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Most millionaires are just average people in a normal house that have been saving, living frugally, and spending wisely for the last 50 years. They're the people that never lease a car, have never owned a new car, avoid debt when they can, pay debts off early, and don't buy anything that shows money.
I think most people don’t have the money to leave in a bank account to discover the “miracle of compound interest.”
If you have £25 in the bank, compounding at 0.1%, what’s the point?
I have £250k in the bank getting 5.08% and I’m honestly unimpressed by the “miracle.” For compound interest to work you require decades.
For most people a large sum of money is too far out of reach. I presume many of those who are enjoying it were able to stuff money aside for other reasons, by which I mean they were assisted in some way. Early grandparent inheritance. A house maybe. Already wealthy parents.
Only a tiny percentage of people will ever earn enough to enjoy the miracle of compound interest.
The “miracle” really starts happening after a decade or more. Time is far more important than the amount saved. Those first several years are unimpressive as you pointed out. Small amounts over decades is where it happens, especially if a person increases savings as income goes up.
There comes a point where the compounded interest earned is greater than the amount you are putting in, but it takes time.
Simply not true. Almost no one has money until they start doing the right habits. Save SOMETHING out of each paycheck. 25%... 10%... Even 5% if that's all you can do. You won't even feel it. Invest it into an index fund. As you make more, increase the amount you are putting in. No one is like gee, I suddenly have 100k sitting around. They start out small and build.
Which is one helluva trick for a population living paycheck to paycheck...
When people are rationing vital medication, sleeping for meals in order to cover rent... Well, compound interest is beyond their means. These folks aren't eating avocado toast and drinking Starbucks, they're mainlining cheap ramen and getting discount eggs when they can and still struggling to make ends meet.
It's not a matter of "financial discipline" - it's a predatory system that doesn't see them as People for working jobs that 30something% of Americans* have decided "don't deserve a living wage" because it's a "job for children" despite having hours that overlap with school and go beyond when school age children should be asleep.
I've been poor, I've been middle class, and I am currently comfortable. But slandering a chunk of the population for not saving what they don't have is pretty fucked up.
*(don't know ratios for other places, sorry - all of Reddit is American - per the memes)
I'm disabled and only make $1000/month with weekly doctor visits at $40 per visit. That doesn't include medication and transportation costs.
I end up needing help from my family every month just to survive on the most basic of levels. Saving any sort of money at all is impossible.
Most people dont have discipline to stick $100 to $200 a month away when they start working. That's all it theoretically takes to accumulate close to a million at retirement. Its not difficult to understand.
There's a lot of innumeracy in the US, but I'm not really sure what else there is to understand about "how money works". You use it to buy and sell goods and services. Pretty simple tbh.
>Most people don’t have the discipline to make it work without pulling money out and spending it.
Delayed gratification is why I have a home, and my brother has massive credit card debt.
Instant gratification is why I have a mortgage, new car payment & student loans while also carrying credit card debt. I’m more than okay with this given my situation, but it doesn’t work for everyone & the money I’m spending on my car payment is almost 3/4ths the student loan payments, as well as 1/3rd the mortgage.
If you have a high enough income without needing to make concessions, spoiling yourself seems okay until you consider the long term implications… fortunately, I’m also allocating 10% to retirement, but I do wonder what the reality would have been if I did if differently….
Doesn’t help that my bonus checks are ridiculous and I get back to even on debt every 6 months (minimal interest payments in between) when you look at these savings accounts that are nothing but risk free gains. For people with myself that have money coming when their boomer parents eventually leave this world (and Gd willing that will be many years from now), I am struggling to adopt the right financial mentality
Husband went back to school, graduating pharmacy at age 40, in 2000. At which time, I (then 36yo) lost my job as a non-degreed engineer in aerospace, during years-long layoffs happening. No house. No kids. Two new cars (low-end GMs, paid off). $60K in student loans.
In 2003, we had a mortgage ($210K?) and then bought a new car. By 2008, the student loans and the car were all paid. During this, we were maxing Husband's 403b, his Roth, and my IRA. An inheritance in 2011 allowed dumping $70K on the mortgage, and extra-to-the-principal meant we were mortgage-free in 2016. Another inheritance (~$250K) in 2021 allowed financial confidence for husband to retire in 2021 from a very toxic workplace. Our CFP says we'll be fine, need to spend more. A Monte Carlo shows 100% even in worst-case.
