What HHI is indisputably RICH in a HCOL area?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can’t live off your wealth, you aren’t rich. Income shouldn’t matter.

Then, rich is relative because my investments generate a half million a year, but I spend only $150k/year. So, by your definition, I’m rich. However, my wealth wouldn’t support the lifestyle of the posters in this thread. So, am I rich or poor?

DP

+1
My investments generate ~1M and my W2 income is almost that. My lifestyle is very UMC. We live on ~200-300k. I can't imagine wanting a lifestyle that requires $1M! So strange to me. I'd be so out of touch with humanity and the people I see as peers. I'd feel isolated and unrelatable. It's so bizarre to me that there exists people that crave this. It makes me wonder about their value system. We have 3 homes and 4 kids in private school/college and I feel comfortable in that crowd - country clubs, skiing, etc. Really we don't need more than what we have. Ok, if we had to save aggressively then add savings on top of the 200-300k.

Huh? You can't imagine wanting a lifestyle that requires $1M yet you own 3 homes, have 4 kids in private school, belong to country clubs and ski. GTFOH lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who cares? Seriously? In the abstract, why would people care about this other than to keep score?

The better approach is to ask what you need for a happy life. In the real world, most people don’t care about owning multiple homes, driving $100k cars, etc. Rather, most people would be more than happy to have a 3000 sq ft home in a good school district, two reliable cars, decent 529 and retirement savings, and a couple of standard family vacays. That requires a good income, but not an indisputably rich one.

I need 100 million

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can’t live off your wealth, you aren’t rich. Income shouldn’t matter.

Then, rich is relative because my investments generate a half million a year, but I spend only $150k/year. So, by your definition, I’m rich. However, my wealth wouldn’t support the lifestyle of the posters in this thread. So, am I rich or poor?

DP

+1
My investments generate ~1M and my W2 income is almost that. My lifestyle is very UMC. We live on ~200-300k. I can't imagine wanting a lifestyle that requires $1M! So strange to me. I'd be so out of touch with humanity and the people I see as peers. I'd feel isolated and unrelatable. It's so bizarre to me that there exists people that crave this. It makes me wonder about their value system. We have 3 homes and 4 kids in private school/college and I feel comfortable in that crowd - country clubs, skiing, etc. Really we don't need more than what we have. Ok, if we had to save aggressively then add savings on top of the 200-300k.

Huh? You can't imagine wanting a lifestyle that requires $1M yet you own 3 homes, have 4 kids in private school, belong to country clubs and ski. GTFOH lol.

Seriously what planet is that poster on? You can't maintain 3 homes, send four kids to private school, galavant around the country clubs and the ski slopes on $200-$300k. SMH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can’t live off your wealth, you aren’t rich. Income shouldn’t matter.

Then, rich is relative because my investments generate a half million a year, but I spend only $150k/year. So, by your definition, I’m rich. However, my wealth wouldn’t support the lifestyle of the posters in this thread. So, am I rich or poor?

For your lifestyle, you are rich.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NW over 10M.

Income is meaningless. If you bring in 1M and burn through it in a year, you're still poor.... and probably stupid too.

Agree. NW matters more than income when defining RICH. If you make $1m plus per year and live paycheck to paycheck, you are not rich, whereas if you have a $2+m paid-off house with $8m+ in investable assets but an income of $500k, you're rich.

[Anonymous]

I think we're wealthy (NW 40M+), but we don't really have the trappings of it. We both came from MC families that had financial struggles, and are entirely self made, so we have really great awareness of how fragile all this can be. While we do spend more than we did when we first got married, it's nowhere near commensurate with the growth in wealth. Most years, our household expenditure is under 200K. We have a very nice house, but not in any posh location. Our only child goes to public school. We both drive totally utilitarian vehicles. There is nothing designer in anyone's closet. We do have a weekly cleaning service and all our yard work is outsourced.

Our big splurge is travel. We have started to travel business, but only on long haul flights. Even then, we are quite cognizant of expenses. For instance, I have been looking for a winter vacation spot, and was gobsmacked that people on the travel forum were casually recommending hotels that cost 5K+ per night. While we can afford it, we cannot bring ourselves to spend that kind of money on a hotel room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can’t live off your wealth, you aren’t rich. Income shouldn’t matter.

Then, rich is relative because my investments generate a half million a year, but I spend only $150k/year. So, by your definition, I’m rich. However, my wealth wouldn’t support the lifestyle of the posters in this thread. So, am I rich or poor?

DP

+1
My investments generate ~1M and my W2 income is almost that. My lifestyle is very UMC. We live on ~200-300k. I can't imagine wanting a lifestyle that requires $1M! So strange to me. I'd be so out of touch with humanity and the people I see as peers. I'd feel isolated and unrelatable. It's so bizarre to me that there exists people that crave this. It makes me wonder about their value system. We have 3 homes and 4 kids in private school/college and I feel comfortable in that crowd - country clubs, skiing, etc. Really we don't need more than what we have. Ok, if we had to save aggressively then add savings on top of the 200-300k.

Huh? You can't imagine wanting a lifestyle that requires $1M yet you own 3 homes, have 4 kids in private school, belong to country clubs and ski. GTFOH lol.

DP:
Once the kids are gone, I personally cannot imagine a lifestyle that requires $1M for us. But I can imagine how you could easily spend that much. We live in a HCOL, own 2 homes (no mortgage), are planning to retire soon. We are planning to spend $500K/year. And that includes sports season tickets, $100K of travel (business class, nice hotels, etc), wine clubs, etc. Our lifestyle wont change much when we retire other than a bit more travel.