Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it true that only 280,000 people in the US have a net worth over $20 million? That seems low. Is that an old figure from before the stock market went bananas?

Probably. Most of my friends are millionaires but I don't know a single person who has over $20 million. Anecdotal but from a data set of 100+ families.

Anonymous wrote:Is it true that only 280,000 people in the US have a net worth over $20 million? That seems low. Is that an old figure from before the stock market went bananas?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A 3% withdrawal rate is meant to preserve your nest egg, not draw it down. Using a 4-5% withdrawal rate runs a real risk of running out of money in old age, or not having anything to pass down to your children. I know people advocate that you should “Die with zero” but that is middle class behavior. The fact that you can reasonably spend 20M in retirement on living expenses and healthcare means that it is still just upper middle class. If you are wealthy then you will be able to set up a trust for your kids/grandkids/nephews/nieces, and make generous donations to your community and alma mater.

Upper middle class is still middle class, and 20 mil absolutely allows you to leave trust funds for 2-3 kids that would be life changing. How is it not "wealthy"? How much money do you really need in retirement when you are elderly? You can live very well with many luxuries, travel, unlimited dining out, etc, and hire a home caretaker with 1 mil passive income you can generate using conservative 5% rate of return off of 20 mi. How is this not wealthy when you are getting income of 1% of population without even touching you principal? What are you planning to spend your additional 3% drawdown on?

I am genuinely curious what expenses would ever amount to completely spending 1.5 mil a year taxed at capital gains tax rate at most? Can you please list what this lifestyle involves?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A 3% withdrawal rate is meant to preserve your nest egg, not draw it down. Using a 4-5% withdrawal rate runs a real risk of running out of money in old age, or not having anything to pass down to your children. I know people advocate that you should “Die with zero” but that is middle class behavior. The fact that you can reasonably spend 20M in retirement on living expenses and healthcare means that it is still just upper middle class. If you are wealthy then you will be able to set up a trust for your kids/grandkids/nephews/nieces, and make generous donations to your community and alma mater.

Upper middle class is still middle class, and 20 mil absolutely allows you to leave trust funds for 2-3 kids that would be life changing. How is it not "wealthy"? How much money do you really need in retirement when you are elderly? You can live very well with many luxuries, travel, unlimited dining out, etc, and hire a home caretaker with 1 mil passive income you can generate using conservative 5% rate of return off of 20 mi. How is this not wealthy when you are getting income of 1% of population without even touching you principal? What are you planning to spend your additional 3% drawdown on?

I am genuinely curious what expenses would ever amount to completely spending 1.5 mil a year taxed at capital gains tax rate at most? Can you please list what this lifestyle involves?

To guarantee that 5% rate of return, much would be in cash/MM/CD/Bonds/Cash alternatives and would be taxed at top tax bracket, so close to 50% in many states. But yes you can live quite nicely on $500-650K/year, especially if you own your home outright as well

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A 3% withdrawal rate is meant to preserve your nest egg, not draw it down. Using a 4-5% withdrawal rate runs a real risk of running out of money in old age, or not having anything to pass down to your children. I know people advocate that you should “Die with zero” but that is middle class behavior. The fact that you can reasonably spend 20M in retirement on living expenses and healthcare means that it is still just upper middle class. If you are wealthy then you will be able to set up a trust for your kids/grandkids/nephews/nieces, and make generous donations to your community and alma mater.

Again…you aren’t getting it. When they talk about the withdrawal rate they are talking literally about drawing down on your principal.

If you are earning 4%-5% and living off that, your withdrawal rate is 0.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A 3% withdrawal rate is meant to preserve your nest egg, not draw it down. Using a 4-5% withdrawal rate runs a real risk of running out of money in old age, or not having anything to pass down to your children. I know people advocate that you should “Die with zero” but that is middle class behavior. The fact that you can reasonably spend 20M in retirement on living expenses and healthcare means that it is still just upper middle class. If you are wealthy then you will be able to set up a trust for your kids/grandkids/nephews/nieces, and make generous donations to your community and alma mater.