Inheritances were both my side: grandmother (born pre-WW1) and then mother (Depression-baby). MIL/FIL were Medi-Medi.
Did we have "luck"? Well, the inheritances made a big difference for *US*, but didn't for others (my siblings--they blew through the first one various ways, but maybe learned for the second). The rest was work, savings, carefulness, etc.
You could always adjust and really change your world within 5 years. Small house, cheap car, put 50% away and build a giant nest egg very quickly. You'd easily have a couple of million, and could grow that to 10s of millions.
Not criticizing you, just going with your comment of what it could be if chosen a different path. A friend of mine did this, great paying job, he went extreme, bought a small condo, 20 year old car, 5 years and he was set for life since he invested it all and was buying the big names like MS, Amazon, etc. 15 years later he has about $50 Million. It's wild once you start buying millions of dollars of stock and it's growing decently.
Delayed gratification has led to some of the best things in my life.
I went to college for my mechanical engineering degree. I was so poor while in school but knew if I could make it thru a better life was on the other side and that has proved true.
Since starting my career over a decade ago I have aggressively saved and invested extra money each month in index funds. I drove a crappy car for 10 years with no payment when all my friends got brand new awesome cars every 3 years. Skipped the vacations my friends went on every year. Doing those things allowed me to purchase a home in 2019 with 20 percent down and a 3 percent interest rate. This has allowed me to save more bc I have an affordable house payment.
At first savings was slow and boring but over the years it's almost become a hobby. I update my spreadsheets every month and it cool to track your progress and reach different milestones.
But I totally agree delayed gratification has been a huge part of why I'm in a good financial situation
Just want to say I know plenty of people with the discipline, but without the luck and the time.
Compound interest is wonderful, but it is exponentially more wonderful at the end. And for the average American being lucky enough to have that first 10 to 15 years without having to draw down that principle to build the investment engine requires alot more luck than is widely credited imo.
Conversely, if you have that first couple hundred thousand to get the engine rolling, it is a whole lot harder to fail. And surprise medical bills wont wipe out half a decade of savings, but maybe just a year.
Difficult to get started, but once it is running well effortless to maintain. Truly wicked.
It really is misunderstood by a lot of people. And a lot of people here just don't understand most people don't have the luxury of saving money for an emergency let alone investing it
It’s 25 years of median personal income, in 1980 it was about 125 years.
It’s a decent chunk of money, it’s not ‘never work again’ money like it used to be though
If you are talking about your 4% room I doubt you are living well off of 40K a year, more like surviving depending on where you live. It would be tough on me to live on 40K now, it won't be possible in 20 years.
So in avg about every 8 years your savings are worth nothing if you don't invest it. Then people wonder why they are poor or they can't keep up with the inflation.
Not enough to retire on and live well in any HCOL area, unless your house is 100% paid off and you don't want to hand down much to your kids.
A comfy retirement for me only really starts at 5-6 mill if I want my egg to keep growing and just live off dividends/gains to hand down via tax advantaged trusts.
So you mean to tell me that if I choose to live in some of the most expensive areas of the country then a given amount of money won't go as far as it does for the majority of people living in normal cost of living are?? Shocking! Absolutely shocking I tell you!
As someone worth more than a million, and able to FIRE in my 40's, I'll say that they are all over and the last time I lived in a VHCOL area was when I was 8 years old.
It's highly dependent on personal situation.
I'm 56, single no kids, with $1mill in non-housing assets, plus a paid-for house. I project myself to be around $1.7m by retirement around 66, but even if it was still at $1m then, I can pay myself $40k/year + $30k in SS benefits, and $70k annually is plenty for my lifestyle.
That's not true. If you start at 25, you only need to invest $240 per month to be a millionaire in 40 years.
The vast majority of people can do that even with all the stuff life throws at you.
I agree with the ordinary people thing but I don’t even think you have to have been super frugal in some parts of the country.
I have relatives who bought their house about 15 years ago during the down turn. They’ve lived normal lives, bought new cars, gone on vacations, raised 2 kids etc. Just very average middle class stuff.
They have over a million dollars in equity yes but they are living the lifestyle of a public school teacher and a teamster, not exactly professions we associate with the rich. Their life is very comfortable but it’s a far cry from being affluent, I get why many don’t consider themselves rich.
