Ask Lemmy

In general I would say you're rich if you could stop working and live a life where you never want for anything

It's always "wealthier than us", isn't it?

But I'd say whenever you have no money worries, that's wealthy. Like you could retire today if you wanted and not just survive but buy a new car or house if you wanted to, go on a long vacation, anything that just needs money to do is within your reach. Never have to say no simply because of money. That is what I define as wealth (financial wealth) and it's different amounts in different places.

Living in London and working in the City so long really skewed my view on this. I guess because I worked with so many people earning six figures (and double that for household income) who were still very much "workers", were paying off the mortgage and hated commuting like anyone else. They didn't seem rich to me. Maybe if they sold up and moved out of town, sure, but just trying to live day to day they were counting the cost like an average person just up-scaled.

I feel like being able to live off passive income / interest AND living where you want is where "rich" starts for me. I could live off passive income now, in a basic place far from London but I'm not "rich". I can live pretty much where I want in London, but I'd have to continually work for it. Being able to do either of these things would put me in many people's "rich" bracket but for me it's when you can do both at the same time.

Which kind of rich do you mean? The 'this person is truly wealthy but it's not unreasonable' or 'this person is unacceptably rich and should have their money taken away if not worse'?

The former can be somewhere around....$10,000,000 or so. Lower the older the person is really (cause I consider rich versus remaining expected lifespan), so maybe even as low as $6,000,000 for someone who's currently 40.

The latter where it's simply unacceptable for people to have that much I'd start the cutoff around $400,000,000 or so.

And slight sidenote on the unacceptable levels: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos both are so unacceptably wealthy that they could make one person a day wealthy by my $10,000,000 standard...every day...for 100 years...before running out (and that's assuming they stopped accruing money at the beginning of this)...and still be unacceptably wealthy to a crazy degree.

Oh and all my numbers are assuming no additional income and definitely no interest or investment (but also assuming the money remains the same value it has today).

Bezos is not wealthy. He just has a lot of money. I can't imagine he's found any real happiness with it. Sure a brand new Ferrari every week can buy you some happiness, but that's short lived.

The man has a serious mental illness that will not be addressed, because he has too much money and power for anyone to be allowed to tell him he's ill.

Billionaires are a danger to themselves and others. They should be admitted into a mental hospital against their will and they should be treated until they are cured.

This isn't even a "CEO bad" joke. I honestly believe it's a mentally disorder. Or maybe a specific mix of different disorders and unfortunate environments, circumstances and enablers.

You are wealthy/rich at the point where you no longer know or care about the well being of the people that count on you to survive–the point of dehumanization is the threshold of a monster.

Anyone with a net worth listed on their wikipedia page.

Anyone who can lose several million dollars at work and might still have a job the next day.

Anyone who can damage fancy clothing and think "I'll just get a new one."

Anyone who can have a holiday abroad every year. Especially if they have a summer home.

Anyone who gets surprised when they find out someone has never been skiing.

Wealth, to me, is relative, measured by how far-reaching you can do things.

In the top tier, there are billionaires who can make decisions on the world stage, such as Elon Musk making satellites to help various countries or L Ron Hubbard buying a navy and putting places of worship in other countries.

In the middle tier, there are people who can make decisions on the national level, such as smaller business chains putting their businesses in various states.

In the low tier, there are people who can make decisions on the local level, such as buying management at a local school.

And then there are the rest of us, who have our whole empires concentrated on a single street.

$500,000 combined household gross income

A wealthy man has no bills

Rich - enough money to throw around and buy expensive things, but could lose everything with some poor decisions because they are spending their income instead of focusing on future wealth

Wealthy - expenses are easily paid using income from investments, easily accessible loans from property, or some other wealth based process. They don't need to actively work to do the same kinds of thing a rich person can do, and it is difficult for them to lose their wealth.

There are not any specific dollar amount thresholds, because it depends on spending and local cost of living. Wealthy people will make decisions that maintain enough wealth that will increase in value over time to beat inflation, rich people make decisions based on whether they can afford it right now.

You're not really wealthy until you can raise your own legion.

Depends entirely on where you live. In my part of the world, a decent 1800 SF house goes for around $1.5M.