Wealth & Money Quote by Mary Schmich

Schmich’s line lands like friendly advice and reads like a low-grade threat: whatever soft cushion you think life has arranged for you, treat it as temporary. The wit is in the faux reassurance. She dangles the two classic safety nets - inherited money and marriage - then snaps them back with a reminder that both are contingent, mortal, and, in their own way, unreliable institutions. It’s not just about budgeting; it’s about power.

The subtext is a quiet rebellion against the fantasy that adulthood can be outsourced. A trust fund isn’t income, it’s someone else’s decision continuing to echo. A wealthy spouse isn’t a plan, it’s a dependency that can collapse under divorce, illness, bad investments, or simply the shifting terms of affection. Schmich punctures the romantic and aristocratic scripts at once: the Cinderella story and the old-money story share the same flaw, which is that they put your agency in somebody else’s pocket.

Context matters here: coming from a journalist best known for pragmatic, generational counsel, the tone is intentionally plainspoken. It’s advice aimed at young adults staring down an economy that sells “security” as lifestyle branding while making stability harder to buy. The punchline - “run out” - turns privilege into something exhaustible, like a phone battery. That choice demystifies wealth and love without moralizing: even the lucky can’t count on luck. The real instruction is sharper: build a self that can’t be foreclosed.