What do you consider to be rich?

[Edbert]

Accumulated...anything over $5M liquid or $10M hard.

Annual income...anything over $250K (after taxes)

I'd say middle class is post tax incomes between $50K and $150K, which leaves the $151K-250K as upper-middle.

[eagl]

I think the definition of "rich" depends on the person.  For me, it means having "enough".

Personally, for me to have "enough" to do everything I've ever hoped to do, it would take about $100 mil in liquid assets right now.  That would cover:

My dream beach house.
My airplane.
My ticket to the ISS on soyuz.
Enough money to sustain a moderate (not wasteful) lifestyle in that house without working.  That means enough to cover all property taxes until I die, enough to follow my hobbies (flying, scuba diving, travel), etc.

I think $100 mil would cover all that.

Since I don't have $100 mil, I'll just have to keep working and of course I can be happy with a life that falls short of these things I've dreamed of doing.

[Brenjen]

I hear that eagl, my basic point in posting this was just to get people to think about how little money a million dollars really is, & how someone could have quite a comfortable existence & still not be "rich". All the time I hear people sling the phrase "if I had a million dollars..." & I want to ask them; "what would you do?" "really, what would you do if you had a million dollars?"

 Most people would stammer a bit, scratch their head, poke a whole in the air with their finger & proudly exclaim "I'd retire!"

 Not likely unless you're already set with a home & property, vehicles under warranty & good insurance so that all you had to do was keep up with taxes & pay basic bills with the interest.

 Would the average guy invest in stocks? Well, some would, but for the average schmo that would be like playing a slot machine, better chance of going broke than making more money because of the lack of understanding financial dealings of that sort.

 My grandfather told my dad a long time ago before he left the family; "if you divided up all the money on earth equally between all the people, within a years time, those people that are broke now will be broke again & all the people who have money now will still have it with very few exceptions."

 I think he was right....a butt-hole, but right.

[Edbert]

Originally posted by Brenjen
I think he was right....a butt-hole, but right.

The two terms are often mutually inclusive, most folks don't like hearing the raw truth and will label the speaker a butthole, ask lazs.

[Brenjen]

 True. But he was a butt-hole for different reasons than being a truthful scrooge for the record; he only told the truth to cause someone else pain from what I understand.


 I don't know lazs well enough to judge his motives.

[Rash]

2,423 sheep.