You are probably already rich

Rich would be walking into a clothes store and not looking at the prices before trying it on.

When I was young i remember I wanted to earn $500 a week as that would be enough. Not rich but enough.
 
Yes. Most all of us in America are probably top 10% in the world. I just made that stat up though. No idea if it’s true.

I’m rich enough where I don’t worry about rent or food or shelter or if my car breaks down if I can fix it or not. If I want stuff when browsing Amazon I just buy it and don’t worry about it. If I’m hungry and a sandwich for lunch if $14 I just buy it.

But I’m still aware of my spending habits and live within my means. I’m not making it rain at the club or anything.

Fuck your lazy ass for making random assumptions and stoking my curiosity.

Fact, median net wealth in America about 121k

AI answer, top 10% in the world requires 130k.

So a little short but in the ballpark, assuming you believe the AI answer (i could not find a good source for world 10%).
 
I lived in a mansion with 14 bedrooms on an estate as a child. Now I only have 4 bedrooms as an adult.

So objectively I am demonstrably less wealthy, but life is good. If I could change anything it would be to heal my wife's back and to privately educate my children.

Relative to the world population I'm a 0.1%er so one can't really complain.
 
Who is rich? He who is content with his portion.
Just as long as your needs are met, and you have some extra left to actually enjoy life. Often though, we see this type of comment said to those who are functioning with the bare minimum. That’s when it falls on deaf ears lol.

Agree with it for the most part though.
 
Just as long as your needs are met, and you have some extra left to actually enjoy life. Often though, we see this type of comment said to those who are functioning with the bare minimum. That’s when it falls on deaf ears lol.

Agree with it for the most part though.
I envy those who can live off the land
 
Rich is such an ambiguous term
What people should ask themselves is to describe in detail the life style they reasonably would like to aspire to, and how much in annual spending would maintaining such life cost and then measure the distance between their current state and the state in which they would attain enough resources to sustainably maintain that desired lifestyle. Then that would become their definition or “rich”

Illustrative example
“I’d like to be able to shop for clothes once a year, travel abroad twice per year, live in a good neighborhood 3bd/2.5 bath, dine out 3/week, and have monthly entertainment activitiew (eg going to local theme park, go to the movies, go to a museum) etc.. dont care about cars or boats or shiny toys/appliances.

This would cost $95k/year with inflation adjustments with time.
For this I would need to earn $125k with wage inflation adjustments in time so that I can save to up to $2mn in 3 decades and maintain the lifestyle once I stop working. “
 
I am rich AF. As fuuuuuuuck.

I write this while floating on my yacht in the Bahamas.




Raised by single mother in the 70's and 80's. I lived in an efficiency apartment, my bedroom was a closet. I know what it's like to come home from school and not have any power. Every year my mom either made my Halloween costume or I went without. My wife and I, in college, were rolling change up, selling books to half price, mowing lawns for the neighbors so we wouldn't get evicted. I got off my job throwing boxes at UPS to go to my other job as a fucking telemarketer. We had a goddamn Hyundai excel with hand crank windows and it was massive upgrade from the '74 Ford LTD her grandmother had given us.


Rich. As. Fuck.






Edited.

No. Not rich.

My new neighbors just flexed on me. I'm a fuckin POOR again!

Probably on the goddamn Epstein list.



Congrats on achieving wealth. What career path did you take to get you there? What were some important life choices that contributed to this?
 
Congrats on achieving wealth. What career path did you take to get you there? What were some important life choices that contributed to this?

Waited until I was 45 to have a kid. This was divine intervention or fate, not really choice. Until then it was Dual Income No Kids (DINK) and invested early. I was a soldier and wife was a teacher. It wasn't like we were a lawyer and a doctor.

We didn't divorce and she doesn't spend money.

I had a windfall during a deployment back in 2007. There are no taxes taken while overseas, you really don't spend any money, and they had this "guaranteed 10% investment" thing where they take like $1000 out per month. All of that to say, I got out and bought Microsoft at around $27 per share. But then we kept saving and investing. TSP, Roth IRA, IRA, brokerage accounts, etc.

We never spent extravagantly, her 4Runner is 10 years old and my truck is 15 years old.

Then one day in the Army I said, fuck this (its a longer story), but essentially 3 years ago we sold all of our stuff, bought a catamaran and said, YOLO bitches.

I have a tiny bit of VA disability income but the bulk is stock dividends that keep us from destroying our savings. I haven't touched any retirement accounts.

But if you ever want to buy the most expensive depreciating asset in the world : BUY A BOAT!
 
