How much money do you need to be rich?

[maycocksean]

I started thinking of this reading the Warren Buffet thread.

When is a person rich? Is it when they have enough money so they don't have to work? My cousin and his wife retired in their early thirties, but while they live comfortably, they don't live extravagantly. If they did they'd soon have to go back to work. What they do is live on the interest of the money they made from the sale of their AOL stock. Are they rich? I bet if I asked them if they are rich they would say no.

Is a person rich if they can "buy anything they want?" But surely there are things that even Bill Gates can't afford to buy if he wants to.

Is a rich person anyone who makes more than I do? You notice how people tend to feel that people who make way more than they do are "rich." Those who make far less are "poor."

Any rich posters here who'd like to concede their "richness" and tell us when you knew you were wealthy.

Someone once pointed out that the middle class American is insanely wealthy compared to the vast majority of the world's population. So does that mean we're ALL rich, but just don't know it?

Thoughts?

 

[verte76]

It's relative. What's rich to one person is poor to another person. A person may think they are poor because there are certain things they can't afford that they think they should have. But they have their house and two cars, which makes them rich compared to other people.

 

[Irvine511]

it's totally relative -- given where i live, i'd need to make close to six figures to feel middle class and afford to even rent a good apartment, let alone own one (average 1-bedroom goes for an easy $450K).

 

[UberBeaver]

I'd say rich is when you go out and spend a shit load of money, then look in your bank account and you still have a shit load of money, enough to go out and blow a shit load of money several times over.

Now I need to figure out how to define "Shit load".

 

[Numb1075]

rich is when $ is not object. it's green paper and anything you want, you can afford w/o stressing 1 second over it.

buy whatever you want, in fact buy two of them.

 

[Maoilbheannacht]

Obviously there are area's where the cost of living is unusually high, but these places are small and far from being the average. On average 20 years ago in the USA, a person making 6 figures was considered rich or in the upper class. Now the "upper middle class" extends into a 6 figure territory a little going up to as much as 150,000. So, if you make over 150,000 per year in the USA, on average, you definitely would be considered part of the upper class and there for rich. I'd also consider anyone who can afford to live a middle class lifestyle without working to be rich as well. The 150,000 figure might actually be too high, it may be more like 120,000.

Median household income in the USA in 2004 was $44,000 dollars. This means half of household incomes were below this figure and half were above. Household income is often two or three individual incomes combined.

A single individual making $44,000 dollars a year with no one to support is doing very well for themselves relative to the rest of the US population on average. While they may not be rich, they are definitely middle class.

 

[AliEnvy]

I remember someone telling me once that rich is when your money works for you (whatever level of custom lifestyle the may require), not the other way around.

Funny thing about money, you either stress about it or you don't - no matter how much or how little of it you have. Plenty of rich people stress over it and plenty of poor people couldn't care less.

 

[Salome]

my brother always keeps saying that it doesn't matter how much you make because you always spend all of it anyway

I would say my brother is well off
I guess rich people don't have his problem

 

[BonosSaint]

Enough that you can say Fuck Off to just about anyone.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I think you're pretty rich when you don't have to worry about any necessities, considering that so many of the people in this world go without necessities every day.

 

[pgv]

In my opinion, being rich is when you have everything you need and can afford to live without the constant worry about money. Being rich is being happy! (Quite a hippy sounding reply I realise!)

 

[DILETTANTE]

There's stuff you need and there's stuff you want. By my definition, a person who can't get all the basics that they need is poor. A person who can get all of what they need and some of what they want is in the middle. Someone who can get all of what they want is rich. Obviously, these definitions are flexible -- especially the "rich" part. I once decided that I would need 10 million dollars to feel "rich". Conservatively invested, I would have an income of at least $50,000 a year. This would give me the freedom to continue on with my relatively low paying but very rewarding job/career, while still being able to meet all of my "needs".

 

[nbcrusader]

Excellent thread topic! I agree that the US is insanely wealthy compared to the vast majority of the world's population, to the point that we really have lost all touch with reality when discussing needs vs. wants.

