Net worth over $20 million

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds about right to me.

People with net worth over $20M are generally not W-2 wage earners who invested well in the stock market. They are entrepreneurs who made it big, people at the very top of their profession (athlete, singer, actor, lawyer, etc.), business owners, and those with generational family wealth.

this.

[Anonymous]

of course that’s the number. it’s called the 1% a reason. 99% of people will never be wealthy nor multimillionaires.

[Anonymous]

i have 20 million, age 48. w2. Likely, this will turn into 75 million in 20 years, with a conservative estimate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:of course that’s the number. it’s called the 1% a reason. 99% of people will never be wealthy nor multimillionaires.

Yeah, but there are 129 million households in the US. So, the top 1% is 1.29MM households.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i have 20 million, age 48. w2. Likely, this will turn into 75 million in 20 years, with a conservative estimate.

From compounding or cash / equity infusions or both?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no idea who many there are in the US.

But I have come to realize that people are not frugal once they earn serious money.

I know this because we have 20M through investments and being actually frugal. The people we know who have large salaries do not live like us. I don't think anyone actually realizes how much we've accumulated, since we're still in our starter home, with our starter cars - and that's fine, we like flying under the radar! But I know we are definitely weirdo outliers

Similar story here. Worth $16M and live in a small house in a nice neighborhood. Public schools for kids and 1st is at a public university. Low to mid 50s and will likely retire when last kid gets out of college. Expect to have $30M by then. Drive old cars and buy reasonable clothes. But nice vacations with the kids.

What's the point of all that money then? Seems worthless to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:20M isn’t poor but it is far from rich. It is a solid upper middle class retirement number. You just have to hope that you don’t end up with any expensive healthcare costs.

Sorry, I don't believe people with $20M in wealth are this stupid. I can easily live a middle class life off $80K a year in income in retirement. Upper middle class no need for more than $200K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:20M is not rich. Using a 3% withdrawal rate you will have an inflation adjusted 600k per year to spend in retirement. That is a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle at best. People vastly underestimate taxes, the cost of healthcare, and the cost of home maintenance.

There is some MASSIVE overestimation of the cost of healthcare in this thread. My parents are both 80 and their healthcare bills have been relatively minor. And that is with brain surgery, multiple heart attacks and one quad bypass surgery, knee replacements, etc.

Long term care usually doesn't last that long. For most people it is less than a year. Guess what, you're going to die soon once you can't take care of yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:20M is not rich. Using a 3% withdrawal rate you will have an inflation adjusted 600k per year to spend in retirement. That is a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle at best. People vastly underestimate taxes, the cost of healthcare, and the cost of home maintenance.

There is some MASSIVE overestimation of the cost of healthcare in this thread. My parents are both 80 and their healthcare bills have been relatively minor. And that is with brain surgery, multiple heart attacks and one quad bypass surgery, knee replacements, etc.

Long term care usually doesn't last that long. For most people it is less than a year. Guess what, you're going to die soon once you can't take care of yourself.

80 is different than 85. Come talk to us in five years.

That said, calling $20m in assets “not rich” is absolutely absurd.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It maybe feels low to you because I am sure the distribution is very clustered.

I bet 90% of those people live in only like 10 metro markets in the US.

Statewise, it would be Florida, New York and California.

Correct...but in the DC area you have an outsized concentration of law partners as an example who can hit that level after just like 7-8 years of partner earnings.

However, outside of DC and NYC and like SF/LA, the BigLaw market is actually much smaller.

DC is also the #5 metro area for F500 HQs. You have Capital One, Hilton, Marriott, Choice, Boeing, etc. 20 HQs in total.

Bullshit. Hitting that number in “7-8” years as a law partner requires earning $3 million a year, spending none of it and paying no taxes.

Dude...you are a bit unhinged...you do realize you don't go from $0 to $3MM per year right? You are earning many hundreds of thousands and maybe over a $1MM for years even before making equity partner, and investing a bunch of that.

That isn’t right. Say you make equity partner in 10 years. You are making $500,000 or less the first five. And probably less than a million for all of it. Most have law school debt and even if they don’t, are saving for a down payment and paying for day care and schools

What do you mean it isn't "right"? Most people making $500k per year can save at least $100k of that...probably even more. Now you are slowly moving up towards $1MM and continuing to save more...assume normal investment returns...now you make equity partner and are making $3MM+ (or maybe $5MM or maybe more). Once you hit partner you are saving like $1MM per year, and again it's all compounding.

