Do many households here have $15 M net worth or more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey op, you surprised to see the predictable bs replies ?

The only BS replies are ones like yours. Others are actually replying to the OP's question. 20M here, OP. No inheritance or high income. A lifetime of investment, that's all.

These are what shock me the most.

I can buy that certain careers lead to $20M by say, 50 ($5-10M HHI a year = hedge fund, private equity).

I get that certain careers lead to $8-10M by 50 ($2-3M HHI = very successful in BigLaw, consulting, executives at large companies, maybe FAANG SWE).

But what surprises me is when people are not high income, didn't have an inheritance and get to $20M. Even someone making $2-3M (like the big law lawyer) is still going to struggle to get to that $20M figure. What exactly are you investing in?!

Apple for us. We invested very little a long time ago, because we didn't have much, and that's why we're *only* at 20M. Perhaps you aren't very well versed in which companies have done extremely well for our generation, but if someone tells you they made their current wealth over decades of modest stock market investment, it's likely Apple. It's the only company that fits the bill. If someone tells you they made a fortune recently in the stock market, it's likely crypto. And so on and so forth...

I was waiting for the Apple person to chime in. Little delayed this time!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey op, you surprised to see the predictable bs replies ?

The only BS replies are ones like yours. Others are actually replying to the OP's question. 20M here, OP. No inheritance or high income. A lifetime of investment, that's all.

These are what shock me the most.

I can buy that certain careers lead to $20M by say, 50 ($5-10M HHI a year = hedge fund, private equity).

I get that certain careers lead to $8-10M by 50 ($2-3M HHI = very successful in BigLaw, consulting, executives at large companies, maybe FAANG SWE).

But what surprises me is when people are not high income, didn't have an inheritance and get to $20M. Even someone making $2-3M (like the big law lawyer) is still going to struggle to get to that $20M figure. What exactly are you investing in?!

You don’t need $2-$3m HHI to get to $8-$10m by 50. We are there and we netted $50k a month starting around age 30 and we keep a lot of cash and don’t invest in a lot of tech. We bought a $1.5m house at 30, and don’t spend a ton otherwise other than vacations. No private school or county club or first class flights.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - would be interested in more lifestyle details at this level. I love that everyone probably has $15 M but livesin a 2- bedroom condowith their 4 kids, but there must be something that you spend money on? Asian travel, Hermes, family help, golf, going to see Taylor Swift in Portugal? Or really you’re just taking 3 days at Rehoboth off-season, share a car and watch Netflix?

Nope 5 bedroom house and two kids.
A week at Rehoboth and a week in Florida which cost about $30k. No one believed me when I replied to a post about how much we spent going to Florida over winter break.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey op, you surprised to see the predictable bs replies ?

The only BS replies are ones like yours. Others are actually replying to the OP's question. 20M here, OP. No inheritance or high income. A lifetime of investment, that's all.

These are what shock me the most.

I can buy that certain careers lead to $20M by say, 50 ($5-10M HHI a year = hedge fund, private equity).

I get that certain careers lead to $8-10M by 50 ($2-3M HHI = very successful in BigLaw, consulting, executives at large companies, maybe FAANG SWE).

But what surprises me is when people are not high income, didn't have an inheritance and get to $20M. Even someone making $2-3M (like the big law lawyer) is still going to struggle to get to that $20M figure. What exactly are you investing in?!

You don’t need $2-$3m HHI to get to $8-$10m by 50. We are there and we netted $50k a month starting around age 30 and we keep a lot of cash and don’t invest in a lot of tech. We bought a $1.5m house at 30, and don’t spend a ton otherwise other than vacations. No private school or county club or first class flights.

What's your industry? And how old are you now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey op, you surprised to see the predictable bs replies ?

The only BS replies are ones like yours. Others are actually replying to the OP's question. 20M here, OP. No inheritance or high income. A lifetime of investment, that's all.

These are what shock me the most.

I can buy that certain careers lead to $20M by say, 50 ($5-10M HHI a year = hedge fund, private equity).

I get that certain careers lead to $8-10M by 50 ($2-3M HHI = very successful in BigLaw, consulting, executives at large companies, maybe FAANG SWE).

But what surprises me is when people are not high income, didn't have an inheritance and get to $20M. Even someone making $2-3M (like the big law lawyer) is still going to struggle to get to that $20M figure. What exactly are you investing in?!

