What does it take in terms of assets, abilities, and/or income for you to consider them wealthy?
I think calling Bezos rich is an understatement. My mind cannot comprehend the amount of wealth he has.
Which kind of rich do you mean? The ‘this person is truly wealthy but it’s not unreasonable’ or ‘this person is unacceptably rich and should have their money taken away if not worse’?
The former can be somewhere around…$10,000,000 or so. Lower the older the person is really (cause I consider rich versus remaining expected lifespan), so maybe even as low as $6,000,000 for someone who’s currently 40.
The latter where it’s simply unacceptable for people to have that much I’d start the cutoff around $400,000,000 or so.
And slight sidenote on the unacceptable levels: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos both are so unacceptably wealthy that they could make one person a day wealthy by my $10,000,000 standard…every day…for 100 years…before running out (and that’s assuming they stopped accruing money at the beginning of this)…and still be unacceptably wealthy to a crazy degree.
Oh and all my numbers are assuming no additional income and definitely no interest or investment (but also assuming the money remains the same value it has today).
I guess what would it take for you to look at yourself and conclude that you’re rich?
For me, given my age and all…five million.
Wealthy and rich have nothing to do with one another.
Wealthy is a person that lives in a stable environment, where they aren’t threatened with death on a regular basis (such as, losing one’s job).
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.
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.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, 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”.
A little bit of savings? How much would you need to save per month?
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).
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.
That’s a really good answer, wealth comes with options
Well, luxury and rich are closely related terms, aren’t they? I think what you described is a financial independence.
I’d add that if you can support your desired level of luxurity for yourself and your family without working anymore - that’s being rich.
Edit: I misread the original question, which was asking about wealthy, not rich. Still, I think my answer applies
That is not what I’m describing, no. I am specifying that it’s about having enough wealth that you can stop working.
Having a job, investments, being a landlord, freelancing etc. Those are all ways to achieve financial independence. But none of those allow you to stop doing any of them.
Working class people contribute to society.
The rich are parasites.
That’s the difference.
And no, telling people what to do is not real labor. Rent seeking is not real labor.
Wealth is anything beyond having the necessities of life covered.
If you can afford a reasonable home, your bills, food, any dependents, eating out once a week, hobbies, taking a holiday or two per year, and contributing to your retirement then you’re living comfortably.
Anything beyond that is wealth, it allows you to splash out on luxury products, luxury holidays etc.
Some people may never realise they’re wealthy because they live excessively and believe that’s the norm, ie payments for an overpriced car, spending excessively on hobbies etc
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.
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.
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.
Being able to not worry about food, gas, standard bills and actually have something in savings
Someone who has everything they could possibly need and no bad debt. Does not need to be rich.
Wealth is the feeling of having all your needs met and being satisfied with life in a stable and permanent way.
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.
I consider anything above $500k to be “well off”. Once you start to pass $10M, that’s truly wealthy. $1B rhymes with obscene
Anybody who doesn’t have to work for the rest of their life because it’s voluntary + they don’t really have to look at the price tags of the things they want.
