<p>It’s such a huge continuum. My definition of “rich” is my own, of course. Our younger one went to a very expensive Eastern prep school because we relocated from out of state just as she was starting 11th grade. We were in a furnished apartment, searching madly for a house in a region we didn’t know at all. Anyway, it made sense to put her in this school and it turned out to be a really good investment. She made friends, got a tremendous two years of education and great college counseling. Many of her friends are what I consider to be outlier rich – amazing homes, beach homes, apartments in Manhattan, ridiculous cars and clothes. A lot of these families do seem to come from a family tradition of big money. The parents seem to work but it doesn’t add up. Then it comes out that they and their parents and the grandparents etc all went to Cornell or Dartmouth or whatever. I can’t help but think of my parents – mom no college, dad a degree courtesy of GI bill and my grandparents were coal miners who pretty much started school at about age nine or so. The family lineage is one of sheer poverty and little to no education.</p>
<p>So yes, I think it helps to be born into a family with “money” in the picture. No college debt. Help in funding a business. Help in buying a home. All the stuff a lot of us have to scrounge out on our own.</p>
<p>In terms of what type of job makes you rich? Stuff that isn’t one-on-one, I think. Stuff that can potentially sell to the masses. Sure, a dentist or doctor can make money seeing patients, but the doc who writes the book on how to be healthy that hits the bestseller list is the really rich doc.</p>