<p>A net worth of $1 million is no reason to retire. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/technology/05rich.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/technology/05rich.html</a></p>
<p>That is why the boy who invented Paypal also invented Utube.</p>
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<p>Sounds like a sad case of afluenza. Sigh. Makes me think of that line in the Bible: the love of money is the root of evil. </p>
<p>People who allow themselves to become so blind will never be happy. It makes me feel sorry for them. :(</p>
<p>Oh, that is a depressing article. If I had any of the net worths of these folks, I’d be “retired” and writing at a little bungalow down the shore. </p>
<p>I keep reading about the studies of people who don’t feel wealthy no matter what they have because those around them are wealthier, and i honestly don’t get it. That kind of comparison seems so juvenile, yet it seems to be very widespread. I just don’t get it.</p>
<p>I can hear them now - We need financial aid because it’s so expensive to live here!</p>
<p>it works the same way w/ people who own there own company…my dad doesnt make nearly as much as those but works really hard in his own company which he owns w/ 3 people works 10-12 hours a day in the week and close to that saturdays and when busy a few hours on sundays</p>
<p>Hmm. I wouldn’t go all hating on us SV types unless you’ve lived here:). Fact is, real estate is terribly terribly expensive. Many of us moved in before the boom and sure, we could sell our houses and move somewhere where we’d be comparatively richer but then we leave behind our friends, our family, and usually the careers in an industry that is really all we know.</p>
<p>Even for those who don’t play the who has the most toys game the COL is v. high. And even higher if you want to move to one of the neighborhoods with great public schools. You gotta consider, the intellectual elite of the world has in some substantial percentage moved here - not me, don’t worry, I mean all the computer scientists and their lawyers and investment bankers:). Those smart guys make $$$ and it can make regular people have to scramble and work long hours to compete in the job marketplace.</p>
<p>It ain’t all a story about spoiled whiners. Sure, some of us. But not everyone. Actually, I’m more whiney than many…</p>
<p>I’m a friend of “Ms. Baranski” and live in the Silicon Valley and I gotta say, more people feel like she does, that some how we just tripped into this, than think we have to keep up with the jones’. On the other hand, very few feel dropping out, or moving to bungalow at the shore, is an answer as long as our kids are in school. Most people are careful to teach our kids how lucky we are, and how much volunteering is important. The sheer number of volunteers at the local public schools outstrips the need by double or triple. Yes, there are private schools, but the vast majority of affluent kids (parents with net worth over 1 million) go to public schools.</p>
<p>Really there have always been millionaires who didn’t feel–even look–rich and stay in harnass. Maybe not as rich as the Silicon Valley folks, but I remember reading articles about this 20 years ago, the # of small business owners worth over a million who live quietly in ordinary neighborhoods.</p>
<p>I knew a woman who retired a millionaire after decades of working on an assembly line at a manufacturing plant. She took every stock option they offered her, invested the maximum she could in whatever was offered through her work, kept the home she bought before her kids were born, and over the years the value of everything went up tremendously. She only stopped working when they closed the plant and she was close to retirement age anyhow. She had a nice home and did things for her children, but I don’t think she ever thought of herself as rich. (Unfortunately she died soon after her retirement).</p>
<p>It’s a great article. A million or 2 in Silicon Valley doesn’t go very far. People who don’t live in the bay area don’t understand how expensive it is to live here. </p>
<p>It is expensive for a reason. It’s pretty nice here. ;)</p>
<p>London is worse.</p>
<p>If I had a million, I wouldn’t move to Silicon Valley or Palm Beach with it. It would be gone in a heartbeat.</p>
<p>It is largely the reason we left Silicon Valley. For the “kinder gentler” life where we are.</p>
<p>But I agree with Alu and dstark. These are not necessarily all spoiled whiners. A million dollars doesn’t mean much of anything much of anyplace any more. Let’s recall, shall we, that educating <em>one</em> child in the kinds of schools we discuss here on cc now runs about $200K. If you’ve got a couple of kids, that million is half gone right there.</p>
<p>And our choice to move away did, in fact, mean leaving behind dear close friends. We work hard to keep those friendships alive, but it is not the same. So we have gained and lost in our own choices. And that choice is not for everyone.</p>
<p>I do understand different areas have different costs of living (I live in North Jersey, after all). but I was responding to people with ten million, feeling down because others have more. </p>
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<p>I mean, come on, that’s a parody in itself–I don’t have to add anything.</p>
<p>(And folks, 10 million is enough anywhere.)</p>
<p>When we left Santa Cruz in 1991, my little 1200 foot rental house was being sold for $255,000. Moved to Olympia (a much superior place in virtually every way), and bought a 1,300 square foot house for $81,000. We turned the garage into an office and bedroom for about $10k.</p>
<p>The house in Santa Cruz today is worth $1.2 mil. My house in Olympia is just north of $200k. Had we stayed in Santa Cruz and then sold, I could buy 5 of my houses in Olympia, and have money left over.</p>
<p>Oh, well, it’s only money. The first guy in the story had his million-dollar house debt-free, and had a couple of mil in the bank. And I’m supposed to feel sorry? Sounds like spoiled whiner to me.</p>
<p>* Olympia (a much superior place in virtually every way)*</p>
<p>Weather?