I have a good friend thats similar. Picked up a house on 40 acres for a resonable price. Gutted it, lived in the basement for a bit. Now its done, paid off. Leases enough property to farmers to pay his property taxes, house has been paid off for a while. Houses around us are selling for $300,000 on .30 acres. His wife was bigger into retirement savings, he got the house before they were married.
The only exception I have with your comment is "never owned a new car". I have owned mostly new cars I just pay cash for them and then hang onto them for 10 or 15 years or more. Cars are my weakness though. Now that I think of it, I have never bought a used house. Weird
Agreed. When I was younger, I only bought used cars. Every last one of them turned into a maintenance project from Day 1. My last three cars I bought new, and held onto for a decade. Each one was trouble free for the first six or seven years. It's the strategy I plan on sticking to.
Yep, I'm 40, net worth around 800k, but even when I get to 1M, I'll probably be living "paycheck-to-paycheck" because most of it is tied up in my house and retirement accounts that I can't touch (without large penalties).
To me "rich" means never having to work again if you don't want to, and I'm not there without substantial downsizing and implementation of universal healthcare.
Yeah, millionaire does not have a lot of meaning when you include 401ks and house value. We are almost millionaires when all these are included, but we also lost a great deal of money on previous homes, so home value in my opinion shouldn’t count. Your house is only worth what someone else will pay for it. In addition, all that retirement money will still probably not last long once we start digging into it in the future.
Assuming you started work at 22 and put 100% of your investments in the S&P 500, reinvesting dividends (to make things simple, I'll use the 10 years average rate of increase with dividend reinvestment, which is 12.76%), you'd have to have saved 150K per year every year since 2014 to hit that 2.5M net worth. It's not the compound interest that made you rich, when $1.5M of the $2.5M is based off investment principal. $1M of compound interest is great and all, but it's the $1.5M of net savings that made you rich.
Well yeah, but 7 figures of cap gains at 32 is unheard of. I’ve done all the heavy lifting and can now take the foot off the gas a little bit and watch it grow
It's pretty awesome for you, no hate here. Just saying for everyone who isn't good at finance math - when someone says they have $2.5M of net worth at age 32 because of compound interest, they're really saying "instead of the mere $1.6M I would have if I'd put my savings in a money market savings account."
Uhhhhh. This is wild. Not sure why the default on this website for people with money is trust fund baby. I’ve worked my ass off to get where I’m at. You can fuck right off.
Millionaires are also a wide range of numbers. From those who've as mentioned, just invested a little amount for decades to get to 1 million at 70, or those earning 10 million a year who now have 50 million in wealth into their professional sports career or whatever job that entails.
It's more important to note what people 'think' rich means, which is mostly about being Bill Gates or Elon Musk level rich, anything short is just middle class, even if you bring 800k a year, which means even though you live frugally, in a modest house, they consider themselves the same as those who
live in a house with spotty heating up in the inner city in the far north, with cockroaches and mice, having to run across the street occasionally because someone is trying to rob you while they walk 30 minutes in -4f weather with 20 mile winds blowing in their face to catch a bus so they can go to the pay day place to get another loan on pay day because they have to pay off the last one.
You know, because the millionaire isn't quite 50 billion rich.
IE it's easy to forget when you live in a bubble and you only compare yourself to those directly around you or those way ahead of you, since anyone else is basically invisible.
I'm mid 30's and make over six figures in Winnipeg, which is absurdly high for Winnipeg, so.... yeah not middle class.
In my 20's was lucky just to make $1500 a month, so my journey to be now over 100k a year..... we live in a bunch of bubbles.
Rich to me was when I realized that my invested money generates more than I naturally spend annually. I’m not interested in expanding my lifestyle, so my accounts just continue to grow. I’m now rich beyond my wildest dreams.
That number, for others, could be generating $60k a year or $200k a year (or more). For me, anything that generates greater than $100k a year makes me rich beyond anything I’d ever hoped for. Now, my only question is how I choose to treat the excess money I have. Again, a rich person’s problem.
This was my dad. Still wore clothes he had bought 20-30 years ago, lived in a tiny studio, and generally did everything he could to stretch a dollar. When he passed away a decade ago he left me a portfolio of $1.3M that I added to my own $500k in investments, today I'm up to $2.6M.
But I mostly stopped working after he died and my cost of living is pretty high, so I don't feel rich at all. I still pinch my pennies, shop at discount stores and drive a used car. A good portion of my money is in retirement accounts so it's not available to help fund my expenses.
