Is $250,000 Affluent?

[MasterBlaster]

How to Pretend to Be Rich and Popular

More important info for posers...


Step 1
ATTIRE: Buy cheap clothes on sale from outlet stores. The key is to appear to be nicely fitted, when in reality you got that tie from Walgreens. Now your pimpin!
Step 2
MONEY: Keep a wallet full of dollar bills, fives, and even tens. Tell your date you like to use your credit card only on "expensive things", and don't be afraid to show off those 100 dollar bills even if you return it to your bank account after the night.
Step 3
TALK: Keep your conversation geared towards other people, and try not to give away your information. You need to stay mysterious and if they ask where you work, simply reply, "I'm a male gigalo, want a lapdance?"
Step 4
FOOD: When going out always eat beforehand and try to go to the least expensive restaurant. If need be, skip lunch every single day to pay for dinner on Friday night. If your date insists they pay, let them.
Step 5
CELL: Have your friends text and call you often, but pretend they are business partners and important calls. Make it look like everyone wants contact you but you are concentrating on your date.
Step 6
WORK: Exaggerate your job and pretend your more important than you are. If you work at McDonald's say you oversee customers in a private restaurant and then change the subject. Don't forget to mention you own a start-up business but have been putting it off because of your donations to the poor.
Step 7
FAKE IT, UNTIL YOU MAKE IT: Don't forget that most people fake being successful until they do become successful. Just tell yourself your rich and popular, and you are.

 

[yakers]

Important lesssons for you $250k posers. This is important so pay attention !

"How to Pretend You Come From a Rich Family"


Practice etiquette. This is very important because rich families place a lot of importance on being proper in public. Concentrate on learning the different types of silverware, the proper way to speak and proper titles used to address others.

Shouldn't be too hard for you Nords, didn't knife & fork school cover this stuff?

 

[FUEGO]

Important lesssons for you $250k posers. This is important so pay attention !

"How to Pretend You Come From a Rich Family"

At first I thought this was clearly satire. Now I'm not so sure! I think this really is a self help article designed to help folks act how people think rich people act.

 

[ziggy29]

Either way, 250K won't cut it.

If you have no debt and a COLA'd pension that exceeds the expenses of your desired lifestyle, it would...

 

[seabourne]

Honestly, the list isn't that bad to model after the truely affluent - it tends to be considered gauche to draw much attention to the wealth. hence the disdain for "new money" people who tend to flaunt wealth, people raised wealthy tend to have nice but not showy things that are well used for a long time, show some appreciation for honest good service, and the discussion points are about things that aren't necessarily showy but are expensive experiences that are pursued to be enjoyed (food, wine) rather than shown off. The fundraisers are a way to combine experience hunting with both social payback to organizers and a means to support "good works". I'm not saying that all of the rich are like this by any means, but for families that manage to keep wealth and no go insane, it tends to be more way that they live.

 

[Gone4Good]

This stuff has to be judged within the context of what is "normal". It is not normal to have $250K in investable assets. Anyone who does is by definition well-to-do or "affluent" relative to "normal" folks.

People have a tendency to view their own situation as normal. Almost every rich person I know doesn't consider themselves rich because they know someone who has more - notwithstanding the fact that 99% of the world's population has less.

 

[JOHNNIE36]

You guys are scaring the hell out of me if anyone thinks $250K is a having it made. We have a home worth approx $140K, paid for, and just getting ready to rent it out. Recently bought another home for cash for $205K and are in the process of renovating it for another $50k. It will be our main home. Still have another $250K in the bank. No debt, mega corp pension and SS and I'm scared to death that we will have some financial problems. I don't know what they might be but I'm worried. Some big health problem could change the whole complexion.

 

[BunsGettingFirm]

This stuff has to be judged within the context of what is "normal". It is not normal to have $250K in investable assets. Anyone who does is by definition well-to-do or "affluent" relative to "normal" folks.

The conclusion I draw from that statement is that the people on this board are insane freaks.

 

[Nords]

The conclusion I draw from that statement is that the people on this board are insane freaks.

It took you six years and over 1300 posts?!?

 

[Walt34]

I'm not saying that all of the rich are like this by any means, but for families that manage to keep wealth and no go insane, it tends to be more way that they live.

That's a big part of it as is mentioned often here, consistently living below your means results in an accumulation of wealth. A friend of DW's was over about a year ago just after I had bought the motorcycle and asked what the payments were on it. I told her "None. I wrote a check for it." She appeared astonished.

But at the same time, we eat most meals at home and don't travel much. In the last five years we've spent perhaps $500 on hotel rooms and that was visiting relatives during a series of moves. Some of our wooden furniture is 25+ years old and the rest was not all that pricey in the first place. We don't have cabinets of collectibles, Spode china or Waterford crystal or any of that stuff.

When the weather is good we go to local, state or federal parks (one has free concerts in the summer) we don't go to malls "for something to do" and... well, you get the idea.

 

[Maurice]

If you have no debt and a COLA'd pension that exceeds the expenses of your desired lifestyle, it would...

Isn't that another way of saying 'if your 250k is more than 250k, it will do you just fine.'

 

[Gone4Good]

The conclusion I draw from that statement is that the people on this board are insane freaks.

No. We're just not normal (at least with respect to money issues). And I'd be surprised to find anyone here who would dispute that.

 

[brewer12345]

No. We're just not normal (at least with respect to money issues). And I'd be surprised to find anyone here who would dispute that.