some of us don’t like grey skies for 7 months of the year- thank the goddess for global warming ( just kidding- I think)</p>
<p>Yes. Including weather. In summer, the fog usually didn’t lift until 4 pm, and it was cold. Winter was unpleasant. April and October were gorgeous, but didn’t make up for the rest.</p>
<p>(But I too am looking forward to global warming - I will have beachfront property! ;))</p>
<p>I used to work with someone who has low to middle 9 digits network. She has 4-kid and her husband was a major shareholder of a company that was about to go public. Strong work ethic I think, not the money.</p>
<p>Mini, if you want to understand, you will. If you don’t, you won’t. Alumother, jmmom and I understand it. </p>
<p>And there is a difference between understanding and feeling sorry or not feeling sorry. </p>
<p>Some of us want to live where our families and friends are.</p>
<p>If you to bankrate.com and find the retirement calculator, and type in $120,000 for yearly income and type in 3% inflation and a 3% after tax return
look you will see how a couple of million isn’t going to go far.</p>
<p>And before you give the the after tax return on stocks, think about the age of the people, how they should be invested, considering their age, and what the after tax return on stocks has really been the last 9 years.</p>
<p>Oops,
Correction, just been back to swimming.</p>
<p>I used to work with someone who has low to middle 9 digits networth. She has 4 kids and her husband was a major shareholder of a company that was about to go public. Strong work ethic I think, not the money.</p>
<p>Oddly, I can understand - sort of - the feelings of the people in the article. I will gross close to seven figures this year for the first time ever. I have been doing the 18 hour days x six/seven days a week thing for a while. Well…actually…I’ll probably just miss the seven figure target. And there are no more children to get through college and no more debt. But recently, I got estimates to move the furniture from our home to our rental in our new city. The cost to move the furniture is more than what I paid for it in the first place. Of course, I did without furniture for a very, very long time, as we simply did not have enough money, and when I finally did buy, I purchased from going out of business sales, so, I paid far below list, so it pencils that transporting it a considerable distance would cost more. But I cannot justify paying more to move what is now used furniture than what I originally paid for it, so, I returned to our new city with the idea that I would simply buy new - and why not? I deserve it and can certainly afford anything I want. </p>
<p>But another surprise - after days and days of visiting stores, drilling through various websites and looking at furniture choices, I haven’t purchased even one thing. I just cannot make myself spend the money. Our rental house is currently furnished with stuff that my daughter picked out of other people’s garbage on the side of the road, garage sale pickings, etc. Only the beds and (very limited) electronics are store-purchased and new. So I need everything, and can afford anything I want, and just cannot make a decision to buy even one thing. Part of it is that I feel that I need to work another year or two or even five at the 100-hour a week pace before I can safely buy furniture at retail prices. Another, smaller part of it is that the stuff I’m finding just isn’t really exciting. Still another part of it is that I cannot quite forget what it was like to not have enough money to pay tuition, food, and the light bill all in the same month. I can still remember clearly some months where I would beg the electric company for a few more days to pay the bill. Some small part is that yes, I (intentionally) surrounded myself with people who have a LOT more (I do believe in millionaire clusters), but, mostly, it’s a very deeply buried fear that what if the gravy train suddenly dries up? What if some fatal economic event happens? What if some health issue appears unexpectedly? </p>
<p>I think that is what some of the people in the article may be experiencing, even though the writer doesn’t address it. I think that if they are for the most part self-made, and especially considering that their successes all seem to hinge on which door they happened to walk through on some fateful day, it’s easy to see why they would feel as if they still do not have anywhere near enough money to feel satisfied, or secure. I suspect that it may take them a few more years of earning at a continual upward trend before they will start to feel comfortable, let alone satisfied and secure. I don’t think it’s a matter of being satisfied with toys; I suspect it’s more a matter of finally losing the remnants of memory of days that were not anywhere near as prosperous…and I think the writer misses this.</p>