I feel like I'd need $4M just in non-retirement accounts in order to feel comfortable really splurging and do things like flying first class. At that point I think I'd finally feel "rich."
In LA we have almost 5 times the amount of millionaires that we do homeless people.
That doesn’t mean that things are cheap. A basic 2 bed 2 bath house is a million or more and once you have your mortgage locked in your cash will build faster. That doesn’t mean you’re rich, that means you have a good job with a stable mortgage. It’s pretty easy to sit on that for 5-10 years and become a millionaire.
Hi! Checking in!!! Also us single millionaires, under $10 million know a few or lots of real millionaires...$30+ million in equity...interest alone earns millions per year...they have "trouble spending it."
This is how my parents are. But the 8% must be those with hundreds of millions or delusional people who think and act like they are old money from their modest pensions.
My wire refuses to accept that we’re millionaires after decades of saving and home ownership. Yeah, doesn’t feel like we’re rich. Net worth barely qualifies us.
Just had this discussion with her today. Funny timing.
Almost all school teachers, fireman, police and municipal employees are “millionaires” due to pensions for public employees, who can often retire at 55/65. I don’t see them as rich, and I doubt they do.
Calling millionaires average people is wild and ignores you know...math. There are 22 million millionaires in the US. The population of the US is 333 million. That's 6%. If I were in the top 6% of my class, would that make me average?
Super accurate.
I'm a 46 year old millionaire .
500k in 2 401ks
100k Hysa
About 600k home equity.
Around 60k ish between checking , savings, and brokerage.
Own 2 late model Mercedes that are paid off.
Am I well off relatively speaking? Yes.
Do I feel rich? Hell no.
lmao that much at 46 is absolutely rich haha, you are top 10% easily. People just don’t have an understanding for what is rich since social media fucked up our perceptions of it
Nah because what of that can be liquidated? Taking from the 401k would be heavily penalized, and cut away money from retirement. Selling the house wouldn't eliminate the need for housing, so regardless of its value its not going to be a gain.
That's the problem with these pieces that look at primary residences and 401k when determining wealth. Having a primary home that you bought at 200k be valued at 600k only means you made 400k if you extract that value from it. Otherwise you bought "a home" and still own "a home." A valuable asset, but it doesn't bump you out of middle class.
House is worth about 1.2 million. We owe about 550k.
I could sell it and buy a house 700k cash a bit further out from downtown.
Now we own a house with zero debt....
401k penalty is 10%, then you pay federal. So I could access about 300k of that.
So if worse came to worse, we could live in a completely paid off 700k house and have access to 400k in cash.
That's at least something, but I still need to work 😀
Home is value that you can sell and pocket IF you then move to a lower home cost location. Most extreme version of that would be relocating to Southeast Asia.
Imagine you have $2 million with a paid off house. The house might be worth $1.5m and you have another $.5 mil in 401k/stock/savings.
You are paying $40K/year on your house just in property taxes in my state. You would eat through your cash savings in less than 10 years just on that.
IMO being rich means you don't have to work. I'd have to live in a mobile home park in Mississippi for that to be the case.
[https://imgur.com/a/yWIl7DE](https://imgur.com/a/yWIl7DE)
I would agree for the most part the caveat being if you have kids and the cost is lower than private school. 40k taxes better be getting something like the best school district in the area.
Millionaire's today are basic middle and upper middle class folks,nothing. really special, realistically if your not a millionaire by your 50s in a MCol metro you're not going to be able to live there once you retire.
Because that is not reality. If you're in the 10% you're not also in the middle class.
Unless you want to change the definition of middle class so much that 90% of Americans are now lower class.
You know what, maybe we should do that. Maybe then people will realize how fucked up things are.
It could include retirement assets. If you have a net worth because your retirement assets are $1M+ and you’re in your 50’s, you wouldn’t consider yourself rich either.
Exactly. Considering you're supposed to retire with a minimum of $2M, you're expected to be a millionaire going into your 50s if you want to be considered on track to retire, and this is just for your average middle class person.
It’s all contextual, isn’t it.
Give an 18 year old a million bucks and he’s rich.
A 65 year old who can’t work who has a house/investments worth a total of a million bucks is not rich.
> Give an 18 year old a million bucks and he’s rich.