In the US, we’ve become so class conscious that we formulate a dollar figure for our happiness. In addition, we have also lost much of our notion of earning over time – people out of college expect as much as those who have been out of school for 10-20 years. Not only do we want our wealth, we want it now.

Numb1075 insightfully stated that rich is when $$ is not an object. Now, in the vernacular of the US, that means when you have so much $$ you don’t need to count it. It would be interesting to see responses from people at different income levels, and from different parts of the world. Money can stop being an object when you stop making it an object.

Yolland, I doubt you can find better experience with poverty than the slums of India. From the descriptions and pictures a close friend has shared, the garbage dumps of Cairo would be a definite step up from the slums of India. Poverty that really shocks the Western mind.

I’ll go ahead and answer the question no one else has: I can say that I am rich. Very rich. My wealth grew enormously three times in my life: on my wedding day, at the birth of my son and at the birth of my daughter. I know I am rich in that despite living in a very wealthy part of the US (and having but a fraction of the $$ wealth as those who live around me), I have what is really important in life to me. I can sense a general lack of “richness” in my neighbors as they maintain $$ as the object of their affections.

 

[Irvine511]

In addition, we have also lost much of our notion of earning over time – people out of college expect as much as those who have been out of school for 10-20 years. Not only do we want our wealth, we want it now.

when you make statements like this, which seem totally foreign to my experience, where do you get your information? do you know many 23 year olds? do you know many twenty-somethings who are well aware that they simply will not be able to do as well as their parents no matter how "well" they do? are there facts your basing this on, or are these inferences from broadly understood principles, i.e. kids today are spoiled?

i mean this as a 100% serious question.

 

[Justin24]

Being rich can bring out the evil in us and snotty. I want to be rich and I dont want to. I told my self and my family If I won the lottery The mega millions here in CA and it was up to 150 million.

5 million for me 1 million for my mom dad and two brothers and with 5 million for emergency and the rest would help pay for scholarships and send money to DATA or One to help ones in need.

 

[nathan1977]

The pastor at a church I recently attended talked about an interesting statistic. If you earn $35K a year, you are in the top 97% of the world's wealthiest citizens. If you boost that number to $45K, you are in the top 99%.

Really puts things in perspective.

 

[nathan1977]

when you make statements like this, which seem totally foreign to my experience, where do you get your information? do you know many 23 year olds? do you know many twenty-somethings who are well aware that they simply will not be able to do as well as their parents no matter how "well" they do? are there facts your basing this on, or are these inferences from broadly understood principles, i.e. kids today are spoiled?

i mean this as a 100% serious question.

I did career counseling a few years ago as a side gig. I can vouch for some (not all) of what NBC said. Students would come in comparing their earning potential with what kids a few years ago were getting ($50K starting salaries with a $10K signing bonus in the Internet boom). When you'd point out that the Internet boom was over, they'd say, "Screw it, I'll go to law school."

Having said that, I just had lunch with some old friends, one of whom volunteers for NARAL, the other of whom is looking at a career in environmental policy. Piss-poor but happy as clams. So I don' t think everyone can be tarred with the same brush.

 

[Muggsy]

do you know many 23 year olds? do you know many twenty-somethings who are well aware that they simply will not be able to do as well as their parents no matter how "well" they do?

*raising my hand* . My parents start to make "real" money when they were younger than I am now... they could buy their own house, and raise us in a good school with an average salary (it would be shit in the USA but here it is enough money). To be honest,,, I don't know If I can do the same thing ... I still live in my parent's house and most of my friends do the same, a few can rent an apartment but sometimes they get short of money. we are not bitter, but that's because we don't have more responsabilites (like raising a kid), and we know we can't afford that.

 

[WildHoneyAlways]

I did career counseling a few years ago as a side gig. I can vouch for some (not all) of what NBC said. Students would come in comparing their earning potential with what kids a few years ago were getting ($50K starting salaries with a $10K signing bonus in the Internet boom). When you'd point out that the Internet boom was over, they'd say, "Screw it, I'll go to law school."

The difference between this and what nbc said is that the students you talked to wanted the starting rate of a few years ago and not what someone with 10-20 years experience made.