Upper middle class is still middle class, and 20 mil absolutely allows you to leave trust funds for 2-3 kids that would be life changing. How is it not "wealthy"? How much money do you really need in retirement when you are elderly? You can live very well with many luxuries, travel, unlimited dining out, etc, and hire a home caretaker with 1 mil passive income you can generate using conservative 5% rate of return off of 20 mi. How is this not wealthy when you are getting income of 1% of population without even touching you principal? What are you planning to spend your additional 3% drawdown on?

I am genuinely curious what expenses would ever amount to completely spending 1.5 mil a year taxed at capital gains tax rate at most? Can you please list what this lifestyle involves?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m clueless as to any of our friends net worth other than knowing they live well but not over the top. Our net worth is well north of the $20 million and while we have two nice homes our spending is far from indulgent. I drive a Subaru SUV. We are retired and we saved and invested well over many years and that was the key. Our focus now is on estate planning for our kids, grandkids and charity. I think there are a lot of people out there like us.

You should have started estate planning years ago.

Anonymous wrote:A 3% withdrawal rate is meant to preserve your nest egg, not draw it down. Using a 4-5% withdrawal rate runs a real risk of running out of money in old age, or not having anything to pass down to your children. I know people advocate that you should “Die with zero” but that is middle class behavior. The fact that you can reasonably spend 20M in retirement on living expenses and healthcare means that it is still just upper middle class. If you are wealthy then you will be able to set up a trust for your kids/grandkids/nephews/nieces, and make generous donations to your community and alma mater.

Anonymous wrote:I’m clueless as to any of our friends net worth other than knowing they live well but not over the top. Our net worth is well north of the $20 million and while we have two nice homes our spending is far from indulgent. I drive a Subaru SUV. We are retired and we saved and invested well over many years and that was the key. Our focus now is on estate planning for our kids, grandkids and charity. I think there are a lot of people out there like us.

Anonymous wrote:https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/wealth-reporthow-many-americans-have-net-worth-1million-jack-kelly-ikl0e/

Anonymous wrote:A 3% withdrawal rate is meant to preserve your nest egg, not draw it down. Using a 4-5% withdrawal rate runs a real risk of running out of money in old age, or not having anything to pass down to your children. I know people advocate that you should “Die with zero” but that is middle class behavior. The fact that you can reasonably spend 20M in retirement on living expenses and healthcare means that it is still just upper middle class. If you are wealthy then you will be able to set up a trust for your kids/grandkids/nephews/nieces, and make generous donations to your community and alma mater.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You are f-ing ridiculous There is NOTHING saying Middle anything in 20mil NW. Even if you adjust this number OP suspects to be too low way up it's still going to be less than 2% of the entire population of adults in the USA. Likely somewhere around 1% and that would be generous too if you do not count primary and secondary residence worth into this number and it's truly only "investable" liquid capital. How is this "middle" anything?

You are just moving goalposts to what UMC is what what is needed for comfortable retirement. Used to be 10 mil and now 20?

+1 it is really a disturbing attitude. If you don’t feel rich with 20M—a whole lot more money than 99% of people in the world—you have a serious problem. You are broken inside and it will never, ever be enough.

Either broken inside, or trolling and "aspiring", or looking up to the billionaires and generally having a warped understanding of what wealthy lifestyle is and what "middle" class anything actually means. The whole LTC and "comfortable" retirement conversations are utterly stupid and also demoralizing for anyone willing to take this seriously. You do not need in-home care with a 24/7 professional nurse always available, state of the art equipment in your home, etc to be comfortable and well taken care of.. You aren't going to be living forever no matter how much you spend.

Just had a relative live to 90 and the last 10 in memory care. Many on one side of the family live to 95-100+ (all of my great aunts/uncles/grandparents on that side) and that was 20 years ago. So I'm planning to live well into my 90s. I'd prefer to be happy and comfortable. Not in a medicaid faciltiy