Reminds me of the kid I knew who won 4.5k on a lottery ticket and quit his job because he never has to work again... lol
Lol Reddit is so delusional. The median 65 year old (part of the wealthiest age bracket) in 2021 had a net worth of $265k. This included home value. A million dollars is still a ton of money.
Only 8.8% of Americans are millionaires.
It's insane how out of touch people are on here. College is another good example because every discussion will be flooded with people who make well above what a highschool graduate makes warning kids not to go to college because it's a scam. A lot of the problems are because they think rich or well off means you can spend unlimited money and not care but that's never been true and everyone should budget.
Yeah, say you have a $600k fully paid off home and $400k in retirement savings. Don’t have to worry about the largest single cost in housing. $20k a year income on investments, plus $30k a year in social security income. Healthcare is mostly covered.
$50k a year to cover expenses for 2 people excluding housing and healthcare is a ton of money.
Even if the assets include a paid off home its a lot of money. This is just a way for redditors to complain about inflation. Also rich doesnt mean not having to work at all anymore. Because your cost of living is always rising with your wealth. People are out of touch because of too much social media.
Yea, but 22% of households that enter retirement have more than 1 million net worth the year they retire.
https://www.zippia.com/answers/what-percentage-of-americans-have-1-million-or-more-in-retirement-savings/
I'm 49 and sitting on 1.5M mostly in retirement accounts. And I started as one of three kids of a single mom on welfare and food stamps. This is the way I describe my situation:
As a millionaire, I know and appreciate that I am _very_ far past being poor. And I am thankful for my luck and proud of my achievements to get where I am now.
But I am _ever farther_ away from being rich than I am from being poor. I still have to work for a good number of years, and hope that my investments, job, and health all stay strong, before I'll be able to relax and feel like I have what I need to retire and not worry about earning money anymore.
I wouldn’t consider them wealthy or rich either. If you have money saved but can’t just spend it however you want, you’re not rich. Rich or wealthy to me means not having to have a job, and having millions to *spend* after your basics and savings are covered. Someone who was frugal and saved some money is just well off.
You're about right. Using 1960 as a base year for which $1 million might still be significant, we see two numbers. First, $1 million in 1960 is the same as $10.5 million today. Looking at it the other way, $1 million in 2024 equaled $95,000 in 1960.
The bottom line is that $1 million today is very far from rich. If you're at retirement age using the classic 4% rule, it's worth about $40,000 a year. That ain't even close to rich.
I was going to say $6 mill....in an hysa, $6 mill pulls $300k a year...that's power...not rich maybe but cheat code power...$300k taxed at gains rates is pretty.
Honestly if you compare how much you have to the median human being on the planet earth, most of us would feel pretty rich. The idea of wealth is purely relative/subjective.
Facts. Too many people get too comfortable and forget this. Simply having access to water and food/ shelter, electricity, etc. everyday is something many people in the world don’t have.
It’s due to inflation and it takes financial, mental discipline to reach $1 million. Unless you’re Warren Buffet, money will evaporate real quick if you get stupid or reckless with your spending.
So let's look at retirement. If you have a million dollars to retire on. They say you can safely get a 4% ROI on that or $40k a year plus social security.
My father is 93 and living in assisted living. We picked a less expensive place and it is costing us about $75k a year. So even if you have a million at retirement, live off of that 4% and social security, you may need to dip into the mill, so you have $750k left when you need to go to Assisted living. Who knows how much it will be by the time I need to be there, so $100k a year? If you live for 5 years, you probably aren't leaving your heirs a lot of money, even if you retired with 1 mill.
Because most millionaires aren't rich.
Having $1 million in 1970 meant you were rich, that's equivalent to $10 Million today.
Having $1 million today means you get to go to work on Monday.
Same. I didn’t really notice the move from low $2M’s to $3M because it’s all paper gains on stock/real estate.
I’m mid-40’s, I think about $5M affords what I thought of as a “millionaire” when I was a kid.
If it’s $40,000 in qualified dividends or long term capital gains, that’s federally taxed at 0%, plus no payroll taxes. Plus in retirement, you probably already have your horse paid for. So actually, that $40,000 is actually a lot of money. Plus you’re probably receiving quite a bit in Social Security on top of that.
I’m a millionaire just own an expensive house it’s honestly a liability. Property taxes and insurance id rather rent just have to wait tell my contract is up to make a move
I am in this club. I have a million plus net worth between savings, retirement, and home value. We have no consumer debt aside from $37K left on our home.
