@Pizzagirl, I was curious.
We’ve never flown anywhere. Never been to Disney (even if we wanted to go, we could never have afforded it). Our money goes to food, medical care, electricity. Saved what we could for college. Have never owned a new car, and at one month-long point I walked to work because we only had one. Our big splurges have come in the past few years as college costs became less of an issue – we went to the beach for a few days, but off season so we could afford it. Other big splurge was having our attic re-insulated.
Yet, until I read this thread, I would have been confidentially “comfortable”. We have everything we actually need, a little bit of savings, and some to share. I would define “rich” as “buy what I want, when I want it. Choose comfort and convenience without worrying about the price”. That doesn’t necessarily make those people insensitive to others or without sympathy or compassion. Money is just money. Only good for what it can do.
I have been rich and I’ve been poor. For me personally, the difference between the two is never having to worry about money, ever. But for us, that still means living within our means. As PG relates, we’ve known very rich people who nevertheless did not live within their (very wealthy) means, and ended up in bankruptcy court. We live in a neighborhood that has a section of zero lot line homes (ours), and estate homes of 10,000 sq. feet or more. Every once in a while, I’ll see that one of the estate homes is up for foreclosure.
Neither DH nor I came from money, so we still watch our spending, relatively speaking. We have a very nice house, drive new-ish cars, and travel well when we do travel. We’ve never felt pain upon writing tuition checks. But we rarely shell out for first class (often upgrade, though), I don’t spend much on clothes, jewelry, or purses, DH doesn’t have gadgets or a golf membership, and we sure as heck would never spend money on a private plane. We are in the top 1% but not close to being in the top .01%. We will likely never spend all the money we have in our retirement funds. And I have never felt more blessed.
When you have family in small town midwest and you visit often, you also recognize that not everyone lives like we do.
Sounds like Disneyland is a luxury good for a lot of people.
I work for a top law firm. Very happy with my six figure income. The 25 year old junior associate down the hall from me makes almost half a million dollars a year along with her spouse. The partner in the corner and his spouse, a partner at another firm, earn around $10 million a year. I would put the last into the category of rich, the second possibly on the way to rich if everything goes well for them. Me? I would put
into the category of shocked and grateful.
Here in NYC many of the professional sports tickets are corporate. Most professional firms get X tickets to every team.
The federal reserve as a different view of what is upper income than most of the posters in this thread.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/17/wealth-gap-upper-middle-income/
I think it’s all relative.
Back in the early 90’s when H was at his first job, he had some Russian programmers fly in to work on a project he was working on. Our income at the time was probably 60k combined, we had a 130k house, and my wedding ring had a half carat diamond on it. Around the Russians, I felt vulgarly wealthy-I remember clearly feeling like my lifestyle was very posh and being a little embarrassed by it.
Fast forward to last week when we were in San Francisco. Income, house and ring are all bigger, but wow did I feel super-impoverished in that city. We looked at a fractional ownership in the Ghirardelli chocolate building just for fun, and it STARTED at 200k for 30 days ownership of a 1300 sq ft condo, plus monthly HOA fees of 2k. Women were walking around carrying purses worth 30k. Our Uber driver made $50/hr.
One of my criteria for retiring someday is to pick a city where I don’t feel poor :). Most of the time I feel rich, but rich in intangibles, not necessarily rich in stuff.
San Francisco is ridiculous. I grew up in a working class neighborhood.
Taxi drivers. Waiters. Barbers could own homes. Now those homes are priced over $1 million.
^^It was fun to visit as a tourist. I have no idea how the people in the service and tourist industry could afford to live anywhere near there.
" I guess I am not comfortable. I fly coach when I fly. I have never upgraded.
I don’t have this big need to upgrade. Maybe I am smaller than the rest of you."
What, dstark, are you calling those of us upgraders overweight? 
If you had to fly all the time, you’d understand why people really want to upgrade. No big deal if you’re only flying occasionally, but if you’re a road warrior, you’d do what it takes to get the free upgrade. I always said that if I had to fly Seattle to Portland, via Paris, at the end of the year to keep my status, I’d do so. With someone else footing the bill, of course.
Anything for free wine. Maybe that’s the definition of not being rich, when it still matters if you get the upgrade and the wine for free.
I have no idea either and I live a few minutes from SF.
Actually, I do know. Rent controlled apartments. Find a rent controlled apartment…and never move.
I’m quite certain that I wouldn’t recognize a 30k purse.
so according to Pew (a reliable source), the cut-off for upper income for a family of 4 was $132,000 (in 2013). How many people on CC proclaim they are middle class with incomes of $200,000 or more?
There are a lot of families in apartments, living above storefronts, living in neighborhoods that are just invisible to lots of CCers. They aren’t friendly with the guy who drives a taxi and his wife works at a diner. They aren’t friendly with the busboy at the restaurant who works another job too.
“There are a lot of families in apartments, living above storefronts, living in neighborhoods that are just invisible to lots of CCers. They aren’t friendly with the guy who drives a taxi and his wife works at a diner. They aren’t friendly with the busboy at the restaurant who works another job too”
I’d say that’s a huge generalization. As someone who bussed tables for years, the customers were as invisible to me as I was to them, except for their dishes. As a busgirl, why would I expect someone to get to know me, unless we had a common interest, were neighbors, saw them frequently, or knew someone in their family? I would have thought it creepy if an older customer was making a significant effort to get to know me.
People, in all categories of wealth, are busy. They don’t get to know every single person that they interact with (or don’t interact with). It’s not just that the wealthier people think everyone else is invisible to them, everyone is invisible to everyone else, as a generalization, unless you live in a small town or interact often with them. I’ve been poor, middle class, and on the upper end, and it’s the same all over.
@busdriver11, I think that is the first time you have admitted you have been on the upper end. 
I can quit CC now.
Busdriver - I wasn’t saying that I expect everyone to befriend the busboy (or for every busboy to befriend the diners). I was more making the point that their lives are invisible to one another.
“busdriver11, I think that is the first time you have admitted you have been on the upper end. I can quit CC now”
Wait, so that’s all it took? I should have said that years ago! 
Upper end of middle class, is what I meant. A big reason why I have never felt particularly well off, is after paying a large portion of our income in taxes and towards tuition, any extra that we have goes to pay off our mega debt. We bought four rental condos with money that we didn’t have, and have been trying to pay that off forever. So I don’t feel like we have a lot of excess money. But in about a year or so, when that debt is paid, then I think, I’ll feel well off. Not rich, though.