I've never considered myself wealthy- financially comfortable? Yes- But not wealthy. To me the wealthy people are those with a NW of $7.5 million or more, which happened to be the threshold number that a Fidelity Investments survey came up with, or maybe at minimum a NW of $5 million if I want to set the bar low.
So I was reading Jean Chatzky's "The Difference", Where she analyzes data mined from a Merrill Lynch detailed survey of 5000 people from 2008. And Lo and Behold, she defined "Wealthy", as those with a NW of $1 million or more if age 55+ , $750,000 or more if 45-54, $500,000 or more for ages 35-44, and $250,000 or more if under age 35.
Surpisingly (to me at least), even with this seemingly low definition of wealthy, only 3% of those surveyed were in this category. 27% of those surveyed were classified as "Financially Comfortable", which is what I thought I was. Shockingly, a full 69% of those surveyed were either living paycheck to paycheck or worse.
Then yesterday I read an article about how the wealthy are not ponying up for their children's college education...and find that their definition of wealthy is a household income of $250,000 per year.
....So I guess I really am wealthy. I just never knew it.
So I was reading Jean Chatzky's "The Difference", Where she analyzes data mined from a Merrill Lynch detailed survey of 5000 people from 2008. And Lo and Behold, she defined "Wealthy", as those with a NW of $1 million or more if age 55+ , $750,000 or more if 45-54, $500,000 or more for ages 35-44, and $250,000 or more if under age 35.
Surpisingly (to me at least), even with this seemingly low definition of wealthy, only 3% of those surveyed were in this category. 27% of those surveyed were classified as "Financially Comfortable", which is what I thought I was. Shockingly, a full 69% of those surveyed were either living paycheck to paycheck or worse.
Then yesterday I read an article about how the wealthy are not ponying up for their children's college education...and find that their definition of wealthy is a household income of $250,000 per year.
....So I guess I really am wealthy. I just never knew it.