Fully agree. Its just that when you spend a lot of time in a particular community, it becomes your norm. In my current workplace, the long term employees are extremely conservative financially, so much so that something like 2/3 or 3/4 of the total 401k plan (all balances) was invested in the stable value fund. This was a rude shock coming in from a small hedge fund with a privateers-of-the-capital-markets culture.

 

[Helen]

Fully agree. Its just that when you spend a lot of time in a particular community, it becomes your norm. In my current workplace, the long term employees are extremely conservative financially, so much so that something like 2/3 or 3/4 of the total 401k plan (all balances) was invested in the stable value fund. This was a rude shock coming in from a small hedge fund with a privateers-of-the-capital-markets culture.

That is interesting. Is that a recent trend that is reflective of the current market or more of a long term trend?

 

[Gone4Good]

Its just that when you spend a lot of time in a particular community, it becomes your norm.

Yup, and that's why so many people on this board don't consider $250K of investable assets "affluent". People of means have a way of defining "rich" upward. They aren't rich, their richer friends are rich. And those richer friends don't consider themselves rich because they travel in circles where some people have more than they do. If you keep on going you end up defining "rich" or "affluent" so narrowly that it applies to exactly one person. But that isn't the right definition.

I had a conversation this week with someone who makes mid to upper six figures who said "Yeah, but the cost of living here is so high that I'm really not that well off." She didn't know exactly how to respond when I pointed out that the secretary lives here too on about 1/10th her income.

 

[brewer12345]

That is interesting. Is that a recent trend that is reflective of the current market or more of a long term trend?

Reflective of the way things have always been at the current place. It is a highly secure place to work that has limited upside, so I imagine that most of these folks value safety and security way more than most people in my profession. This gets reflected in their choice of retirement investments as well as employment.

 

[Meadbh]

According to Dictionary.com
1.having an abundance of wealth, property, or other material goods; prosperous; rich: an affluent person. 2.abounding in anything; abundant.3.flowing freely: an affluent fountain.
---------
By that definition I think it depends on whether one feels $250k is an abundance. My neighbors with no savings probably think it is. I do not.

But I'll take it over $125k.

I'll take definition #3: flowing freely.
If I had $250K flowing freely to me every year, I might feel affluent.
$250K NW: NOT!

By this definition I am not affluent.

 

[Delawaredave5]

Always loved the quote:
There are two ways to get rich (affluent):
1. Have more, or
2. Want less

 

[km4hr]

According to Dictionary.com
1.having an abundance of wealth, property, or other material goods; prosperous; rich: an affluent person. 2.abounding in anything; abundant.3.flowing freely: an affluent fountain.
---------
By that definition I think it depends on whether one feels $250k is an abundance. My neighbors with no savings probably think it is. I do not.

But I'll take it over $125k.

I'm not even flowing freely any more. So I guess I'm not affuent in any sense of the word.

 

[BigMoneyJim]

I think a more apt measure of affluent would be how long your stash would support you. $250k will take a [-]cheap[/-] frugal person much farther than the mortgaged-to-the-hilt 2-home owners driving leased Lexuses refreshed every two years.

People in general seem to think affluence is defined by how much a person can spend, but the focus of people on this board I think are more generally looking to save just enough to quit work and live off of, and that's far more achievable by controlling spending than increasing income and/or savings.

Hmmm...I dunno....maybe her own money and rechargeable batteries...

She'd get more bang for the buck with the warehouse store brand.

 

[old woman]

My mom is affluent with about 250K. She is 83 with a house contract she will collect on for 30 more years, a paid for car she got 6 years ago. She pays 1,500 a month for rent including all food, utilities and cleaning services and laundry at my brother's house.

Her income is a little SS about 4K a year, pensions worth about 25K and around 15K from the house contract so her 250K is sitting in the bank in CDs earning a few thousand a year. She doesn't like to shop, her hips hurt, she doesn't like the internet and won't have it, she has only 4 rooms and already has furniture and stuff. We will buy her gifts that more than replenish her supplies of things like computers, TV or lamps, whatever she might like. She only has her rent, cell phone and car insurance, her medical is Medicare and a HMO from her old employer. She was in a clinic and two hospitals and had surgery this month to remove gall bladder and won't spend a cent on it.

She can buy anything she wants and decided this year it would be ok to start spending down her savings if she wanted to. She can afford to go out to eat everyday if she feels like it or pay for gas for someone to drive her places that are too far for her to drive, her eyes burn if she drives more than 100 miles.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Well there are three ways for someone of modest means to become affluent.

1) LBYM for a decade or three and then live off of the saved stash

2) Housing bubble equity farming - all that cash just waiting for you - The good life awaits

3) Welfare fraud - people can live very well by cheatin' the man.

 

[W2R]

I think a more apt measure of affluent would be how long your stash would support you. $250k will take a [-]cheap[/-] frugal person much farther than the mortgaged-to-the-hilt 2-home owners driving leased Lexuses refreshed every two years.

Good point. Many of us here might qualify as being affluent, by that measure, even though we may not think of ourselves in those terms.

 

[FUEGO]

What would you call a perpetual traveler type ex-pat that has their $250k and heads to the beaches of Thailand and lives it up on their $10,000 a year? To be able to do that in perpetuity would probably make that person look affluent in the eyes of the locals, and in the eyes of fellow backpacker, world traveler types. Maybe not me and my middle- or upper-middle class peers.

Heck in some parts of the world, having more than 1 goat makes one affluent!

 

[youbet]

I agree with everyone saying that folks with large amounts of wealth and income in addition to the $250k being discussed are affluent........