Why do people with millions of dollars still work?

[Anonymous]

For us, worth $10M (then deduct $1.5M home paid off, $1M for 3 kids 529s - still middle and high school). So we are roughly $7.5M investments. We will work until all kids are out of college in about 8 years, and we will be roughly 60, and hopefully be closer to $20+M. Plan for kids to go to grad school, but that is covered in the 529. We live in a smaller house in a popular area near metro and nightlife. We do save about 1/2 our salaries, and one of us makes much more than the other (one is a government employee) and the other a professional.

[Anonymous]

I have found myself wondering about this lately when you meet 80 and 90-year-old politicians who refuse to retire, and 80 and 90-year-old college professors. I think for those people it's not about money but may be because they have no identity other than their professional identity and they are really dependent on external validation. They can't imagine a life in which people aren't bowing and scraping and sucking up to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me it’s not even my work that I dislike, it’s everything else about it - the waking up early getting out of your warm bed on a cold dark winter morning, crappy long commute, have to answer to other people, being compelled to to go work even when you’re not feeling it that day, 5 days week, not having enough time for hobbies, exercise, home cooking, travel, spending time with your family - at least not without feeling like your life is hectic. WFH was supposed to fix some of this but now it’s going away in most places. Also NEEDING to live in a HCOL area with terrible traffic and everyone around you is an obsessive overachiever sucks too.

I ONLY work for money at this point, as soon as I have a few mil I’m gone. I don’t get people with 7+ million dollars who still choose to grind away their young healthy years in the rat race in, to be honest, a crappy city like DC (or any other HCOL area for that matter).

Once you have 7 million, you would want 14.

+1. $7 mill in your 40s in a HCOL with 2-3 kids to support…Not enough. You are not even that rich at this level. A decent 4-bedroom apt in Manhattan starts at $7mill and goes up if you want a nice neighborhood and a good layout. Way up.

$7 mill is too high a price. Giuliani is selling his 4 bedroom for $6.5 mill, and I'm sure it's in good shape and in a good neighborhood. I was reading that he's asking a high price, and that's there's another 4 bedroom apt in the same building going for $2,875,000.

https://www.realtor.com/news/celebrity-real-estate/rudy-giuliani-selling-nyc-apartment/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have found myself wondering about this lately when you meet 80 and 90-year-old politicians who refuse to retire, and 80 and 90-year-old college professors. I think for those people it's not about money but may be because they have no identity other than their professional identity and they are really dependent on external validation. They can't imagine a life in which people aren't bowing and scraping and sucking up to them.

Sure that may be part of it. But for college professors, it could very well be that they need the income. It takes a long time to acquire the education and possibly postdoctoral training to get into an academic gig. At the majority of colleges and universities, professors are not paid that well (but the tradeoff is that you have job security and less age'ism). People on this board tend to think about T25 universities, but that's not the majority of professors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have found myself wondering about this lately when you meet 80 and 90-year-old politicians who refuse to retire, and 80 and 90-year-old college professors. I think for those people it's not about money but may be because they have no identity other than their professional identity and they are really dependent on external validation. They can't imagine a life in which people aren't bowing and scraping and sucking up to them.

Sure that may be part of it. But for college professors, it could very well be that they need the income. It takes a long time to acquire the education and possibly postdoctoral training to get into an academic gig. At the majority of colleges and universities, professors are not paid that well (but the tradeoff is that you have job security and less age'ism). People on this board tend to think about T25 universities, but that's not the majority of professors.

Really? Think dude! Someone who's 90 now did all this like 60+ years ago when these things cost peanuts or may have been paid for. Even today, only an idiot will pay to get a PhD. And professor salaries are nothing to sneeze at. You can google salaries at any public university and see how well they get paid. They make good money and have fantastic benefits. Someone who's working at 90 works because they made poor life choices - gambling, picked the wrong woman, etc, they want to see young things in a skirt rather than deal with a naggy old lady all day, or that's just their identity and they would die without it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me it’s not even my work that I dislike, it’s everything else about it - the waking up early getting out of your warm bed on a cold dark winter morning, crappy long commute, have to answer to other people, being compelled to to go work even when you’re not feeling it that day, 5 days week, not having enough time for hobbies, exercise, home cooking, travel, spending time with your family - at least not without feeling like your life is hectic. WFH was supposed to fix some of this but now it’s going away in most places. Also NEEDING to live in a HCOL area with terrible traffic and everyone around you is an obsessive overachiever sucks too.

