Anonymous wrote: Especially since net worth, not HHI, would make one "rich."

Well, we are in our 30s making about $370K. We haven't received a dollar of financial assistance from our family and therefore had no chance to accumulate $10M yet. But nevertheless I consider us rich.

We have about 1M in assets not including the house, but I don't consider us "rich." As a pp mentioned, I think rich is living and not worrying about money - we have a budget, I meal plan, we don't' eat out much, haven't gone on vacation in 3 years.

Living in DC is expensive, and god knows college will be. We live comfortably but I feel a long way off from care-free living, which to me is what "rich" is.

Anonymous wrote:The biggest issue is housing cost. If you bought before 2002 you should be fine living in mid 150s, if you bought later you will need double that for the same home.

This is a fair point, by 2002 we were on our third house, having traded up several times along the way. When we moved to DC a couple of years ago this meant we had enough equity to purchase a nice home but only take on a $400k mortgage. Without this benefit no way could we have afforded to live in a good neighborhood close to DC. We'd have been living in Northern MoCo or the outer reaches of Fairfax or PWC. Our HHI is relatively modest for this area -- $125k -- but we get along fine as long as we are somewhat careful. I cannot imagine how we'd manage if we had to pay a huge mortgage like some younger families do. We also have no student loan debt (although we do have kids starting college, so I guess that all evens out).

HHI of 300K+ and I do not feel rich at all. I do recognize we are blessed and have it great but if we did not work hard we would have to really scale back on everything. We live well but only as we work. To be rich is to have enough money not to worry about working and paying bills. We worry. A lot.

I think we can agree the answer is around $10 million. Now we will have series of posters all saying you're rich if you are two GS 15s pulling in nearly 300/ yr. but whether you consider yourself rich or comfortable was not the call of the question.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The irs considers over 450k hhi rich. In our area under that is upper middle but it also depends on assets

I've never seen the IRS code reference or define "rich".

Yes I'd like to see this cited. Especially since net worth, not HHI, would make one "rich."

Anonymous wrote:$1.2M or so. Don't consider myself rich. Multiply that by 10 - where arguably a $300K+ a year income is achievable on the interest alone and I'd consider myself rich. (To me being rich means not having to work for a living)

I see people say this sometimes and it kind of boggles my mind-- the idea that if you can't live off your investments the rest of your life you are not rich.

We have a HHI of about 250k and I would say we are rich. We never have to worry about paying the credit card bill, or not being able to afford something we need, or even something we want (as long as we don't go crazy, like a six figure car).

Anonymous wrote:what if you make 300k hhi and have no assets , are you rich

Certainly not. If you lose your job you lose your house? Doesnt sound rich at all.

Anonymous wrote:The irs considers over 450k hhi rich. In our area under that is upper middle but it also depends on assets

I've never seen the IRS code reference or define "rich".

The biggest issue is housing cost. If you bought before 2002 you should be fine living in mid 150s, if you bought later you will need double that for the same home.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$1.2M or so. Don't consider myself rich. Multiply that by 10 - where arguably a $300K+ a year income is achievable on the interest alone and I'd consider myself rich. (To me being rich means not having to work for a living)

+1 on living off of interest/investments would make me feel rich too - and about the same amount as the pp as to the ideal goal number

+2. This is about our net worth and I still worry about having enough money.

I wouldn't include any real estate into definition.

what if you make 300k hhi and have no assets , are you rich

The irs considers over 450k hhi rich. In our area under that is upper middle but it also depends on assets

Anonymous wrote:How much do you think living DC area that one considers him/her self rich? $2M? $4M? $10M?

Since you are asking in terms of money, I will answer in terms of money. I think of our family as rich. We have ~$1.7M in assets (mainly house and retirement savings). We have a good portion of the kids college saved. Our HHI is $150-$180k on one income. Our children are in HS.

$10m, because then my investments would annually earn more money than I would spend normally spend in a year while living what I would consider living a first class lifestyle.