 

[Irvine511]

I did career counseling a few years ago as a side gig. I can vouch for some (not all) of what NBC said. Students would come in comparing their earning potential with what kids a few years ago were getting ($50K starting salaries with a $10K signing bonus in the Internet boom). When you'd point out that the Internet boom was over, they'd say, "Screw it, I'll go to law school."

Having said that, I just had lunch with some old friends, one of whom volunteers for NARAL, the other of whom is looking at a career in environmental policy. Piss-poor but happy as clams. So I don' t think everyone can be tarred with the same brush.

^ i think this is quite reflective of reality.

of course there are some people who want it all, now, and i can relate to this because i was in college from 1996-2000 and heard all sorts of fairy tales about the Internet Boom, stuff like they were giving out $60K a year jobs on street corners in SanFran, but when i graduated, the market had tanked and everyone was waiting it out in graduate school. and i think we should also keep in mind that most people pay exorbitant amounts of money for education in comparison to their parents, and my parents owned their own home when they were my age, and i have to rent a room in a house, yet i make significantly more than they did (and i don't make that much).

anyway, i found NBC's comment hugely presumptuous as i imagine most 20-somethings would.

 

[Se7en]

my most basic, general, rule of thumb for this question is, if you can stop working today and yet still have a middle class income you're rich. obviously, wealth is relative on an international scale.

as a 23 year old young professional, or whatever, i would just like to be able to pay off my student loans with relative speed, afford to put a down payment off at least 50% on a small fuel effecient car (think yaris), and live in a small apartment on my own. at the rate i'm going i will be able to do so in 10-20 years.

 

[Angela Harlem]

Enough that you can say Fuck Off to just about anyone.

I'm loaded! It's not an attitude then!



No really, I agree. Everyone in here is focusing on income but not debt. Doesn't matter how much you earn when it is sucked up in debt.
-debts +assets. Disposable income means bugger all.

 

[BonosSaint]

Nope, you're wealthy as all hell.

Thanks. I needed that.

 

[AtomicBono]

The pastor at a church I recently attended talked about an interesting statistic. If you earn $35K a year, you are in the top 97% of the world's wealthiest citizens. If you boost that number to $45K, you are in the top 99%.

Really puts things in perspective.

Is that really true? That certainly does put things into perspective.

I think it's really all perspective. It's how much money you feel like you have compared to those around you. I'm definitely well-off, but I wouldn't call myself rich, despite having two iPods (they were both christmas presents, different years, and I begged for them) my dad is a lawyer (litigation, generally dealing with utilites companies) and he worked extremely hard to get to where he is today, and he still works hard everyday... we have a big house, he has a new Mustang, and we live quite comfortably. compared to some of my friends who can barely afford rent, I guess I seem rich. but it's not like we can afford to buy anything we want. dad supports three kids and he manages his funds well, but we've wanted to go to England for a couple years now but we never have enough money to i'm not complaining by any means, I'm just saying, I always thought rich was buying a new BMW every year and going on vacation whenever you feel like and wearing highly expensive designer clothes and all that, which is definitely not us. I consider us upper middle class, but I guess to many people we're rich should i feel guilty about it?

 

[maycocksean]

It seems like a working defintion of "rich" from a monetary standpoint (I agree that you can argue the richness of life--those things like family, friends, etc that are "priceless" as the Mastercard commercials say) would fall long two possible lines.

"Rich" means that you can live comfortably without having to work.

"Rich" means that you have enough money to buy whatever you want.

Obviously, if you've got both of the above you are rich without question.

Using both criteria, that probably means that most of us are not wealthy. But. . .the second criteria is problematic. The fact is we live in a culture where the whole idea is that you can never by everything you want. No matter how much you have, you will always want more. The advertising industry wants to make sure that it is the case--that we're never satisified.