I ONLY work for money at this point, as soon as I have a few mil I’m gone. I don’t get people with 7+ million dollars who still choose to grind away their young healthy years in the rat race in, to be honest, a crappy city like DC (or any other HCOL area for that matter).

Once you have 7 million, you would want 14.

+1. $7 mill in your 40s in a HCOL with 2-3 kids to support…Not enough. You are not even that rich at this level. A decent 4-bedroom apt in Manhattan starts at $7mill and goes up if you want a nice neighborhood and a good layout. Way up.

$7 mill is too high a price. Giuliani is selling his 4 bedroom for $6.5 mill, and I'm sure it's in good shape and in a good neighborhood. I was reading that he's asking a high price, and that's there's another 4 bedroom apt in the same building going for $2,875,000.

https://www.realtor.com/news/celebrity-real-estate/rudy-giuliani-selling-nyc-apartment/

He's probably hoping that someone with the Trump mafia will buy it from him at double the price. Kickback of sorts..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because most people who are rich that work don't do what you do. There's no brutal commute. There's no waking up and dragging out of bed on a cold morning. There is a lazy wake up to get to working whenever they want or managing folks who do all of the hard work. I say this as someone who probably doesn't need to work but puts in a solid 30 hours a week for a very large sum of money, no commute, and not a huge amount of stress.

This. I don’t like to admit it but my job becomes easier and more flexible with experience and each promotion. This is not true for all professions — DH is an entrepreneur and his life is consistently crazy but he has a stoic mind and doesn’t get stressed easily / truly loves it. He never wants to retire. We both have a lot of flexibility (e.g. working from the south of France for a month over the summer with our families) even while working and mostly enjoy / find purpose in what we do. We also live in a VHCOL and a few million isn’t enough to live the life we want with our children, it would be more stressful than working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have found myself wondering about this lately when you meet 80 and 90-year-old politicians who refuse to retire, and 80 and 90-year-old college professors. I think for those people it's not about money but may be because they have no identity other than their professional identity and they are really dependent on external validation. They can't imagine a life in which people aren't bowing and scraping and sucking up to them.

Sure that may be part of it. But for college professors, it could very well be that they need the income. It takes a long time to acquire the education and possibly postdoctoral training to get into an academic gig. At the majority of colleges and universities, professors are not paid that well (but the tradeoff is that you have job security and less age'ism). People on this board tend to think about T25 universities, but that's not the majority of professors.

A lot of ppl you think work because they love it actually work because they need the money. They won't tell you that. Some have harmful expensive habits or high expenses and tastes that are impossible on fixed income. You see what you see and don't know what you don't know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because most people who are rich that work don't do what you do. There's no brutal commute. There's no waking up and dragging out of bed on a cold morning. There is a lazy wake up to get to working whenever they want or managing folks who do all of the hard work. I say this as someone who probably doesn't need to work but puts in a solid 30 hours a week for a very large sum of money, no commute, and not a huge amount of stress.

This. I don’t like to admit it but my job becomes easier and more flexible with experience and each promotion. This is not true for all professions — DH is an entrepreneur and his life is consistently crazy but he has a stoic mind and doesn’t get stressed easily / truly loves it. He never wants to retire. We both have a lot of flexibility (e.g. working from the south of France for a month over the summer with our families) even while working and mostly enjoy / find purpose in what we do. We also live in a VHCOL and a few million isn’t enough to live the life we want with our children, it would be more stressful than working.

I had been working remotely for many years, it still sucks and I would rather do something else with my time when in South of France than being accountable to someone for my work and living up to someone else's deadlines. I am self employed, but you never work for "yourself" when your business involves clients. You have to cater to them, their whims, their timelines. When they pay you they still own your time. If you have a product based business and employees to do you bidding, then maybe you can sit back, and even then people are still eager to sell their companies and cash out. When they have the opportunity to get a lump sum for their business they sell instead of "enjoying running it".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me it’s not even my work that I dislike, it’s everything else about it - the waking up early getting out of your warm bed on a cold dark winter morning, crappy long commute, have to answer to other people, being compelled to to go work even when you’re not feeling it that day, 5 days week, not having enough time for hobbies, exercise, home cooking, travel, spending time with your family - at least not without feeling like your life is hectic. WFH was supposed to fix some of this but now it’s going away in most places. Also NEEDING to live in a HCOL area with terrible traffic and everyone around you is an obsessive overachiever sucks too.

