Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - would be interested in more lifestyle details at this level. I love that everyone probably has $15 M but livesin a 2- bedroom condowith their 4 kids, but there must be something that you spend money on? Asian travel, Hermes, family help, golf, going to see Taylor Swift in Portugal? Or really you’re just taking 3 days at Rehoboth off-season, share a car and watch Netflix?

I think DCUM tells itself that everyone "flies under the radar" but I think that's confirmation bias and some level of projecting.

We're in the $10-20M range and day to day, our lives look like those of my girlfriend who is a dermatologist married to an in house lawyer: SFH in the city, private schools, 2 luxury cars, 3-4 vacations per year. Clothes are still Frame, Ulla Johnson, Farm Rio, and Agua Bendita. We both own a small collection of designer bags and jewelry.

The HNW really shows up in single-family homes. Hers might be $1.5M and mine is closer to $4M and has been professionally decorated. We help family a lot, either financially or in kind with nice vacations. Her kids school cost $25K per year, ours cost $45K and we donate heavily.

But even being HNW, I'm not wearing, for example, Chanel couture, purchasing jewelry at Graff, or flying private. As another poster said, that's for people >$100M I would think.

You are all confusing assets with income. It's uncommon, but possible, for certain people to have a lower income (think true middle class) plus investments, like the Apple millionaires cited above. It's more common to have a high income and a range of assets (from nothing if you're a spendthrift to a lot!). When you look at it that way, it makes sense for the "lower-income" families to continue living a middle class lifestyle, with occasional splurges when they sell stocks or whatnot; and for higher-earning families, like the PP above me, to live a more luxurious daily lifestyle.

This conversation comes up again and again on DCUM, and every time, many people forget about that first group.

Anonymous wrote:People on dcum always talk about the same “luxury” spending like all anyone can ever think of to spend on is airplane tickets, cars and houses.

Most rich people I know who have an off base spending category, it’s for a passion. A sailboat. A weekend house they love tinkering on. They built a pottery studio in the backyard. They have a business that’s not profitable and they keep pouring money in. A nonprofit that’s…not profitable. A weird collection. Stuff like that.

Or horses. Don’t forget the horses.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey op, you surprised to see the predictable bs replies ?

The only BS replies are ones like yours. Others are actually replying to the OP's question. 20M here, OP. No inheritance or high income. A lifetime of investment, that's all.

These are what shock me the most.

I can buy that certain careers lead to $20M by say, 50 ($5-10M HHI a year = hedge fund, private equity).

I get that certain careers lead to $8-10M by 50 ($2-3M HHI = very successful in BigLaw, consulting, executives at large companies, maybe FAANG SWE).

But what surprises me is when people are not high income, didn't have an inheritance and get to $20M. Even someone making $2-3M (like the big law lawyer) is still going to struggle to get to that $20M figure. What exactly are you investing in?!

Apple for us. We invested very little a long time ago, because we ddidn't have much, and that's why we're *only* at 20M. Perhaps you aren't very well versed in which companies have done extremely well for our generation, but if someone tells you they made their current wealth over decades of modest stock market investment, it's likely Apple. It's the only company that fits the bill. If someone tells you they made a fortune recently in the stock market, it's likely crypto. And so on and so forth...

Thanks. Condescending attitude aside, did you diversify at all? The reason this surprised me is that it's been beaten in my head (I'm an older millennial) that you don't overinvest in one stock. So was this a situation where you bet it all on black? Or Apple was 10% of your portfolio, for example, and it grew?

Anonymous wrote:OP here - would be interested in more lifestyle details at this level. I love that everyone probably has $15 M but livesin a 2- bedroom condowith their 4 kids, but there must be something that you spend money on? Asian travel, Hermes, family help, golf, going to see Taylor Swift in Portugal? Or really you’re just taking 3 days at Rehoboth off-season, share a car and watch Netflix?

I think DCUM tells itself that everyone "flies under the radar" but I think that's confirmation bias and some level of projecting.

We're in the $10-20M range and day to day, our lives look like those of my girlfriend who is a dermatologist married to an in house lawyer: SFH in the city, private schools, 2 luxury cars, 3-4 vacations per year. Clothes are still Frame, Ulla Johnson, Farm Rio, and Agua Bendita. We both own a small collection of designer bags and jewelry.

The HNW really shows up in single-family homes. Hers might be $1.5M and mine is closer to $4M and has been professionally decorated. We help family a lot, either financially or in kind with nice vacations. Her kids school cost $25K per year, ours cost $45K and we donate heavily.

But even being HNW, I'm not wearing, for example, Chanel couture, purchasing jewelry at Graff, or flying private. As another poster said, that's for people >$100M I would think.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey op, you surprised to see the predictable bs replies ?

The only BS replies are ones like yours. Others are actually replying to the OP's question. 20M here, OP. No inheritance or high income. A lifetime of investment, that's all.

These are what shock me the most.

I can buy that certain careers lead to $20M by say, 50 ($5-10M HHI a year = hedge fund, private equity).

I get that certain careers lead to $8-10M by 50 ($2-3M HHI = very successful in BigLaw, consulting, executives at large companies, maybe FAANG SWE).

But what surprises me is when people are not high income, didn't have an inheritance and get to $20M. Even someone making $2-3M (like the big law lawyer) is still going to struggle to get to that $20M figure. What exactly are you investing in?!

