People with the top 1% of net worth in the U.S. in 2025 will have $11.6 million in net worth
The top 2% will have a net worth of $2.7 million
The top 5% will have $1.17 million
The top 10% will have $970,900
The top 50% will have $585,000

Kiplinger.com

Jinx pp!

Anonymous wrote:I really don’t know but assume most people i know have more than $3m by 55 even without including their house. I have more than that just in my 401k.

I make 7 figures but don’t flash it around and am pretty frugal. I’ve lived in the same house for more than 25 years and paid it off several years ago. That’s why I have more than $10m saved.

Did you have access to a very aggressive growth fund for your 401K? I have wondered how people get that high.

If you have 5-10M net worth and are in your 50’s. Can you describe how you got there? Just curious. And only if it’s self made. No parent money to start you off.

That is us. One of us started off with debt from undergrad and grad school (about $120k), so we prioritized paying that off quickly while also buying our first house ($350k) and having kids. We maxed out each of our 401ks as soon as we started working. Loans were paid off within 10 years. We both worked for 12-14 years, then DW stayed home with kids. DH's career started to really take off at about the same time. We saved aggressively for college because we wanted to be sure it was funded if HHI changed; once those accounts were in good shape, we started investing in taxable accounts. In hindsight, it would have made more financial sense to save less aggressively for college in those years and save more for retirement, but it all worked out because HHI took a big jump in our mid 40s so we caught up with retirement savings. This is the biggest key, really - high HHI makes the rest of it much easier.

Kids were in public school until high school and all went to private colleges. We moved from our "starter" home to a bigger home after five years and have stayed in that house even after HHI increased. We did buy a vacation home just before covid and were lucky that it has doubled in value. We keep our cars until they start needing regular repairs (8-9 years usually). We are at the point where we could definitely save more now, but try to strike a balance with continuing to put away money and enjoy that we have enough to do the things we want to do while we are both healthy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I assume a lot of that wealth is concentrated in major cities, including DC.
We have about 20M, depending on market fluctuations, but never earned more than 150K a year in household income. If we could do it, I assume many others can.

Please explain to me how this is possible. With 150k HHI, after taxes and living expenses for a couple without kids (and most people have kids), how are you investing more than 40k (at the high end) a year? With kids and associated expenses, in including college, saving 40k a year would be almost impossible on your salary. If you are mid 50s and have done than for even 30 years, how does that turn into $20m? The math does not seem to work.

My husband bought Apple stock when he was a young adult, before we met. It took a looong time to take off, but now constitutes the bulk of our portfolio. I bought Amazon, Netflix, Alphabet, Tesla (before Elon went off the deep end), Nvidia. They've done very well too. We were poor and could only invest very little, otherwise we'd have much more than 20M now, PP! You don't seem to grasp Apple's valuation over the years.

Pure luck. 🍀 some (maybe not you) think this makes them brilliant, rather than lucky. It’s like people who picked VHS when Betamax was the superior product. 🤷‍♀️

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I assume a lot of that wealth is concentrated in major cities, including DC.
We have about 20M, depending on market fluctuations, but never earned more than 150K a year in household income. If we could do it, I assume many others can.

Please explain to me how this is possible. With 150k HHI, after taxes and living expenses for a couple without kids (and most people have kids), how are you investing more than 40k (at the high end) a year? With kids and associated expenses, in including college, saving 40k a year would be almost impossible on your salary. If you are mid 50s and have done than for even 30 years, how does that turn into $20m? The math does not seem to work.

My husband bought Apple stock when he was a young adult, before we met. It took a looong time to take off, but now constitutes the bulk of our portfolio. I bought Amazon, Netflix, Alphabet, Tesla (before Elon went off the deep end), Nvidia. They've done very well too. We were poor and could only invest very little, otherwise we'd have much more than 20M now, PP! You don't seem to grasp Apple's valuation over the years.

DP. While that’s all well and good, your first post said “if we can do it, anyone can.” Sounds like your DH got very lucky with Apple. It could have easily gone the other way.

I really don’t know but assume most people i know have more than $3m by 55 even without including their house. I have more than that just in my 401k.