I ONLY work for money at this point, as soon as I have a few mil I’m gone. I don’t get people with 7+ million dollars who still choose to grind away their young healthy years in the rat race in, to be honest, a crappy city like DC (or any other HCOL area for that matter).

Once you have 7 million, you would want 14.

This

True. Your lifestyle catches up. But there is also inflation factor. 5 mil is what 1 mil used to be just 3 decades ago. I think our buying power is 1/5th of what it used to be when I was starting out, at least this is how it feels. All the "appreciation" is fluff built by inflation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some do it for fulfillment, some out of greed, some out of fear.

Question their worth without the title/income?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one takes the time to study investing, so they have to slave away for decades. Most people don't know there are stocks yielding 10%+ dividends with minimal risk. If you can get a 7% overall withdrawal rate for the rest of your life, which is very doable, you check out at $2M - no one needs more than $140K income in retirement.

But since people are told to buy bonds and other nonsense, they can only safely withdraw 2.5% or 3% of their portfolio and so must slave away until they're 65.

This is half true and half nonsense.

Yes you should have a very equity heavy portfolio your whole life. Yes a safe withdrawal rate above 2.5% can be done.

No there is not minimal risk for any equity investment. Hopefully you build a portfolio that counters this.

In terms of no one needs more than 140k a year. What are you talking about. I spend 25-35 a month. Income is seven figures. I save a lot also. But I want 35k a month in retirement spend. For that you need a lot more than 2 million. Everyone is different.

PP is right that you don't need it, you want it.

It’s just so hard to predict what your costs will be in 40 years. I’m sure my parents didn’t predict that they would have medication that costs 10/day. And most people didn’t anticipate how much the cost of decent assisted living is. I’m just not confident what our country/world will look like in 30-50 years. Things like food might be much more expensive with climate change impacts.

These things are out of your control, in the meanwhile you are risking not enjoying freedom and retirement while your body is still working and you are alive. Do you even compare the risk of cataclysmic events like huge increases in COL and climate change vs. a very real risk we might drop dead before retirement if we wait too long or get an illness vastly reducing our QOL? While you work to prepare for apocalypse you are multiplying the risk of not being able to enjoy your retirement at all. This is an important deciding factor for me. Should I enjoy more modest lifestyle while still reasonably fit and healthy or should I compromise my health by working long hours, not spending quality time with family, and experiencing chronic stress for many years to come in anticipation I will live till 90s (which is never guaranteed). I don't want to start living at 65

Yup I know folks who died in their late 50’s/early 60’s within a year or two of retiring and collecting pensions. It’s very tragic. What’s the point of saving to enjoy retirement when you’re old? And it blows my mind how people can think a 9-5 job is more fun than the myriad of hobbies available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me it’s not even my work that I dislike, it’s everything else about it - the waking up early getting out of your warm bed on a cold dark winter morning, crappy long commute, have to answer to other people, being compelled to to go work even when you’re not feeling it that day, 5 days week, not having enough time for hobbies, exercise, home cooking, travel, spending time with your family - at least not without feeling like your life is hectic. WFH was supposed to fix some of this but now it’s going away in most places. Also NEEDING to live in a HCOL area with terrible traffic and everyone around you is an obsessive overachiever sucks too.

I ONLY work for money at this point, as soon as I have a few mil I’m gone. I don’t get people with 7+ million dollars who still choose to grind away their young healthy years in the rat race in, to be honest, a crappy city like DC (or any other HCOL area for that matter).

Once you have 7 million, you would want 14.

This

True. Your lifestyle catches up. But there is also inflation factor. 5 mil is what 1 mil used to be just 3 decades ago. I think our buying power is 1/5th of what it used to be when I was starting out, at least this is how it feels. All the "appreciation" is fluff built by inflation.

1,000,000 in 1993 is 2.14 million now so not quite

[Anonymous]

Anything under $10M is poor, to some of us

[Anonymous]

Billionaires work, so why would people with millions not? The difference is being able to work at what you want to be doing vs. what you need to do to survive.