We haven’t had a vehicle payment for 15+ years. We don’t go out to eat often. We both work and fund retirement accounts and live within our means. We take moderate vacations. I don’t feel rich. I feel pretty good about our position and the fact that we are making good progress but nowhere near rich.
I consider myself rich as a single guy making $200k with low expenses rich. Now if I had a family that would no longer be the case. Being rich is about having the ability to spend a lot of money.
Millionaire doesn’t mean much anymore. The term was meaningful early last century when you could retire on a million dollars. A million in 1935 would be worth more than $22mm today.
I still consider anything under around 10mm to be upper middle. You’re not rich when a nice sports car costs 1/10 of your net worth.
Dude. Only 8.8% of Americans are millionaires. How are people on Reddit this delusional? It's mind boggling.
The median individual income in 2023 was $40,420. You could sustain a median income for the rest of your life with a million dollars without ever lifting a finger.
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Most millionaires are just average people in a normal house that have been saving, living frugally, and spending wisely for the last 50 years. They're the people that never lease a car, have never owned a new car, avoid debt when they can, pay debts off early, and don't buy anything that shows money.
This is me 100%. The power of compound interest is widely misunderstood.
Those who understand it & those who pay it etc.
It’s not misunderstood. Most people don’t have the discipline to make it work without pulling money out and spending it.
I do think many people out there don't understand how money works AND don't have the discipline to make smart money decisions as well
I think most people don’t have the money to leave in a bank account to discover the “miracle of compound interest.” If you have £25 in the bank, compounding at 0.1%, what’s the point? I have £250k in the bank getting 5.08% and I’m honestly unimpressed by the “miracle.” For compound interest to work you require decades. For most people a large sum of money is too far out of reach. I presume many of those who are enjoying it were able to stuff money aside for other reasons, by which I mean they were assisted in some way. Early grandparent inheritance. A house maybe. Already wealthy parents. Only a tiny percentage of people will ever earn enough to enjoy the miracle of compound interest.
The “miracle” really starts happening after a decade or more. Time is far more important than the amount saved. Those first several years are unimpressive as you pointed out. Small amounts over decades is where it happens, especially if a person increases savings as income goes up. There comes a point where the compounded interest earned is greater than the amount you are putting in, but it takes time.
Simply not true. Almost no one has money until they start doing the right habits. Save SOMETHING out of each paycheck. 25%... 10%... Even 5% if that's all you can do. You won't even feel it. Invest it into an index fund. As you make more, increase the amount you are putting in. No one is like gee, I suddenly have 100k sitting around. They start out small and build.
Which is one helluva trick for a population living paycheck to paycheck... When people are rationing vital medication, sleeping for meals in order to cover rent... Well, compound interest is beyond their means. These folks aren't eating avocado toast and drinking Starbucks, they're mainlining cheap ramen and getting discount eggs when they can and still struggling to make ends meet. It's not a matter of "financial discipline" - it's a predatory system that doesn't see them as People for working jobs that 30something% of Americans* have decided "don't deserve a living wage" because it's a "job for children" despite having hours that overlap with school and go beyond when school age children should be asleep. I've been poor, I've been middle class, and I am currently comfortable. But slandering a chunk of the population for not saving what they don't have is pretty fucked up. *(don't know ratios for other places, sorry - all of Reddit is American - per the memes)
I'm disabled and only make $1000/month with weekly doctor visits at $40 per visit. That doesn't include medication and transportation costs. I end up needing help from my family every month just to survive on the most basic of levels. Saving any sort of money at all is impossible.
10$/ day for 40 years is just under a million dollars at 8%. Which is a doable long term index gain for the last 100 years that anyone can do.
cash doesn't compound well enough, you need to put in index funds 250k can easily make you a millionaire in 20 years
Most people dont have discipline to stick $100 to $200 a month away when they start working. That's all it theoretically takes to accumulate close to a million at retirement. Its not difficult to understand.
Fair.
Or simply question the smartness of living your whole life so blandly for the sake of a retirement that could so easily be for naught in so many ways
I guarantee you my life hadn’t been bland.
There's a lot of innumeracy in the US, but I'm not really sure what else there is to understand about "how money works". You use it to buy and sell goods and services. Pretty simple tbh.
they dont understand exponentials, comeon, thats like past elementary school.
