I get asked this question almost daily…I feel it is the height of rudeness due to the fact that your net worth and level of well being is partially to wholly revealed if you answer honestly…
Do they ask their Dentist what the practice pulls down every year after expenses…the local Pizza Parlor owner the same when ordering a slice…?
Very few if any people have an altruistic motive for attempting to obtain this information, yet some of my good friends, relatives, and aquaintances ask (some very innocently) and it pains me to be as gosh or rude in return…
The nerve of some people… :banghead
An appropriate non-combative response would be greatly appreciated…
Vader…Just looking for a good neutralising response that effectively terminates the inquiry (or sometimes inquisition) that does not necessarily fight fire with fire (although “Nunya” is a good one…LOL)
“Enough To Keep Me Busy”…should deter all but the most prodding of clods…they are getting the other response…
These inquiries can get sublimely absurd on occasion…I was on a bus returning from a weekend ski trip with a club I belonged to years back when a friend told a lady seeking info I was a Landlord and Renovator…she cornered me in my seat and expected me to teach her everything I knew on the spot…when I attempted to politely resist surrounding fellow club members started to chime in and attempt to paint me an uncooperative selfish miser minded member who was not in the spirit of sharing…stuck on a bus with no way out…uncomfortable ride all the way home…
My local bank is now pulling people off the line who need to make a deposit only…then bringing them in to one of their cubicles under the guise of helpfulness ( they really want to see if they can sell you any additonal products that more often benefit them more than you)…when they find out you have rentals what do you think the next question is…?
I am kind of an open book anyway. I generally tell anybody that will ask me. But I think that is because of who I am. For example when I have some stock broker/financial planner ask me if he can manage my money, I ask him how many people have they made rich. Reason being if he only runs some risk tolerance software and talks nice to me, then I can find a risk tolerance program online for free and invest using the data myself and get my next door neighbor to talk nice to me. The same with real estate. If I am giving some guy advice, he needs to know if I am some book reader wanabe, or have 500 units. I ask pretty much every professional I encounter about the key performance indicator for his profession.