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Waited until I was 45 to have a kid. This was divine intervention or fate, not really choice. Until then it was Dual Income No Kids (DINK) and invested early. I was a soldier and wife was a teacher. It wasn't like we were a lawyer and a doctor.

We didn't divorce and she doesn't spend money.

I had a windfall during a deployment back in 2007. There are no taxes taken while overseas, you really don't spend any money, and they had this "guaranteed 10% investment" thing where they take like $1000 out per month. All of that to say, I got out and bought Microsoft at around $27 per share. But then we kept saving and investing. TSP, Roth IRA, IRA, brokerage accounts, etc.

We never spent extravagantly, her 4Runner is 10 years old and my truck is 15 years old.

Then one day in the Army I said, fuck this (its a longer story), but essentially 3 years ago we sold all of our stuff, bought a catamaran and said, YOLO bitches.

I have a tiny bit of VA disability income but the bulk is stock dividends that keep us from destroying our savings. I haven't touched any retirement accounts.

But if you ever want to buy the most expensive depreciating asset in the world : BUY A BOAT!

Congrats on achieving it. Impressive that it was done with jobs that are not in the top 20% in terms of remuneration. Just plain old discipline and spending less than what comes in. I dont condone buying single names, you got lucky on msft, congrats.

Now just make sure to analyze the sustainability of being able to sustain the life style with your investments. Make conservative assumptions such as both you and your wife living until you are 100, your investment portfolio returning about 2-3% (in real terms) and project how much you would need to withdraw every year to cover all costs and when would you run out of money theoretically. Just a simple exercise that way you have the peace of mind.
 
I was a soldier and wife was a teacher. It wasn't like we were a lawyer and a doctor.

We didn't divorce and she doesn't spend money.
Out of EVERYTHING you said, this is the most important.

You found a true unicorn. Congratulations.

I love my wife but damn, sometimes I fantasize about how much money I'd have if she didn't spend it all.
 
Out of EVERYTHING you said, this is the most important.

You found a true unicorn. Congratulations.

I love my wife but damn, sometimes I fantasize about how much money I'd have if she didn't spend it all.
Arent woman more into saving than men? I think an overspending wife is not the norm and has just been popularized in media
 
Arent woman more into saving than men? I think an overspending wife is not the norm and has just been popularized in media
No way. It’s why us in marketing try to have ads that are geared towards them. They are much more likely to spend, and spend on frivolous things.
 
Everyone dreams of being rich but do you ever stop to think about what's considered rich and by whom? It's all relative.

Some questions to ask yourself:

1. When you were a kid, what seemed rich to you?

For me, the rich kids were the ones that lived in the good neighborhood a mile away from my ghetto neighborhood. The rich kids had 2 story houses with 2 bathrooms and 4 bedrooms. Their parents would drop them off in cars that weren't embarrassingly old and beat up. They could try out for sports because their parents could afford to pay the various fees and buy the gear. And I distinctly remember one kid that got super Mario 3 the day it came out. And I remember thinking, "I'd give anything to be as rich as that kid."

And now compared to my expectations as a 13-year-old, I AM rich.


2. What would be considered rich in a 3rd world country?

You have people that have to walk miles to fill up jugs of water. They'd give anything just to have a faucet in their house like the "rich Americans" have.

They live in structures that are smaller and not half as nice as my garage. That one blows by mind. That I have a building that's way nicer than their house, and it's just for me to park my car in. How is that not rich?


3. What's your "two chicks at the same time?"

In office space, there's a brilliant moment where Lawrence says if he had a million dollars he'd do two chicks at the same time, and Peter replies, "You don't need a million dollars for that."

And I think we should ask ourselves a similar question. What would really make you feel rich? What would make you happy?

For me I'd feel rich if I didn't have to work anymore. But I don't necessarily need to win the lottery for that. People in the FIRE community are finding ways to retire early all the time, and most of them aren't rich.

So by my own definition, I'm not rich in this regard yet, but it's nice to know that I could be if I wasn't married to a woman that spends too much.


So how about you, shermanos? Are you richer than you thought you were yesterday?
You sound poor
 
1. When you were a kid, what seemed rich to you?
shopping


images
 
Id say in 2026 you'd need $10 mil to start to feel rich.

I'm definitely not there. My wife and both make six figures so that's good enough to get by in San Diego I suppose
 
I'm very aware that I'm rich. I know I have enough to give my family a comfortable life. I have enough to start investing in things that will outlast me. I have enough that my children may just be at disadvantage from it if we don't play things right.
 
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