three to one. Now this is according to Ramsey Solutions National Study of Millionaires, which has been one of the largest study of millionaires overall. I think they they interviewed over 10,000 millionaires when they did that study, in addition to The Millionaire Next Door. So The Millionaire Next Door is a book that anybody who has not read that book is such a wonderful book. It changed my outlook. I read it when I was in my late teens. I think I was 19 when I first read it. And it transformed my perspective on money. It transformed the way I saw millionaires because it changed the way I thought about this. So you interview all these different people that turn out to be kind of... They look completely normal, but they turn out to be millionaires. What is the biggest gap you've seen with a lot of them? Is this something where they, you know, you said a lot of them, you walk up to them and you can't really tell if they're millionaires, but, you know, they're dressed plainly. They kind of wear the Costco outfits. So is that a consistent thing across the board? And have you seen that, you know, with their housing and other things as well? Speaker 1 (9:34) Yeah. So obviously when it's just the one person. approaching strangers, it's important to to find places where millionaires would be hanging out. And so one of the best ways we found more people to interview is by just going out and about on a random weekday at 11am. Typically, when people are, you know, still working, you know, if someone's out walking around some downtown area, or like a cute part of town at on a weekday in the middle of the workday. then obviously they got some time freedom and when i approach those people you know i always end up finding out oh they're already retired they have some type of flexible schedule and just like you're saying they prioritize financial independence as well as time freedom over looking rich and being flashy and having a good look on social media and so that's exactly when i talk to these people i'm like dang this This is what I'm working towards. I mean, although I'm out there, but I'm working, I'm filming. But in this case, it's really cool to see this, the level of peace that these people have and the control they have over their schedules. And Speaker 2 (10:43) if you want, you know, stress and anxiety removed out of your financial life, this is one of the best things to prioritize is to think about your freedom and think about the way that you are utilizing your money to prioritize freedom. Because once you get to the point in time where you start to hit coast fire, you start to hit some of these other goals that we've talked about on this podcast before. all of the sudden that stress and anxiety can melt away because you are working towards that common goal. And I think that's really, really powerful when people start to think through this. Now, the third thing they do is they invest consistently long term. Now, long-term investing, I think, is one of the most important things that people should consider when it comes to their finances. In fact, 75 % of millionaires say regular and consistent investing over a long period of time was the one reason for their success. And in fact, again, in