Apple for us. We invested very little a long time ago, because we didn't have much, and that's why we're *only* at 20M. Perhaps you aren't very well versed in which companies have done extremely well for our generation, but if someone tells you they made their current wealth over decades of modest stock market investment, it's likely Apple. It's the only company that fits the bill. If someone tells you they made a fortune recently in the stock market, it's likely crypto. And so on and so forth...

I was waiting for the Apple person to chime in. Little delayed this time!

DP. Oh, does this guy chime in a lot?

[Anonymous]

We had $15M by the time I was 39. I’m now 48 with somewhere between $37M-$40M (some of the assets are illiquid and hard to quantify). No inheritances or gifts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey op, you surprised to see the predictable bs replies ?

The only BS replies are ones like yours. Others are actually replying to the OP's question. 20M here, OP. No inheritance or high income. A lifetime of investment, that's all.

These are what shock me the most.

I can buy that certain careers lead to $20M by say, 50 ($5-10M HHI a year = hedge fund, private equity).

I get that certain careers lead to $8-10M by 50 ($2-3M HHI = very successful in BigLaw, consulting, executives at large companies, maybe FAANG SWE).

But what surprises me is when people are not high income, didn't have an inheritance and get to $20M. Even someone making $2-3M (like the big law lawyer) is still going to struggle to get to that $20M figure. What exactly are you investing in?!

Apple for us. We invested very little a long time ago, because we ddidn't have much, and that's why we're *only* at 20M. Perhaps you aren't very well versed in which companies have done extremely well for our generation, but if someone tells you they made their current wealth over decades of modest stock market investment, it's likely Apple. It's the only company that fits the bill. If someone tells you they made a fortune recently in the stock market, it's likely crypto. And so on and so forth...

Thanks. Condescending attitude aside, did you diversify at all? The reason this surprised me is that it's been beaten in my head (I'm an older millennial) that you don't overinvest in one stock. So was this a situation where you bet it all on black? Or Apple was 10% of your portfolio, for example, and it grew?

PP you replied to. I'm not condescending at all. These types of threads usually devolve into insults and personal attacks when a few posters disclose how their wealth developed and others start feeling insecure. Hopefully that won't be you, but I've been on DCUM for a long time, and investment threads usually end this way. As soon as that happens, I'm out. I don't want to waste my time engaging with people who think I'm lying, or who sneer and say everything was just luck.

I tried to diversify multiple times, and nothing ever worked as well, so apart from Amazon, Google, Nvidia and Netflix, which have worked well too, but more recently, I don't have much else doing on. AAPL represents the bulk of my success. I invested in Amazon 15 years ago, Google and Netflix came a little later, and Nvidia was more recent. Tesla was shorted as soon as that moron made his Nazi salute. I never liked Microsoft and Facebook so never invested in those, but I realized that I beelined to most of the top performers. The AI bubble is an interesting phenomenon, and I believe comparisons to the dot-com era bubble are not entirely justified. I am happy to see that Apple is taking things slow on the AI front, however. It limits my exposure a bit.

I have come up against the diversification argument so many times in my life. Sometimes the common wisdom does not work, PP. If there was a tried and true formula, there would be a lot more rich people in this world. This is why I don't have a financial advisor - they all bleat about diversification but none of them invest successfully, so... why would I listen to them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey op, you surprised to see the predictable bs replies ?

The only BS replies are ones like yours. Others are actually replying to the OP's question. 20M here, OP. No inheritance or high income. A lifetime of investment, that's all.

These are what shock me the most.

I can buy that certain careers lead to $20M by say, 50 ($5-10M HHI a year = hedge fund, private equity).

I get that certain careers lead to $8-10M by 50 ($2-3M HHI = very successful in BigLaw, consulting, executives at large companies, maybe FAANG SWE).

But what surprises me is when people are not high income, didn't have an inheritance and get to $20M. Even someone making $2-3M (like the big law lawyer) is still going to struggle to get to that $20M figure. What exactly are you investing in?!

Apple for us. We invested very little a long time ago, because we didn't have much, and that's why we're *only* at 20M. Perhaps you aren't very well versed in which companies have done extremely well for our generation, but if someone tells you they made their current wealth over decades of modest stock market investment, it's likely Apple. It's the only company that fits the bill. If someone tells you they made a fortune recently in the stock market, it's likely crypto. And so on and so forth...

