Why Rich Kid Guilt is Normal (and What To Do About It!)
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Can’t think about your inheritance without running into a wall of guilt, shame, and anxiety?
You're not broken.
Actually, you’re almost painfully normal.
Most inheritors I work with feel this way, but almost none of them have someone to share it with.
That’s why I’m here.
If you’re struggling with rich-kid guilt, this episode is for you.
I dive into the root cause of these feelings, normalize the shame you carry, and give you concrete strategies to start breaking free from money guilt.
If you only listen to one episode of Heir Necessities, this is the one.
🗓️ Schedule a FREE call to start facing your money guilt head on.
Transcript:
Hey, I'm Katherine and thanks for joining me at Heir Necessities, the podcast that is built to answer the questions of Gen X, millennial and Gen Z inheritors. I'm a financial advisor for inheritors and an inheritor just like you. Each episode of this podcast, I break down a different topic related to generational wealth and inheritance.
My goal is that you can stop trying to figure out how to live your life and manage your inheritance by asking Google or ChatGPT what to do and get the jargon-free, easy-to-understand answers you need each episode of this podcast.
The Hidden Problem: Why Wealthy Inheritors Feel Guilty
On today's episode of this podcast, I am tackling an issue that is so hard and is something that comes up over and over and over again when I'm working with current and future inheritors. This issue is the shame and guilt that surround being wealthy and surround receiving an inheritance of millions and millions of dollars when all you did was be born.
Usually these feelings of shame and guilt come because of this unearned privilege and the fact that when you are an inheritor, whether you've already received your inheritance or not, you are in a huge position of privilege relative to other people in society. And it's a hard thing to navigate. It's scary, it feels shameful, and it's isolating because you don't have anyone that you can talk to about this. It's not like you can just sit down with your friends who come from a different class background and start talking about how guilty you feel for being born rich. It's gonna land like a pile of bricks, right? So if you're in this position where you're carrying around this mountain of guilt and shame because you were born wealthy and you don't have anyone to talk to about it, this episode is for you.
You're Not Alone: Common Feelings Among Millionaire Inheritors and Wealthy Families
The first thing that I want to tell you and the first thing that I tell all of my clients at Sunnybranch who come in and express these feelings is that it is normal and you are not alone. Almost everyone that I've talked to about these feelings has the same reaction when they're able to express them freely to someone else:
"I thought that something was wrong with me because I was carrying around this fear and shame and guilt. And I should just be excited. I should just be happy that I'm rich or that I'm gonna be rich. I don't know what's wrong with me that I can't just be happy and instead I feel this guilt and this fear and this shame that I can't get rid of." We are all carrying that around to some degree.
You are not alone, but you don't have people to talk to about it. Like we just said, unless you hang out or you have a very close relationship with someone else that you know also has a similar amount of wealth or at least enough wealth that you can both talk about it, which is a very rare thing to have, especially for people who grow up in families that are more quietly wealthy versus more ostentatious. You don't have anyone to talk about this with.
That's where I come in.
The Money-Guilt Connection: How Inheritance Shame Prevents Financial Planning
You know you're not alone now, which is great. You know that other inheritors are carrying these feelings. While that's helpful and while that makes you feel less isolated, it doesn't actually solve the problem. The problem being that you still have all of these feelings that are making it difficult to live your life and manage your future in a productive way.
Because every time you think about money or wealth or your inheritance, all of these feelings are all wrapped up with that, right? You can't untangle money from the guilt and shame. And so you don't think about money. And not thinking about money is not the way to go.
Because whether you like it or not, and if you don't like it, that's totally fine, this is a judgment-free zone, you have money or you will have money. And so you need to spend some time planning for that and thinking about it and figuring out what you're gonna do when you have access to this tool, the tool being millions and millions of dollars. So we've identified this central problem, which is that money and guilt and shame are all tied up in a great little ball of anxiety in your heart and we need to start unraveling those threads and decoupling money from those feelings, those negative emotions. How do we do that?
The Solution: Using Charitable Giving to Transform Wealth Guilt into Purpose
The best way that I know how to do that is through giving. If you feel guilty because you have unearned privilege, then do something good with that privilege.