Apple for us. We invested very little a long time ago, because we didn't have much, and that's why we're *only* at 20M. Perhaps you aren't very well versed in which companies have done extremely well for our generation, but if someone tells you they made their current wealth over decades of modest stock market investment, it's likely Apple. It's the only company that fits the bill. If someone tells you they made a fortune recently in the stock market, it's likely crypto. And so on and so forth...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey op, you surprised to see the predictable bs replies ?

The only BS replies are ones like yours. Others are actually replying to the OP's question. 20M here, OP. No inheritance or high income. A lifetime of investment, that's all.

These are what shock me the most.

I can buy that certain careers lead to $20M by say, 50 ($5-10M HHI a year = hedge fund, private equity).

I get that certain careers lead to $8-10M by 50 ($2-3M HHI = very successful in BigLaw, consulting, executives at large companies, maybe FAANG SWE).

But what surprises me is when people are not high income, didn't have an inheritance and get to $20M. Even someone making $2-3M (like the big law lawyer) is still going to struggle to get to that $20M figure. What exactly are you investing in?!

Anonymous wrote:OP here - would be interested in more lifestyle details at this level. I love that everyone probably has $15 M but livesin a 2- bedroom condowith their 4 kids, but there must be something that you spend money on? Asian travel, Hermes, family help, golf, going to see Taylor Swift in Portugal? Or really you’re just taking 3 days at Rehoboth off-season, share a car and watch Netflix?

Our NW is around 50 M. We live in a nice house in an area with nice houses and ours is at the high end for the neighborhood, but definitely not high end for this area. When my Ford was on its last legs, I bought a luxury car (in cash). We splurge a little on travel, so probably 15K-25K for a family of 3, although we only fly business on long international trips. As for what we do spend money on, it's mostly convenience stuff. House cleaning, landscaping, pool maintenance, etc. are outsourced. We don't really look at expenses when we eat out, and it's not a splurge, something we do whenever we need to.

We're pretty simple people, and our passion projects are not expensive ones. I'm big into native plants, and that's what I buy. I love to bird watch, so I spend money on making the yard attractive to birds. I enjoy playing in the dirt, and it's my happy place. DH is big into technology, and that's what he spends money on. He enjoys building things though, so again, it's more DIY stuff. This is also probably why our NW is as high as it is (it's all earned; no inheritance). We don't really spend anywhere close to our means, and our money just keeps making more money.

Do very many high income people put a lot of money in Municipal Bond funds?

Anonymous wrote:OP here - would be interested in more lifestyle details at this level. I love that everyone probably has $15 M but livesin a 2- bedroom condowith their 4 kids, but there must be something that you spend money on? Asian travel, Hermes, family help, golf, going to see Taylor Swift in Portugal? Or really you’re just taking 3 days at Rehoboth off-season, share a car and watch Netflix?

I'm one of the PPs in that range. We do actually live frugally on a daily basis, because our annual income is not high. We use the dividends for our expenses and we want to preserve the capital to pass down to our kids. We live in a small house in an expensive neighborhood with great public schools, and we clean it ourselves and do our own yardwork; we pay for all sorts of extra-curriculars for our children, including horse back riding; we spent a fortune on a collectible musical instrument that sounds divine (why would our kid slum it on a normal one that sounds worse, if he's going to be practicing every day, for years, and within earshot of the rest of us?), and our kids can pick any university they want. But we do watch what we spend in general and importantly, we are not the sort of people who wish to keep up with anyone else. We don't care about cars, for instance: our cars are old and beat-up. My husband doesn't care about clothes. He goes sailing looking like a homeless guy. We still fly economy plus because planes are inherently uncomfortable anyway and first class isn't going to make me sleep any better on the red-eye to Europe. We have relatives in Asia but don't see them very often, because every time we do, it's 30K.

We all have our proclivities, OP. The main thing is to not "waste" money trying to impress others. And yes, I love Netflix.

Hopeful $15M poster here (the one in the Rockville townhome). We take fun family vacations (Hawaii recently, $8100), go to concerts and shows with good seats, don’t fuss about things like HVAC and roof replacements, buy whatever groceries we want, and host family dinners to bring people together. Kid went to a full price private college and we will likely pay for her graduate degree in full. We would like to help with grandchild college and maybe Montessori preschool. We intend to gift cash annually to pass our wealth on before we die. We are not interested in eating out, a big house, expensive hotels, or other traditionally rich people things.

OP here - would be interested in more lifestyle details at this level. I love that everyone probably has $15 M but livesin a 2- bedroom condowith their 4 kids, but there must be something that you spend money on? Asian travel, Hermes, family help, golf, going to see Taylor Swift in Portugal? Or really you’re just taking 3 days at Rehoboth off-season, share a car and watch Netflix?

People on dcum always talk about the same “luxury” spending like all anyone can ever think of to spend on is airplane tickets, cars and houses.

Most rich people I know who have an off base spending category, it’s for a passion. A sailboat. A weekend house they love tinkering on. They built a pottery studio in the backyard. They have a business that’s not profitable and they keep pouring money in. A nonprofit that’s…not profitable. A weird collection. Stuff like that.

Anonymous wrote:Hey op, you surprised to see the predictable bs replies ?

The only BS replies are ones like yours. Others are actually replying to the OP's question. 20M here, OP. No inheritance or high income. A lifetime of investment, that's all.

I am early 60s and at $16m. No inheritance yet, but have been saving for a long time. Compounding works. We also lived well below our means for a long time.

Definitely not flashy. We fly business internationally only with upgrades. I fly a lot for work so have status that makes that easier.

More recently have been comfortable spending more but still pretty mundane by luxury standards.

Hey op, you surprised to see the predictable bs replies ?