The best piece of financial advice that you have ever gotten

My dad is like that. I am not entirely sure how much he is 'worth', but it is definitely in the multi-millions.

During my childhood, he was seemingly hyper-focused on money, toys and getting everything he ever wanted since he and my mother grew up in lower-income families.

Some things happened in our family in the short span of like six months and suddenly all of that faded away. My dad became incredibly approachable, he still buys 'toys' but he is more than willing to share. He offered to let me or my boyfriend drive his Tesla Model S "just because". We used to not even be able to look at his cars.

All of this is to say that money isn't important. It only makes your problems bigger and more expensive. My dad gave me a letter this year full of advice about success, etc (He is writing a book currently so I guess it was practice, haha). I will try to summarize a point he made in the letter: Money is worthless if you aren't happy. My dad said he had collected all of these things he always wanted but he still wasn't happy.

My dad used to be a humongous jerk towards 'lower people' such as food service workers, waitress, etc but all of that faded away. He does that whole thing about handing $100 away to people. For my birthday, he paid for dinner with a $100 (the meal was maybe $50) and told the waitress to keep the change, I have never seen someone more stunned.

I have met a few other quite wealthy people who have the same philosophy and have told me stories about how something that costs them basically nothing means the world to others.

One guy (he is actually an emeritus professor at my university) runs a company off campus and mostly hires students to do the lab work. The company has profit-sharing and he said he would give some of them checks for $5,000 and it was just like "oh thanks" but one day he realized that a lot of his employees didn't have nice coats, so he went and bought like $200 coats and got their names embroidered on them. He said he had never seen these kids more thankful than when he handed them their coat.

All of this is basically to say: Money doesn't make you happy. It never will. Making others happy with your money will be more fulfilling. Or at least that is what I have gleaned from my childhood.

/r/personalfinance Thread