I was waiting for the Apple person to chime in. Little delayed this time!

And you always lie in wait to attack them!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey op, you surprised to see the predictable bs replies ?

The only BS replies are ones like yours. Others are actually replying to the OP's question. 20M here, OP. No inheritance or high income. A lifetime of investment, that's all.

These are what shock me the most.

I can buy that certain careers lead to $20M by say, 50 ($5-10M HHI a year = hedge fund, private equity).

I get that certain careers lead to $8-10M by 50 ($2-3M HHI = very successful in BigLaw, consulting, executives at large companies, maybe FAANG SWE).

But what surprises me is when people are not high income, didn't have an inheritance and get to $20M. Even someone making $2-3M (like the big law lawyer) is still going to struggle to get to that $20M figure. What exactly are you investing in?!

Apple for us. We invested very little a long time ago, because we didn't have much, and that's why we're *only* at 20M. Perhaps you aren't very well versed in which companies have done extremely well for our generation, but if someone tells you they made their current wealth over decades of modest stock market investment, it's likely Apple. It's the only company that fits the bill. If someone tells you they made a fortune recently in the stock market, it's likely crypto. And so on and so forth...

I was waiting for the Apple person to chime in. Little delayed this time!

DP. Oh, does this guy chime in a lot?

There are a couple (few?) Apple millionaires on DCUM. And there is at least one person who is very jealous of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - would be interested in more lifestyle details at this level. I love that everyone probably has $15 M but livesin a 2- bedroom condowith their 4 kids, but there must be something that you spend money on? Asian travel, Hermes, family help, golf, going to see Taylor Swift in Portugal? Or really you’re just taking 3 days at Rehoboth off-season, share a car and watch Netflix?

I’m the poster with $37-$40M. By my mid 30s income was pouring in. I had 2 separate businesses that were reliably netting me seven figures. Plus rental properties. I would say that we spent lavishly but truthfully our biggest expenses was taxes. Next highest was investments. After that was residences but that was below 10% and included significant annual home improvement projects.

Rental property investing started when we were young (25) and we steadily put money in rental property. Never anything that wasn’t cash flow positive but we never needed the rental income so for years the income was unexciting. Over time they grew in value and rents went up. Eventually single family properties became multi family and then commercial properties and then more commercial properties. And business income grew. $2M income became $3M became $4M.

We got to the point where we could afford everything we ever wanted and still have plenty left over. We have a really nice primary and secondary residences both in A+++ locations. We take whole family vacations 2-3 times per year (winter break, spring break and summer). We are wealthy enough that price doesn’t matter and we are okay paying a premium booking a month or two out (I wish we were better about this part). An inexpensive vacation for us is anything under $20k. Expensive is over $50K. We will also go on a weekend trip 2-3 times per year. We probably spend under $5k on those. Maybe NYC for the Weekend. The cost is so insignificant to us, I don’t even consider it. We always fly economy. I want to fly business but I cannot justify the expense. I’d rather spend the extra money to upgrade something else on the vacation itself rather than a flight. When almost always travel with the kids and always get a separate room for them. If the kids are with us we don’t stay in suites. If it’s just us we do.

Kids were in public but now in private high school but only because where we live we didn’t love our local school and didn’t want to move. Tuition is a figure that I notice but by comparison roughly in line with our annual charitable giving and when it started we didn’t cut back on anything.

We don’t do fancy kid hobbies but that is not for cost reason. Kids do have tutors in classes that they need it. We do whatever camps they want (and of which we approve). The cost is meaningless to us. In reality they have done expensive sleep away and cheap day camps but that is more by happenstance. They didn’t love sleep away camp.

We have a cleaning service and landscaping at both residences. We have pool service at our secondary residence.

We spend a few thousand a month going out to eat, which I enjoy. The amount feels irrelevant. We generally cook weekday dinner and eat out weekend dinners. I make the kids lunches most days.

Any single purchase under $1K is so inconsequential we would never notice it. So we buy what we want when we want it. Ironically it makes us want very few tangible things. We tell the kids no to most tangible things. We are far more willing to spend on experiences.

Our cars are practical and not impressive. We just aren’t car people and we have kids.

