How do you define "rich"

[Enuff2Eat]

Rich is ...

When you really got FREE time.

Having a million dollars in the bank and busy as hell is NOT rich.


A Retiree is Rich.


Enuff

[lazygood4nothinbum]

i'm rich enough but not rich. rich to me doesn't pay for reality, rather it buys the fantasy. rich is the 300 million dollar lottery, not shared with three other winners, which pays for that 100 footer and the crew to run it. there are relatively very few rich people; but there are lots of people who live richly.

[CuppaJoe]

This is just one aspect of "rich" which comes up all-too-frequently in my personal and business life: The rich have options others do not linked to having a spare $15,000 or so a month to keep a seriously ill person at home. So their moral dilemmas can be different. If it is a child who is ill, the marriage might end. People will criticize either way, "you should have kept him at home, you should have left him in the hospital."

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by travelover Maybe this is old news: http://opencrs.cdt.org/rpts/RL30922_20060522.pdf Page 15 shows median and average savings by age group for 2001 and 2004. For me it gives some perspective of how "rich" I am, relative to the rest of the country.

Look how well prepared the median 55-64 year old was in 2004, compared with 2001! We had the biggest increase in median retirement account value of any age bracket. Maybe that is due to the very welcome help of the "over-50 catchup" as well as higher contribution limits.

Another thing that interests me is how badly SKEWED the data is. No bell curve, this. The mean was more than twice the median in my age bracket, indicating to me that a few had quite a lot in their accounts, bumping the mean up but not the median.

[travelover]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Want2retire .......Another thing that interests me is how badly SKEWED the data is. No bell curve, this. The mean was more than twice the median in my age bracket, indicating to me that a few had quite a lot in their accounts, bumping the mean up but not the median.

Yes! And that is the data for those who actually have an account -which for 65 and older was only 36.3%

[roadkill]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pavo Hello all - How do you define rich?

In my case, the politicians decided. Several years ago, I went to bed only to wake up the next day to learn that Congress passed a new tax law that declared I was now, well, rich... and of course should therefore pay my fair share of taxes........and so it goes.......

[HFWR]

Rich is having more money than you can spend...

[retire@40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HFWR Rich is having more money than you can spend...

Although some former rich people didn't know when to stop spending.

Here's one example...

Mike Tyson earned over $300 million during his up and down ring career. Mike Tyson is broke. It was only a matter of time but Iron Mike has officially filed federal bankruptcy papers stating that he is $27 million in debt, including $17 million in back taxes he owes in the U.S. and Britain.

Tyson Files for Bankruptcy!

[MikeD]

"The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 1 characters."

I spent all my wit on the title...

Mike D.

[Fred333]

What a shame... he had such a promising career. I would say that being rich come down to being able to do what you want when you want. Also to have good friends and a family that loves you. Money would be secondary then.

[FlogBlogger]

Rich is relative. If Bill Gates is the standard, you'll never think or feel that you're rich. It's a much more enriching exercise to consider the 40% of the planet living on $2 a day, according to the World Bank, and how you compare to those billions of folks. Or spend a little time in the third world and you'll never question your personal wealth again.

[travelover]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlogBlogger Rich is relative. If Bill Gates is the standard, you'll never think or feel that you're rich. It's a much more enriching exercise to consider the 40% of the planet living on $2 a day, according to the World Bank, and how you compare to those billions of folks. Or spend a little time in the third world and you'll never question your personal wealth again.

Excellent point. I feel like a spoiled, rich kid when I travel to the Third World.

[bongo2]

You are rich if you have considerably more money than the people you compare yourself to. A good working definition might be the top 1% of US households -- something like $5M these days.

But that doesn't really get at what I think of as rich. A friend of mine once said, "he's rich. . .not like $10m rich, either. . .like 'his yacht is $10m' rich."

[TickTock]

Arise and live again, thread!!!

Anyway, I take my definition of rich from a high school History teacher:

Rich is being able to retire tomorrow and maintain the same standard of living for the rest of your life.

[template]

Perhaps you've heard of this wealth litmus test:

You are rich if you can afford to crap on your boss's desk. -- or something similar.

[Janet H]

Someone who is rich has substantially more

- Disposable income than I have
- Free time than I have
- Nice relatives than I have

[haha]

Somebody who is rich doesn't need to worry about what his wife or girlfriend might want for Christmas.

Ha

[CyclingInvestor]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haha Somebody who is rich doesn't need to worry about what his wife or girlfriend might want for Christmas. Ha

Somebody who is rich doesn't need to worry about what his wife AND girlfriend might want for Christmas

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CyclingInvestor Somebody who is rich doesn't need to worry about what his wife AND girlfriend might want for Christmas

LOL! I stand corrected by someone with a deeper insight into the problem.

Ha

[RetireeRobert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eyerishgold There was a thread started recently saying that $5 mm is the new $1 mm. That's pretty accurate in my estimation. I think having $5 million in investable assets makes your "rich" or "wealthy" by anybody's standards.

I agree. $5 million is rich.