I make 7 figures but don’t flash it around and am pretty frugal. I’ve lived in the same house for more than 25 years and paid it off several years ago. That’s why I have more than $10m saved.

Anonymous wrote:

I assume a lot of that wealth is concentrated in major cities, including DC.
We have about 20M, depending on market fluctuations, but never earned more than 150K a year in household income. If we could do it, I assume many others can.

Please explain to me how this is possible. With 150k HHI, after taxes and living expenses for a couple without kids (and most people have kids), how are you investing more than 40k (at the high end) a year? With kids and associated expenses, in including college, saving 40k a year would be almost impossible on your salary. If you are mid 50s and have done than for even 30 years, how does that turn into $20m? The math does not seem to work.

My husband bought Apple stock when he was a young adult, before we met. It took a looong time to take off, but now constitutes the bulk of our portfolio. I bought Amazon, Netflix, Alphabet, Tesla (before Elon went off the deep end), Nvidia. They've done very well too. We were poor and could only invest very little, otherwise we'd have much more than 20M now, PP! You don't seem to grasp Apple's valuation over the years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know for sure, but many have $$$ and take multiple vacations per year, but cry poor and don’t have enough to retire. Makes me wonder if they are truly living hand to mouth but give the illusion of having a lot of money with the lifestyle they are living.

In DCUMlandia it seems everyone has HHI of $400k* though the statistics for the area beyond DCUM show that’s higher than most households here.

So what is going on? Are they claiming “poor” or middle class just to fit in? Or are they overspending significantly.

FWIW only 1% of American households have a NW of $3M by the time they are 55.

I thought the top 1% had a much higher NW. I have 3mm and i thought i was top 9%

You would be wrong.

No, PP is correct. Top 1% in 2024 starts at 11.6 million. -Kiplinger

Anonymous wrote:If you have 5-10M net worth and are in your 50’s. Can you describe how you got there? Just curious. And only if it’s self made. No parent money to start you off.

I'm in my 40s and my parents paid for my undergrad (if you consider that parent money that started me off). I worked in tech in my 20s and have 2 terminal degrees (paid by me). I bought real estate in my 20s, 30s, and 40s. Now I work in the arts.

We are late 40s with a 3M+ net worth. We don’t claim poor or middle class, but we also couldn’t retire and maintain our current standard of living. But I feel quite certain we will be able to by 55. I think it’s very dependent on lifestyle. If we spent less, we could retire right now.

I assume a lot of that wealth is concentrated in major cities, including DC.
We have about 20M, depending on market fluctuations, but never earned more than 150K a year in household income. If we could do it, I assume many others can.

Please explain to me how this is possible. With 150k HHI, after taxes and living expenses for a couple without kids (and most people have kids), how are you investing more than 40k (at the high end) a year? With kids and associated expenses, in including college, saving 40k a year would be almost impossible on your salary. If you are mid 50s and have done than for even 30 years, how does that turn into $20m? The math does not seem to work.

Anonymous wrote:That’s not much at all. I can’t think of a single friend or neighbor that is this poor in their 50’s.

Okay, but what about the person that checked you out at Target, the kids' bus driver, the receptionist at your doctor, the daycare workers, and on and on? Those are real people too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know for sure, but many have $$$ and take multiple vacations per year, but cry poor and don’t have enough to retire. Makes me wonder if they are truly living hand to mouth but give the illusion of having a lot of money with the lifestyle they are living.

In DCUMlandia it seems everyone has HHI of $400k* though the statistics for the area beyond DCUM show that’s higher than most households here.

So what is going on? Are they claiming “poor” or middle class just to fit in? Or are they overspending significantly.

FWIW only 1% of American households have a NW of $3M by the time they are 55.

I thought the top 1% had a much higher NW. I have 3mm and i thought i was top 9%

You would be wrong.

Hmmmm Kiplinger says:
People with the top 1% of net worth in the U.S. in 2025 will have $11.6 million in net worth

According to data from the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances, only a very small percentage of Americans, likely less than 1%, have a net worth of $3 million or more today.

Link?

Anonymous wrote:That’s not much at all. I can’t think of a single friend or neighbor that is this poor in their 50’s.

Yeah I mean in Bethesda 😩