So maybe they don't hit a $20MM NW at 8 years...maybe it takes 10 or maybe 12 or 15. The point is you can definitely get there from being a BigLaw partner and DC has an outsized share of BigLaw partners.

We know so many big law partners and not one has $20M. I know they are out there, and could guess a few at my old firm, but not in the dozens we are friends with. This includes a few dual partners.

You're responding to a known weirdo who likes to calculate how people can hoard wealth if they live frugally with their high salaries. That poster always needs to be reminded that people earning a lot are by and large NOT frugal. They buy several homes, indulge in luxury travel, pay for expensive privates for their multiple kids, and if very foolish, cheat on their wives and end up with very painful child support and alimony.

So no, lots of high earners do not have the very high net worth that others might expect.

I don't know that high earners "by and large [are] NOT frugal". Some of us in the law in particular want out as fast as possible, and we had a sizeable networth before even making partner. A couple of years where you can keep throwing $1-2m into your portfolio on top of millions you already have at work can get you to big numbers fast. I have no idea how much other high earners save, but I agree that the ones who cheat on their wives and are paying alimony and child support and private school tuition are probably not doing so well.

The question is how many of these people you believe exist in the United states, and you cannot extrapolate this number by looking at your immediate area that may have over-saturation of law partners. Even then I doubt 7 figure earners who had been doing this for many years to accumulate this wealth even if invested without overspending or doing stupid sh** is high percentage wise compared to the rest of the population.

That's probably true, but some jobs, like in the law, are a grind. Some of us have been working on our exit plan since year 1. Every stupid thing you do equates to another year of grinding. I'll quit before making it to $20m, but I'll make it to $10m, and no one I work with knows what I have saved. I'm sure there are others like me.

Good for you, PP!

[Anonymous]

80k per year will not give you a middle class life in DC or any other desirable metro area. I don’t want to live a lower class lifestyle in my golden years.

[Anonymous]

We are retired and our net worth is well over $20 million, closer to $100 million than $20. We just recently finished our taxes and our dividends alone were over $900k and capital gains $1.4 million. We live very comfortably but certainly not an ultra high net worth lifestyle. No big boat, PJ or fancy cars. We are simply not wired to live that way. Much of our net worth is assigned to trusts for our children and our grandchildren and charitable trusts. The family trusts are not set up to let someone be a trust fund baby. I'm sure a lot of people would say we are crazy not to spend more (fly private!) but what we do works well for us. We also have the luxury of knowing that if we did need to fly private it would not be a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no idea who many there are in the US.

But I have come to realize that people are not frugal once they earn serious money.

I know this because we have 20M through investments and being actually frugal. The people we know who have large salaries do not live like us. I don't think anyone actually realizes how much we've accumulated, since we're still in our starter home, with our starter cars - and that's fine, we like flying under the radar! But I know we are definitely weirdo outliers

Similar story here. Worth $16M and live in a small house in a nice neighborhood. Public schools for kids and 1st is at a public university. Low to mid 50s and will likely retire when last kid gets out of college. Expect to have $30M by then. Drive old cars and buy reasonable clothes. But nice vacations with the kids.

What's the point of all that money then? Seems worthless to you.

Maybe he’s planning setting up the next couple of generations , his children and grandchildren.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i have 20 million, age 48. w2. Likely, this will turn into 75 million in 20 years, with a conservative estimate.

From compounding or cash / equity infusions or both?

From trolling

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are retired and our net worth is well over $20 million, closer to $100 million than $20. We just recently finished our taxes and our dividends alone were over $900k and capital gains $1.4 million. We live very comfortably but certainly not an ultra high net worth lifestyle. No big boat, PJ or fancy cars. We are simply not wired to live that way. Much of our net worth is assigned to trusts for our children and our grandchildren and charitable trusts. The family trusts are not set up to let someone be a trust fund baby. I'm sure a lot of people would say we are crazy not to spend more (fly private!) but what we do works well for us. We also have the luxury of knowing that if we did need to fly private it would not be a problem.

I think we need another forum for the DCUM poors. ^^ It's kind of a bummer to not be able to talk about our yachts here. And, who can't fly private!

I'm going to petition Jeff.