What's your definition of a wealthy person? Sure, Bezos is rich, but where do you put the threshold?
What's your definition of a wealthy person? Sure, Bezos is rich, but where do you put the threshold?
What does it take in terms of assets, abilities, and/or income for you to consider them wealthy?
If you could retire and have enough to keep you comfortably housed and insured until you're 90, that's wealth enough.
When you could stop working and just coast off of what you've got till you die. At that point, making more is a luxury.
Access to a warm fire to dance around, food and libations, and friends to share them with.
Second house is immediately qualifying.
Second?
I know where you're coming from, but my mortgage-having peers are often little better off than I am. Though I suppose neither of us technically own a house.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
Wealth is the feeling of having all your needs met and being satisfied with life in a stable and permanent way.
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.
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'm not sure it's quite the same level of blatant disregard for human life, or life in general, that Bezos has. Elon has different issues than Bezos, but definitely something unhealthy and dangerous about his behaviour as well.
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.
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.
$5 million of spare money. Not net total wealth but actually $5 million investable dollars.
At that point, I'd you stick that money in a very conservative and safe brokerage account allocation, 5% return per year is $250k. That is a higher salary than almost anyone needs, meaning you can live very comfortably without working. You can't buy a yacht but you can be "done" and so can your children and their children if they aren't stupid.
If you choose to work, then you can just reinvest that $250k and let compound interest do its thing and get richer. Lucky you.
With 5% you run a serious risk of running out of money. The general rule is 4% at retirement age, but younger than that with a longer time horizon is even less.
E.g you can look at this FIRE calculator (Financially Independent, Retired) which runs simulations against historical data. It's all inflation adjusted for the yearly withdrawal.
With $5,000,000 and a $250,000 withdrawal rate, you have a 53.2% chance of making it 45 years and not running out of money. 4% 200k is 79.8%, and 3.5% 175k gets you to 96.3%.
Take that same 5 mil though and do 4% for 25 years with a 65 year retirement age so money until 90, and it's a 98.4% chance.
I consider anything above $500k to be "well off". Once you start to pass $10M, that's truly wealthy. $1B rhymes with obscene
You can cure rich with a weekend in Vegas, Wealth is terminal.
Shit, for the obscenely rich, a green plumber can cure that.
You're not really wealthy until you can raise your own legion.
We need a new word beyond rich. Everyone takes rich as a personal achievable goal.
We need a word for someone who has more money than is healthy. An easy to use word.
They are so rich they no longer know the cost of things. They can't relate to their neighbors. They no longer need to be a part of their community to survive.
Jeff Bezos is a
That's a good one
Someone for whom the normal and inevitable experiences of suffering (illness, death in the family, natural disaster, etc) have no real economic consequences.
If you get a golden parachute after losing your job, you're overly wealthy.
Lots of other good definitions in here as well
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.
Living in London and working in the City so long really skewed my view on this. I guess because I worked with so many people earning six figures (and double that for household income) who were still very much "workers", were paying off the mortgage and hated commuting like anyone else. They didn't seem rich to me. Maybe if they sold up and moved out of town, sure, but just trying to live day to day they were counting the cost like an average person just up-scaled.
I feel like being able to live off passive income / interest AND living where you want is where "rich" starts for me. I could live off passive income now, in a basic place far from London but I'm not "rich". I can live pretty much where I want in London, but I'd have to continually work for it. Being able to do either of these things would put me in many people's "rich" bracket but for me it's when you can do both at the same time.
Could you buy a second house if you wanted to is what I consider very rich. Though honestly buying one house is hard for most people these days
In general I would say you're rich if you could stop working and live a life where you never want for anything
You are wealthy/rich at the point where you no longer know or care about the well being of the people that count on you to survive–the point of dehumanization is the threshold of a monster.
Rich - enough money to throw around and buy expensive things, but could lose everything with some poor decisions because they are spending their income instead of focusing on future wealth
Wealthy - expenses are easily paid using income from investments, easily accessible loans from property, or some other wealth based process. They don't need to actively work to do the same kinds of thing a rich person can do, and it is difficult for them to lose their wealth.
There are not any specific dollar amount thresholds, because it depends on spending and local cost of living. Wealthy people will make decisions that maintain enough wealth that will increase in value over time to beat inflation, rich people make decisions based on whether they can afford it right now.
Anyone with a net worth listed on their wikipedia page.
Anyone who can lose several million dollars at work and might still have a job the next day.
Anyone who can damage fancy clothing and think "I'll just get a new one."
Anyone who can have a holiday abroad every year. Especially if they have a summer home.
Anyone who gets surprised when they find out someone has never been skiing.
Anyone who gets surprised when they find out someone has never been skiing.
That depends on culture a lot. In Austria it's actually rare to find someone who has never been skiing (25% of the population go skiing regularly, and that has already been at around 50% not many years ago). Even when not doing it with your family while growing up everyone learns it at school.
I'm not rich at all but I do get surprised when someone who isn't obviously from another country has never been skiing (typically it means that they grew up somewhere else but you just don't notice anymore).
$500,000 combined household gross income
A wealthy man has no bills
Wealth, to me, is relative, measured by how far-reaching you can do things.
In the top tier, there are billionaires who can make decisions on the world stage, such as Elon Musk making satellites to help various countries or L Ron Hubbard buying a navy and putting places of worship in other countries.
In the middle tier, there are people who can make decisions on the national level, such as smaller business chains putting their businesses in various states.
In the low tier, there are people who can make decisions on the local level, such as buying management at a local school.
And then there are the rest of us, who have our whole empires concentrated on a single street.
who have our whole empires concentrated on a single street.
Running an empire out of rental ain't very glamorous tho esp when you short on rent
Anyone who has strong opinions about new video games or a favourite Tiktoker is wealthy
What?
Relative to the globe. What you've observed isn't statistically normal.
Well if these pedons ain't working but wasting their damn time playing video games and jerking off on tiktok, they must be rich
Also, did you know that iPhone costs 1k 🤡