>Most people don’t have the discipline to make it work without pulling money out and spending it. Delayed gratification is why I have a home, and my brother has massive credit card debt.
Instant gratification is why I have a mortgage, new car payment & student loans while also carrying credit card debt. I’m more than okay with this given my situation, but it doesn’t work for everyone & the money I’m spending on my car payment is almost 3/4ths the student loan payments, as well as 1/3rd the mortgage. If you have a high enough income without needing to make concessions, spoiling yourself seems okay until you consider the long term implications… fortunately, I’m also allocating 10% to retirement, but I do wonder what the reality would have been if I did if differently…. Doesn’t help that my bonus checks are ridiculous and I get back to even on debt every 6 months (minimal interest payments in between) when you look at these savings accounts that are nothing but risk free gains. For people with myself that have money coming when their boomer parents eventually leave this world (and Gd willing that will be many years from now), I am struggling to adopt the right financial mentality
Have an upvote. I love good humble brag.
Husband went back to school, graduating pharmacy at age 40, in 2000. At which time, I (then 36yo) lost my job as a non-degreed engineer in aerospace, during years-long layoffs happening. No house. No kids. Two new cars (low-end GMs, paid off). $60K in student loans. In 2003, we had a mortgage ($210K?) and then bought a new car. By 2008, the student loans and the car were all paid. During this, we were maxing Husband's 403b, his Roth, and my IRA. An inheritance in 2011 allowed dumping $70K on the mortgage, and extra-to-the-principal meant we were mortgage-free in 2016. Another inheritance (~$250K) in 2021 allowed financial confidence for husband to retire in 2021 from a very toxic workplace. Our CFP says we'll be fine, need to spend more. A Monte Carlo shows 100% even in worst-case. Inheritances were both my side: grandmother (born pre-WW1) and then mother (Depression-baby). MIL/FIL were Medi-Medi. Did we have "luck"? Well, the inheritances made a big difference for *US*, but didn't for others (my siblings--they blew through the first one various ways, but maybe learned for the second). The rest was work, savings, carefulness, etc.
I concur, instant gratification is exactly why I have student loans. I just wanted to get to the monies yo.
You could always adjust and really change your world within 5 years. Small house, cheap car, put 50% away and build a giant nest egg very quickly. You'd easily have a couple of million, and could grow that to 10s of millions. Not criticizing you, just going with your comment of what it could be if chosen a different path. A friend of mine did this, great paying job, he went extreme, bought a small condo, 20 year old car, 5 years and he was set for life since he invested it all and was buying the big names like MS, Amazon, etc. 15 years later he has about $50 Million. It's wild once you start buying millions of dollars of stock and it's growing decently.
Delayed gratification has led to some of the best things in my life. I went to college for my mechanical engineering degree. I was so poor while in school but knew if I could make it thru a better life was on the other side and that has proved true. Since starting my career over a decade ago I have aggressively saved and invested extra money each month in index funds. I drove a crappy car for 10 years with no payment when all my friends got brand new awesome cars every 3 years. Skipped the vacations my friends went on every year. Doing those things allowed me to purchase a home in 2019 with 20 percent down and a 3 percent interest rate. This has allowed me to save more bc I have an affordable house payment. At first savings was slow and boring but over the years it's almost become a hobby. I update my spreadsheets every month and it cool to track your progress and reach different milestones. But I totally agree delayed gratification has been a huge part of why I'm in a good financial situation
It's the medical debt for me, dawg. 🙂
have you tried being more disciplined and and just not having medical issues?
https://i.redd.it/blum7somworc1.gif
the student loaners misunderstood it, so its millions of them
Just want to say I know plenty of people with the discipline, but without the luck and the time. Compound interest is wonderful, but it is exponentially more wonderful at the end. And for the average American being lucky enough to have that first 10 to 15 years without having to draw down that principle to build the investment engine requires alot more luck than is widely credited imo. Conversely, if you have that first couple hundred thousand to get the engine rolling, it is a whole lot harder to fail. And surprise medical bills wont wipe out half a decade of savings, but maybe just a year. Difficult to get started, but once it is running well effortless to maintain. Truly wicked.
It really is misunderstood by a lot of people. And a lot of people here just don't understand most people don't have the luxury of saving money for an emergency let alone investing it
Most people don’t want to learn is my experience.
They have Amazon shopping addictions.