Recognize, accept, and lean into the responsibility that being a younger person with wealth creates and inherits. Don't just let this guilt and shame tear you down. Do something proactive to fight against that. If you think money is evil or that you shouldn't have money or you don't deserve it, become a person who does good with it and who does deserve it.
This is easier said than done. It's not gonna happen overnight, but it truly is the only and best way that I know how to start separating these things and starting to see money as a tool that can be used for good rather than something that's a burden and an evil in the world.
The Three Ps of Giving: Personal, Philanthropic, and Political Donation Strategies for Inheritors
When I talk about giving, I like to talk about the three Ps of giving: Personal, philanthropic, and political giving. You might find that you are called to one or another of these. It might be that giving to nonprofits is something that you take a lot of joy in. You really like finding new organizations and giving and having a relationship with those organizations.
It may be that you're more called to give money to individuals directly. It may be that you feel that is a greater source of pride and empowerment for you as someone who's giving money away.
That could be individuals in your community. It could be individuals that you're finding through nonprofits. Whatever track you take, that personal giving is something that isn't talked about as much because it doesn't get the tax deduction, but it can be equally and in many cases more powerful than just giving to nonprofits. The third P of giving is that political giving. I am a huge believer in the importance of political giving.
I don't think that we are ever going to create the real social change that we want to see only through nonprofit giving. There needs to be advocacy work being done. Whether you're giving to C4 lobbying organizations or you're giving money to individual political candidates that you support, ultimately we are in a period of fighting for democracy and fighting against authoritarianism and fascism.
And every dollar that can go directly towards that effort is important.
How to Start: Going from Small Donations to Large-Scale Philanthropic Giving
I've laid out some options for giving, but how do you even get started? If you're trying to go from giving away $100 a year to giving away thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars all in one go or over time, how do you do it? I want to reassure you that you can do it, but it isn't going to happen overnight. This is a research and education process, and you may find that you need a guide.
If you're starting into this process and you can't even figure out if you want to give to nonprofits, individuals, or political candidates, if you can't narrow down the focus of where you want to give and every time you think about giving money away, you just feel overwhelmed, reach out to me. I can help you do that hard work of building a plan and narrowing down on what exactly is the most important to you and where you want to create change. And when you know that, you can start giving away more money confidently and with an excitement about what you're doing and how you're helping in the world.
Creating Your Inheritance Plan: Balancing Personal Needs with Giving
The other piece of this giving and something that I find can be a little bit backwards in the way that it's often approached is I think that this giving needs to be done within a larger plan.
If you inherit $10 million and you know that that's more than enough money for you and you want to give away a huge amount of that money. The question then becomes how much?
How much to give away needs to be informed by how you want to live your life. If you want to keep living a more typical middle-class life, you know you want to buy a house, have some money saved for retirement, but you're going to keep working until you retire and then you're good, that's fine. It means you're going to be able to give away a huge amount of that $10 million inheritance.
But if you feel like you want to save some of that money for future generations or for your future needs, that is okay. Wanting to make use of the money you have been given does not make you a bad person.
You just need to find your own realization of what would be enough, get really comfortable with that number, and then you can again start giving from a place of excitement rather than giving from this place of fear, shame, and guilt.
Get Help: Financial Planning for Inheritors
To recap all of this, if you are feeling weighed down by money guilt, I would love to talk about how you're feeling and help you get to that next step where you can be excited about money instead of feeling like it's an anchor around your neck. You can reach out to me at Katherine@SunnyBranchWealth.com.
You can send me a DM on Instagram. If you have any more questions about Sunnybranch or how to get in touch, you can check out the show notes, which are listed in the description below. And I'll look forward to chatting with you on the next episode of Heir Necessities.
Let’s take the next step together
Understanding how to face internalized guilt and shame over being born rich isn’t easy. Inheritors can encounter a wide variety of different situations requiring knowledge and finesse to manage. If you need more help, you can reach out to Katherine Fox, CFP® and CAP®, a financial planner for inheritors, to learn how Sunnybranch can help you evaluate your financial situation and build a plan for what should come next.