And the thing is we've already got sooo much. I've traveled quite a bit and I'm telling you no one lives as large as Americans do. Our threshold for middle class success is higher than just about anywhere. To most of the world, even a lower middle class American and even those that would be considered "poor" would be considered pretty well off by their standards. A lot of the things we think we "need" we really don't. We live in houses that are larger than any other "middle class homes" in the world. A car is a "necessity" in America for even the struggling classes (heck, our idea of poverty is living in your car), and having a two car family is considered normal, whereas in much of the world, many "middle class" families don't own even one car. The amount of clothing we have, even the size of our roads is far beyond what most of the world has.

And yet we aren't rich. Why? Because we all want, we all "need" more.

I'm not necessarily saying we all need to move into huts. I'll be the first to tell you that I just couldn't live in the tiny apartments that many of my Filipino friends in Saipan call home.

But I think it's good to be aware of just how good we have it, and to recognize that a lot of our "needs" are being created by Madison Avenue and are not intrinsic.

 

[dazzlingamy]

I think rich is being happy with the money you have. You don't wish for more, you are happy with what you've got.

I also like the explaination someone said about needing to wanting things and the difference between the classes.

I also think today, that a small percentage (but the most prolific) of americans that earn gross amounts of money for pretty much nothing ie celebrities are turning money and being rich into a farce. To have SO MUCH money you spend a million dollar on clothes a year, i frankly think is disgusting and as these celebs are so well publicised around the world, its a message of 'gross over wealth' that causes much scorn and also much envy from other countries and citizens around the world.

Honestly, my family is quite rich in monetoary sense. But i still have to work....and i love my family more because of the people they are then the fact I go overseas every year, or new cars, or my own house blah blah....it doesn't matter to me.

 

[Irvine511]

I also think today, that a small percentage (but the most prolific) of americans that earn gross amounts of money for pretty much nothing ie celebrities are turning money and being rich into a farce. To have SO MUCH money you spend a million dollar on clothes a year, i frankly think is disgusting and as these celebs are so well publicised around the world, its a message of 'gross over wealth' that causes much scorn and also much envy from other countries and citizens around the world.

nicole kidman ... russell crowe ... rupert murdoch ... keith urban ... hugh jackman ... AC/DC ... kylie minogue ...

 

[dazzlingamy]

can you ever just leave this whole Australia/USA thing alone. I'm not bashing YOU, i'm explaining what other countries see. Yes those people are Australian born (well minus Kylie, Nicole and Rusell from that list) but you'd be hard pressed to find a lot fo people in the states let alone out of america who would know where those people come from.

And you can have rupert. He sounds more american then australian now! (and certainly has american business morals!)

But i do agree with those people you listed, yes they all earn more money then sense. I mean a 7 million dollar wedding for nicole and Keith. is there any need for that? No.

 

[Irvine511]

can you ever just leave this whole Australia/USA thing alone. I'm not bashing YOU, i'm explaining what other countries see. Yes those people are Australian born (well minus Kylie, Nicole and Rusell from that list) but you'd be hard pressed to find a lot fo people in the states let alone out of america who would know where those people come from.

And you can have rupert. He sounds more american then australian now! (and certainly has american business morals!)

But i do agree with those people you listed, yes they all earn more money then sense. I mean a 7 million dollar wedding for nicole and Keith. is there any need for that? No.

i'm sorry, it's just in nearly all your posts you take out-of-the-blue potshots at the US and seem to locate us as the nexis of all evil in the world. i dislike the current administration and direction of the country as anyone, but i still don't like being singled out and have fingers pointed at me when other countries are every bit as guilty of the same crimes.

and i often have fantasies about moving to Oz, so please don't get me wrong.

(and i don't want Rupert ... no freaking way)

 

[nbcrusader]

A breadth of living experience (by a couple of decades) has shown me evidence of this trend – having lived though the post college years and knowing young 20-somethings today. The experiences nathan1977 witnessed at the end of the 90’s were just as evident through the 80’s. I found it odd to say my observations were hugely presumptuous when I’ve experienced this personally.

As a consumer society, we have also accelerated our acquisition of personal non-essentials. Items considered luxuries by our parent’s generation are not only acquired, but upgraded on a regular basis. The level of conveniences and non-essentials that we have available and readily take advantage of is far and above what was consumed by our parents.

It is also hard to image today what we can accomplish over 10 to 20 to 30 years.