Feeling rich ?

[Moemg]

I'm taking a class in financial planning and this is one of our questions .

 

[FinanceDude]

I guess you can "feel rich" without being rich, but that seems too "deep" for me...............

I still have the "financial goals list" DW and I put together when we decided we wanted to FIRE about 10 years ago. This was before I became an advisor or anything: 20 YEAR- PLAN

1)$2 million in retirement and other investment accounts

2)$100,000 in cash/rainy day money

3)No debts, mortgage paid off, etc.

I figured at the time (before Firecalc) that I could take 5% a year forever without losing principal. Of course, this was 1996, and I am sure I was WAY too conservative then, as the S&P was doing 25% a year.............

 

[bbbamI]

With our lifestyle and life expectancy, we can do fine on $1m. However, we would have to monitor our expenses .

I voted $2m because for us, we could ease up a bit on the spreadsheets.

 

[Rich]

My wife and I are in our early sixties. No debt (nada; home, another piece of property, three cars, credit cards: nothing). I earn around $150 a year, put away a good chunk in both qualified accounts and after tax. Have around $130 in a couple of those 5% internet banks. Too much cash, but we do want to buy a place down south when we sell that piece of land we own on the Cape. Plus some money tucked away in various qualified account. Anyway, when I retire I'll be drawing (eventually) on three (defined) pensions, just breaking six figures by a few thou.

Do I feel rich? Yes. Are we? By the numbers, of course not! But we live below our means. We've always been conservative in our life style. Comfortable but conservative.

Yet, if we see it and want it we buy it. A comfortable feeling.


Rich

 

[Robert the Red]

Rich = 3 times what you have now = $ 5 M for us.

Really rich -- that's different.

 

[wabmester]

I could feel comfortable at almost any level, especially if I had a steady income.

But, to me, feeling rich means having more than I can conceivably need or use. $10M would be the lower end of "rich" in terms of being supersaturated with money, I think.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

$500k nice life in thailand. many thai will think i'm rich but i won't. i spend most of my days playing in my dugout canoe.

$1mm ok i had to add selling the house to move aboard but it was worth it. i make the bridges open for me as i come down the intracoastal. people stuck in the traffic i cause think i'm rich. but i know better. the boat is named "poor me".

$2mm i got enough to go around the world. though not in the style i'd like to become accustomed, the natives of the south pacific islands think i'm pretty rich.

at $5mm i'm sitting pretty good but i still wash my own boat and change the oil even though i have enough for a crew of one who helps.

at $10mm i've got a crew of 2 and enough for a captain later in life when i become even lazier than i am today. everyone who isn't on a mega yacht thinks i'm rich and finally i am starting to believe them.

 

[SteveR]

How about $100M as a figure to add to the poll?

I don't see $10M as rich....way above average...but not really rich. $100M to me is RICH. That buys a lot of freedom and a lot of hired help to deal with the crappier parts of life that is hard to fund with a lot less loot.

I will never see this kind of wealth but that is what RICH is to me.

BTW, my mother thinks I am rich already...I guess to her I am. But not to me. I guess the more you have the larger the $$$ threshold to being RICH.

 

[Empty Pockets]

One of the wealthiest men in America lived in a small town just down the road from where I live. He was the founder & owner of one of the largest privately held companies in the United States and was #56 on the Forbes list.

Someone asked him "Marv, just how much money is enough ?" He answered them "Just a little bit more".

He died too.

 

[Andre1969]

I put down $5M as the level for which I'd feel rich. Now I'd be FI/RE at a much lower level than that, but at $5M I'd feel pretty stinking rich. Sure, there would still be plenty of things that would be out of my reach but hey, I'm pretty easily amused by cheap stuff. I like convertibles, but I don't need a supercharged Bentley. A '67 Catalina with a little bondo here and there suits me just fine.

 

[tryan]

Twice as much as I have .


... would always be true.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

$100mm barely buys me this puppy. but i would have to continue living below my means.

 

[Sam]

Present time, I don't have an answer. But I felt VERY RICH in 1993 when my net worth reached $40,000. Just 2 years before that it was negative.

 

[scrinch]

Someone asked him "Marv, just how much money is enough ?" He answered them "Just a little bit more".

That's the scary answer. Keep working to get just that little bit more...then you die. The real public service this board does is help some of us figure out when enough is enough.

 

[FinanceDude]

$100mm barely buys me this puppy. but i would have to continue living below my means.

Ok..............Tiger Woods............

 

[Coach]

Funny, I think I've had $1M in my head for 30 years. But actually thinking about it, I went for $2M.

Coach

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

Ok..............Tiger Woods............

www.privateradio.org/blog/wp-content/tigersyacht.jpg

 

[dex]

I always thought it was about 30% more than you have.

 

[bongo2]

Present time, I don't have an answer. But I felt VERY RICH in 1993 when my net worth reached $40,000. Just 2 years before that it was negative.

I also have never felt richer than I did when I first had $30k in the bank.

I would be very comfortable with $5M, but not really rich until I hit something more.

 

[donheff]

I clicked on $5M but that was just a "comfortable" with risk number. Really rich, maybe $100M; but probably always more than what you have.

 

[Dreamer]

Funny, I think I've had $1M in my head for 30 years. But actually thinking about it, I went for $2M.

Coach

This is the very same for me!

 

[crazy connie]

This is the very same for me!

I think that was the number for a lot of us... Reality strikes and you got it and realize... A MILLION AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE!!!

 

[Gone4Good]

I guess the more you have the larger the $$$ threshold to being RICH.

That is why people are never happy.

I work with folks who make $2MM-$5MM a year who feel "poor" because some other folks make $10MM-$50MM. Whatever. I hope they enjoy working forever so they can someday, maybe, "feel" rich.

I think $2MM liquid is pretty damned rich. It's not private jet rich, but who cares. Anyone who can live well above the median family without ever having to work is pretty damned rich in my book.

 

[kjpliny]

I think $5M is the point where interest on safe investment (5-6%) lets you live easily without having to work or worrying too much about money. Having an annual income of $250-300k for doing nothing seems about right.

 

[d]

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen
nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty
pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six,
result misery" (Charles Dickens, David Copperfield ,Chapter
12)