What does it take in terms of assets, abilities, and/or income for you to consider them wealthy?
For me, being wealthy would mean that if they never intentionally earned another penny for the rest of their life, that would not prevent them from doing anything that they wanted to do within reason.
For normal people that would mean between two and five million dollars in liquid assets available to them.
It’s always “wealthier than us”, isn’t it?
But I’d say whenever you have no money worries, that’s wealthy. Like you could retire today if you wanted and not just survive but buy a new car or house if you wanted to, go on a long vacation, anything that just needs money to do is within your reach. Never have to say no simply because of money. That is what I define as wealth (financial wealth) and it’s different amounts in different places.
Wealth is the feeling of having all your needs met and being satisfied with life in a stable and permanent way.
My definition for myself to be rich is:
I have enough money that I can pay someone(s) yearly wage to manipulate my wealth into enough money to cover their salary and then some.
Anyone who can forego any form of future income and live off their current wealth for the rest of their life in relative luxury/comfort.
Of course, rich is a relative descriptor, like tall or heavy, some people are richer than others.
I would call anyone who doesn’t need to work in order to live (i.e. who can live off investments and interest) rich.
This is apt, because I know people who earn six figures but work 60 hours a week and are living paycheck to paycheck. They’re not poor, but they’re not rich.
A 6 figure salary while living in midwestern USA or elsewhere with low CoL is very different from living in most areas along the coast.
I would call anyone who doesn’t need to work in order to live (i.e. who can live off investments and interest) rich.
Some caveats I would add: (1) Excluding receivers of pensions and/or other benefits.
(2) Without moving to a different country. I could retire today, if I moved to a low cost of living country.For (2), in that country, you would be rich.
Sorry for linking back to the R word. But FIRE comes to mind with your post
Are old retirees rich, then? I wouldn’t consider that accurate.
If you’re not pulling in upper 6 figures from those investments, you’re still not rich.
If I ever manage to earn ~3000 euros (my current net salary) a month from just investments and interest, I will definitely consider myself rich. There may still be richer people than me even in that scenario, which is why I wrote that “rich” is a relative descriptor.
That’s a totally obtainable goal!
For everyone? Do you really believe that?
Everyone? No.
Anyone? Maybe.
If you max out your ROTH IRA every year until retirement that is possible (for the US). Yes, I believe one can easily save and invest in index funds. Based on compound interest with a return rate of 3-7% one could expect 450,000-1.05 mil after 35 years of working. That’s 583$ post tax dollars a month.
Post kids it’s been more difficult but I even picked up an extra job to make sure I can max out my retirement investments.
For everyone? Absolutely not. It is obtainable though. Even half of that per month would result in similarly good returns. The problem is investment education. Reminds me of my local communist reading group who to my surprise didn’t know anything about investing even though capital is like their whole thing.
Max contributions to a ROTH IRA is $7,000. Most people don’t have an extra $7,000 lying around. If you do, chances are you’re already in the top 10%.
I would still say that’s not true… I probably make half as much as you but I just try to be extremely frugal… just saying it’s doable
For everyone, right? Nobody works everyone just collects their 3k
For most of us reading this it is an obtainable retirement income. On the world stage if you can read this you are probably rich. A little bit of savings can get you 3k inflation adjusted once you reach “old age”.
Of course on the world stage this varies per country but I agree that a big of savings can get you there by retirement, especially if done early.
In China a common goal is to save 140k USD then invest it and retire by one’s mid 30s living a simple life.
That would be achievable in the US as well - 140k US saved and living a “simple life”. Those some people who try it go back to work in a few years because it turns out they value a more complex life. YMMV.
Relax. If you max out your ROTH IRA every year until retirement that is possible (for the US).
Old retirees that don’t need to work to live are rich, yes. If they can afford their rent and food and healthcare, they are doing better than 90% of humans on Earth.
No. Not being destitute doesn’t automatically make you rich. Things are not black and white. There’s a wide spectrum that is very flat until you get to the top 0.1%.
Bring in the top 10% doesn’t mean much when the different between top 99 and top 90 is multiple orders of magnitude larger than top 90 to top 10.
If your definition of “destitute” is having to work for a paycheck, you and I are not on the same page.
You’re not really wealthy until you can raise your own legion.
