I used to have my retirements with Edward Jones, I talked with my lady about once a year, not much. I liked it. Spouse's has an inheritance so we are seeing his folks fancy finance people. They call themselves financial counselors. I just want someone to advise me about how much I should be saving for retirement and other major financial questions, I don't want a whole counselor!!! And they are talkers! I was shaking my head yes during your whole essay. I thought it was just ours because of the family connection, it's validating to hear that this is a thing.
Thank you for this beautiful piece. I remember my grandmother's navy leather pocketbook with the locking brass clasp, the porter for her sangria leather/tapestry fold-and-snap wallet and the soft, crumpled matching keycase. The smell of leather, rosewater, and budgeting.
It’s funny how the acquisition of money can make us richer but also poorer at the same time. I feel like your essay catches this so beautifully. From my own experience, I know that there are aspects of this world that you only really understand when you have experienced scarcity—but that you can lose that understanding, if you later find yourself on steady ground. You can even feel it lifting away. You actually have to hold onto it.
Or—maybe that’s just me. But your essay resonates. Your great grandmother gave you an inheritance that maybe wasn’t money but it was riches. And that inheritance included the ability to see the world through her eyes. It’s the kind of ability that I could imagine a MacArthur and all the rest might actually take away from a person. And it sounds like you yourself have worried that it might. This essay is such a lovely way to confront that possibility, and by putting it in writing, to defeat it. And then on top of that, to share your great grandmother’s riches with the rest of us! Thank you for that.
Dr. Cottom, thank you for this beautiful examination of money and what it means to you. I come from poor-to-working-class white people in southern Appalachia and (somehow) I married a fifth-generation New York Jew who has rarely if ever worried about money — the same worry that has defined much of my life. Our cultural understandings of money and what to do with it has long been a topic between us, and it impacts everything from what we eat to how we parent to where we donate. But then, I thought “investment vehicles” meant fancy cars, so I clearly have a way to go.
Years ago I was a poor grad student at Rich Ivy, where we TAs knew that we were merely the hired help for the *real* students, the undergrads. Before my TA session started one day, I overheard one of my charges-- an obvious rich kid from generations of wealth -- say with casual languor a line he had clearly heard from his ancestors: "well, some people work for their money, and some people's money works for them." His understated smugness made it clear which kind he was.
He was talking about capital. About having so much wealth that the return on your investments pays out a steady stream of interest big enough to support you, big enough to satisfy all of your desires. The money that most people earn by working a job, some rich people receive just by watching the interest roll in.
There was another undergrad in the class, a young striver from a different background, who had no idea what he had just heard. "What do you mean, their money works for them? What does that mean?" For him (as for me), money was the thing that's gone as soon as you get it, the thing that never piles up because you already owe it in arrears, the thing that recedes as you chase it, always vanishing in front of you when the car breaks or you chip a tooth.
I had been around wealthy people long enough to understand what I had heard, but I also understood the other kid's incomprehension. How can you have so much money that it just sits there paying you a salary? How can you have so much that you'll never have to work again?
Sorry to go on like this. You said it better here:
"People say they want to be rich. I think what they really want is to be free."
I used to have my retirements with Edward Jones, I talked with my lady about once a year, not much. I liked it. Spouse's has an inheritance so we are seeing his folks fancy finance people. They call themselves financial counselors. I just want someone to advise me about how much I should be saving for retirement and other major financial questions, I don't want a whole counselor!!! And they are talkers! I was shaking my head yes during your whole essay. I thought it was just ours because of the family connection, it's validating to hear that this is a thing.
These results, yall...
Thank you for this beautiful piece. I remember my grandmother's navy leather pocketbook with the locking brass clasp, the porter for her sangria leather/tapestry fold-and-snap wallet and the soft, crumpled matching keycase. The smell of leather, rosewater, and budgeting.
this was so full of love and respect, an outright joy to read. I *felt* that bank withdraw and holding close a bit of hard won security.
It’s funny how the acquisition of money can make us richer but also poorer at the same time. I feel like your essay catches this so beautifully. From my own experience, I know that there are aspects of this world that you only really understand when you have experienced scarcity—but that you can lose that understanding, if you later find yourself on steady ground. You can even feel it lifting away. You actually have to hold onto it.
Or—maybe that’s just me. But your essay resonates. Your great grandmother gave you an inheritance that maybe wasn’t money but it was riches. And that inheritance included the ability to see the world through her eyes. It’s the kind of ability that I could imagine a MacArthur and all the rest might actually take away from a person. And it sounds like you yourself have worried that it might. This essay is such a lovely way to confront that possibility, and by putting it in writing, to defeat it. And then on top of that, to share your great grandmother’s riches with the rest of us! Thank you for that.
Dr. Cottom, thank you for this beautiful examination of money and what it means to you. I come from poor-to-working-class white people in southern Appalachia and (somehow) I married a fifth-generation New York Jew who has rarely if ever worried about money — the same worry that has defined much of my life. Our cultural understandings of money and what to do with it has long been a topic between us, and it impacts everything from what we eat to how we parent to where we donate. But then, I thought “investment vehicles” meant fancy cars, so I clearly have a way to go.
Great essay, and fun to read.
Years ago I was a poor grad student at Rich Ivy, where we TAs knew that we were merely the hired help for the *real* students, the undergrads. Before my TA session started one day, I overheard one of my charges-- an obvious rich kid from generations of wealth -- say with casual languor a line he had clearly heard from his ancestors: "well, some people work for their money, and some people's money works for them." His understated smugness made it clear which kind he was.
He was talking about capital. About having so much wealth that the return on your investments pays out a steady stream of interest big enough to support you, big enough to satisfy all of your desires. The money that most people earn by working a job, some rich people receive just by watching the interest roll in.
There was another undergrad in the class, a young striver from a different background, who had no idea what he had just heard. "What do you mean, their money works for them? What does that mean?" For him (as for me), money was the thing that's gone as soon as you get it, the thing that never piles up because you already owe it in arrears, the thing that recedes as you chase it, always vanishing in front of you when the car breaks or you chip a tooth.
I had been around wealthy people long enough to understand what I had heard, but I also understood the other kid's incomprehension. How can you have so much money that it just sits there paying you a salary? How can you have so much that you'll never have to work again?
Sorry to go on like this. You said it better here:
"People say they want to be rich. I think what they really want is to be free."
Great read. I love Viviana Zelizer's The Social Meaning of Money. Not all money is the same money. Means the same or feels the same.