We could easily drop $1k on tickets on a whim for a show. Usually stuff we’d want the kids to see. Could be theatre, cirque de soleil or even a sporting event.

It’s an incredibly privileged life. Beyond my wildest dreams. No idea what is normal or not for this net worth. Our financial advisor says that we could live our current lifestyle indefinitely on our current assets and at the rate of growth likely multiple times our lifestyle when we stop working entirely.

What else do you want to know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - would be interested in more lifestyle details at this level. I love that everyone probably has $15 M but livesin a 2- bedroom condowith their 4 kids, but there must be something that you spend money on? Asian travel, Hermes, family help, golf, going to see Taylor Swift in Portugal? Or really you’re just taking 3 days at Rehoboth off-season, share a car and watch Netflix?

We have 35+ million. We don’t live that exciting lives and have only recently started spending more money on things (my husband is cheap). But we do all the regular rich people stuff: beach house, private school, country club, flying first class, spend a lot on charity (have donated about 750,000 dollars so far), set up trust for children and have investments in their name. We have had a mix of practical cars and luxury cars. But nothing outrageous like the Bentleys and Maseratis I see in McLean. I have never owned a very expensive handbag, nor do I plan to. I don’t buy expensive clothing.

One thing I would like to do is spend more money on my parents and siblings. I have offered to buy my parents a house, but they have refused. I think that it is probably some comfort to them knowing as they age that we will always take care of them and spare no expense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People on dcum always talk about the same “luxury” spending like all anyone can ever think of to spend on is airplane tickets, cars and houses.

Most rich people I know who have an off base spending category, it’s for a passion. A sailboat. A weekend house they love tinkering on. They built a pottery studio in the backyard. They have a business that’s not profitable and they keep pouring money in. A nonprofit that’s…not profitable. A weird collection. Stuff like that.

Or horses. Don’t forget the horses.

Well, no horse girls with $15m still have $15m. We're mostly formerly rich.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People on dcum always talk about the same “luxury” spending like all anyone can ever think of to spend on is airplane tickets, cars and houses.

Most rich people I know who have an off base spending category, it’s for a passion. A sailboat. A weekend house they love tinkering on. They built a pottery studio in the backyard. They have a business that’s not profitable and they keep pouring money in. A nonprofit that’s…not profitable. A weird collection. Stuff like that.

Or horses. Don’t forget the horses.

Right? IDGAF about your kitchen but I will drool over good footing or a commercial washer/dryer in the tack room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People on dcum always talk about the same “luxury” spending like all anyone can ever think of to spend on is airplane tickets, cars and houses.

Most rich people I know who have an off base spending category, it’s for a passion. A sailboat. A weekend house they love tinkering on. They built a pottery studio in the backyard. They have a business that’s not profitable and they keep pouring money in. A nonprofit that’s…not profitable. A weird collection. Stuff like that.

Or horses. Don’t forget the horses.

Right? IDGAF about your kitchen but I will drool over good footing or a commercial washer/dryer in the tack room.

Birkin? You can keep it. A really functional dry lot? Be still my heart!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - would be interested in more lifestyle details at this level. I love that everyone probably has $15 M but livesin a 2- bedroom condowith their 4 kids, but there must be something that you spend money on? Asian travel, Hermes, family help, golf, going to see Taylor Swift in Portugal? Or really you’re just taking 3 days at Rehoboth off-season, share a car and watch Netflix?

I think DCUM tells itself that everyone "flies under the radar" but I think that's confirmation bias and some level of projecting.

We're in the $10-20M range and day to day, our lives look like those of my girlfriend who is a dermatologist married to an in house lawyer: SFH in the city, private schools, 2 luxury cars, 3-4 vacations per year. Clothes are still Frame, Ulla Johnson, Farm Rio, and Agua Bendita. We both own a small collection of designer bags and jewelry.

The HNW really shows up in single-family homes. Hers might be $1.5M and mine is closer to $4M and has been professionally decorated. We help family a lot, either financially or in kind with nice vacations. Her kids school cost $25K per year, ours cost $45K and we donate heavily.

But even being HNW, I'm not wearing, for example, Chanel couture, purchasing jewelry at Graff, or flying private. As another poster said, that's for people >$100M I would think.

Wait, your girlfriend is married to an in-house lawyer?