The tiers for me are: Doesn’t worry about money -> Doesn’t work -> Can afford a US senator to protect money. There are not titles for this kind of thing.
There are two thresholds that matter: “rich” is where you no longer have to really think much about money on a day to day basis, and “wealthy” is where you no longer have to work for a living. Both thresholds depend on your expenses and the lifestyle you’re looking for, I guess
I’d be a slight exception… I’m VERY MUCH not rich but I never think about money. I can’t afford a house and I would really love to have my own house…. I don’t buy many things, but when I do, I don’t think about it. I put everything on a credit card that gives me money back and I pay it off every month. I used to put 5USD of gurl in my car, and now I’m very thankful that I don’t think about filling my entire tank or going out for sushi.
Maybe someday I’ll have a house.
I was about to type something very similar, but switching words. “Wealthy” to me implies having enough wealth to not really worry. “Rich” makes me think of Lamborghinis and yachts and mountains of cocaine.
Bezos is not wealthy. He just has a lot of money. I can’t imagine he’s found any real happiness with it. Sure a brand new Ferrari every week can buy you some happiness, but that’s short lived.
The man has a serious mental illness that will not be addressed, because he has too much money and power for anyone to be allowed to tell him he’s ill.
Billionaires are a danger to themselves and others. They should be admitted into a mental hospital against their will and they should be treated until they are cured.
This isn’t even a “CEO bad” joke. I honestly believe it’s a mentally disorder. Or maybe a specific mix of different disorders and unfortunate environments, circumstances and enablers.
What’s your take on Elon…I know mental illness, but I saw somewhere that his gaming account that was almost #1 got banned and all I can think is he’s obsessed with being no1
I liked it back when the aristocracy was just called the “leisure” class. At least they didn’t spend their time playing at being an executive and pretending they earned what they have.
You can cure rich with a weekend in Vegas, Wealth is terminal.
Shit, for the obscenely rich, a green plumber can cure that.
Depends entirely on where you live. In my part of the world, a decent 1800 SF house goes for around $1.5M.
I first thought 1800 SF house was referring to the painted ladies and thought the price way too low.
Personally, I’d consider myself rich. I live in Germany which is already among the richer countries in the world giving me access to an insane amount of infrastructure and opportunities. Furthermore, I work for an IT company and make more money than average and more than I need to satisfy my immediate needs (shelter, food, transportation etc.) and pay for my hobbies (mostly outdoor stuff). I might not be a millionaire and I can’t just retire tomorrow but still I’m very aware of what a huge privilege I have compared to a vast part of humanity.
Personally, I think already my taxes are too low. Not to start about millionaires or billionaires.
These folks are always comparing themselves to billionaires. “What am I not a KING!”
Much the same story as yours. I consider myself filthy rich vs. the rest of modern humanity and obscenely rich vs. historical humanity.
I think it was Bill Gates who said that all the kings of Europe weren’t wealthy enough to buy the things in a modern grocery store.
If you can basically do whatever you want and the cost is of little to no concern, you’re rich.
Eh I’ll adjust that a bit to “and you’re not required to work 40 hours a week to do so”. If you are living well and still working, then I’d still say congrats, but that’s not rich, that’s supposed to be the top end of middle class. (If it is anymore, well, who knows).
The big kicker is if tomorrow they lay you off, are you nervous or worried? Not rich then, the rich would shrug it off and take a few months or years off doing whatever they like. If your first thought when you get laid off is “how long will my savings last” or “I need to find another job”, congrats! Not rich.
But if you don’t need to work (or you’re someone like a board member or executive who shows up for 10 hours a week and claim they “work”, then no, your rich, you have enough were you don’t have to work anymore.
I’m including that in the “whatever you want” bit.
What if you don’t have to work and you can fly to Europe for vacation without much worry, but you can’t fly first class without worry?
Cost is a concern then.
Ok, so not rich at that point.
There are very few people who feel this way. CEOs making millions per year feel like they need to work - their mansions, airplanes and such cost so much money they don’t dare not work. It never occurs to them they could live like the rest of us.
My definition is rich is similar to that, a person that can go through it’s day to day life without thinking about money is wealthy.
If you can go grocery shopping, buy the clothes you need, and maintain your house without having to make compromises because your budget is tight then for me you are rich.
