I think that is the difference once one starts differentiating between middle class, “comfortable” and wealthy. The more wealthy one gets, the more assets one has outside of college accounts, retirement accounts, primary residence, and earned income. And the divide grows as the old adage “it takes money to make money” holds true. So for me, ignoring assets in this quiz leaves out a very large component when determining wealth.
Colleges definitely take many asset sources into consideration when determining financial aid. Rightly so, IMO.
The NYT “quiz” seems to suggest one look at their income, not the income of their parents. So while I fall in one category, my s’s may fall in another.
Rich isn’t a dollars and cents thing. It’s an attitude. The real question should be: are you content with what you have? “Yes, I have enough” beats “I have about 4 million, but need 5 to retire” any day.
I think it definitely is helpful to know where one falls with in respect to their neighbors. Finding out you are top 95% in your area is probably a helpful thing to know. We fall in top 60%, which puts us pretty middle-class, as I expected. We are comfortable, live pretty modestly. We’ll never have the “number” that people throw around in the retirement thread(s), but I don’t think we’ll need it, either. Which is good.
While I knew the answer without having to do the quiz, did it really have to say"No, you’re not rich" in giant type? I’m surprised I’m at the 60% mark for my area (individual income), though. I thought it would be lower.
Perhaps the more interesting part is whether where you thought your income percentile is in your area was about where it actually is, or if it is higher or lower. The article suggests that people tend to think that they are poorer relative to others than they actually are.
By current income we are solidly middle class in the NYC area, a bit less so if you consider the entire US. But by assetts, I think we are almost certainly rich. Though not billionaire rich obviously. We live in a modest house in a modest suburb.
They can’t be sure if I’m rich or not. I suspect the most interesting thing would be how people at their reference point. Is rich really the mega-rich as someone suggested or is it a bit above one’s peer group?
Wife is Healthy. Kid is happy and productive at a wonderful college. Great transportation. Home with AC and a fireplace. Health care, a set of golf clubs and a few fishing poles. Full time job. What the heck else would someone need.
More. Is just simply. More. And it’s ok too. Whatever works for you is cool by me.
I used say that everybody’s ideal house cost half again as much as they can afford. (So if you can afford $300k, the $450k house look really wonderful. Or 500K/$750K etc). I’ve started to think that retirement savings is similar.
That reminds me of a stand up comedy routine (can’t remember if it was George Carlin or Gallagher):
“Everyone who drives slower than me is an idiot and everyone who drives faster is a maniac.”
I thought I was rich. I take nice trips. I live in a very nice home. I have everything I need. I’m able to pay all my bills on time. But the quiz says I’m not rich. I really don’t know how I’d spend all the money I’d need to make before I could be labeled ‘rich’.
I’m not rich, I don’t aspire to be rich, and I don’t spend much time around rich people, so I have no first-hand knowledge, but my observation would be that beyond a certain point rich people don’t earn more so they can spend more. They earn more because they can, and it becomes something like a game in which they’re running up the score because it shows how good they are at it. Warren Buffett wouldn’t need to work another day in his life, and he can’t possibly spend all the money he makes each year, much less all he already has. He’s on record saying he doesn’t want to leave it all to his kids. So he gives it away to charitable causes. I imagine he derives double satisfaction from that—he feels good about making all that money, and he feels good about giving it away to causes he deems worthy.
What does it mean when we built our ideal home less than half of what we could afford? It is now also our retirement home. No downsizing needed at 2700 sq ft. According to the quiz, it totally depends on what percent you feel is rich. Not sure I get it.
I agree with @privatebanker that after some version of the basics he lists are met, more is just more. Rich is a state of mind, not a dollar amount. I’ve posted on other similar threads that we’ve had a card with this saying on our fridge or wall in every house we’ve lived in:
IMO, once you have “food enough, shelter enough” and can pay your bills with a bit left over, you are rich. The rest is semantics.
I define rich as being able to do what you want (within reason - outside of that I guess it would be mega rich) when you want, and hopefully, with who you want. If you can do that, what else would you need? We can do that, so I’d say we’re rich.
My definition of “rich” is not worrying how you’ll pay for housing, health care, food and utilities if your earned income ended tomorrow. That’s the difference between income and assets.
There is some value to that!