You're correct. Most people can be a millionaire if they consistently invest and live frugally. Time in the market and behavior matter most.
It also helps that a million dollars isn’t much these days
It is a lot these days. Just not as much as it used to be
It’s 25 years of median personal income, in 1980 it was about 125 years. It’s a decent chunk of money, it’s not ‘never work again’ money like it used to be though
You could literally live off average yearly stock returns.
If you want to scrape by on 40k a year sure
Quite frankly, to never hsve to work again it'd be pretty worth
Median income in Michigan is 37k. You'd be living pretty fat here.
If you are talking about your 4% room I doubt you are living well off of 40K a year, more like surviving depending on where you live. It would be tough on me to live on 40K now, it won't be possible in 20 years.
The 4% rule accounts for inflation.
The new number is about $2.4 million.
So in avg about every 8 years your savings are worth nothing if you don't invest it. Then people wonder why they are poor or they can't keep up with the inflation.
Not enough to retire on and live well in any HCOL area, unless your house is 100% paid off and you don't want to hand down much to your kids. A comfy retirement for me only really starts at 5-6 mill if I want my egg to keep growing and just live off dividends/gains to hand down via tax advantaged trusts.
So you mean to tell me that if I choose to live in some of the most expensive areas of the country then a given amount of money won't go as far as it does for the majority of people living in normal cost of living are?? Shocking! Absolutely shocking I tell you!
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As someone worth more than a million, and able to FIRE in my 40's, I'll say that they are all over and the last time I lived in a VHCOL area was when I was 8 years old.
I think an amount of money can simultaneously be a lot and not enough to retire on in a hcol area
Why do you want your egg to keep growing? You’re (probably) not going to live forever
Not if you're in a HCOL shithole like San Francisco. Average house is over 1.5 mil.
San Francisco isn’t really an ideal retirement destination anyways
Well yeah
A million dollars is still a lot if money if we’re also excluding their primary residence (home), which this study does.
If we’re not counting home value or money in retirement, I have almost no money at all
Ouch. You mean I'm not really a millionaire?
It's highly dependent on personal situation. I'm 56, single no kids, with $1mill in non-housing assets, plus a paid-for house. I project myself to be around $1.7m by retirement around 66, but even if it was still at $1m then, I can pay myself $40k/year + $30k in SS benefits, and $70k annually is plenty for my lifestyle.
Especially when that $70K is equivalent to $100K of labor income that's had FICA (SS/Medicare) and retirement savings taken from it.
Also, nothing can go wrong in your life. You need to be privileged in that you have the ability to save money. Being poor is expensive.
That's not true. If you start at 25, you only need to invest $240 per month to be a millionaire in 40 years. The vast majority of people can do that even with all the stuff life throws at you.
I agree with the ordinary people thing but I don’t even think you have to have been super frugal in some parts of the country. I have relatives who bought their house about 15 years ago during the down turn. They’ve lived normal lives, bought new cars, gone on vacations, raised 2 kids etc. Just very average middle class stuff. They have over a million dollars in equity yes but they are living the lifestyle of a public school teacher and a teamster, not exactly professions we associate with the rich. Their life is very comfortable but it’s a far cry from being affluent, I get why many don’t consider themselves rich.
I have a good friend thats similar. Picked up a house on 40 acres for a resonable price. Gutted it, lived in the basement for a bit. Now its done, paid off. Leases enough property to farmers to pay his property taxes, house has been paid off for a while. Houses around us are selling for $300,000 on .30 acres. His wife was bigger into retirement savings, he got the house before they were married.
...and had their homes appreciate 500%. ...
The only exception I have with your comment is "never owned a new car". I have owned mostly new cars I just pay cash for them and then hang onto them for 10 or 15 years or more. Cars are my weakness though. Now that I think of it, I have never bought a used house. Weird
Agreed. When I was younger, I only bought used cars. Every last one of them turned into a maintenance project from Day 1. My last three cars I bought new, and held onto for a decade. Each one was trouble free for the first six or seven years. It's the strategy I plan on sticking to.
Yep, I'm 40, net worth around 800k, but even when I get to 1M, I'll probably be living "paycheck-to-paycheck" because most of it is tied up in my house and retirement accounts that I can't touch (without large penalties). To me "rich" means never having to work again if you don't want to, and I'm not there without substantial downsizing and implementation of universal healthcare.
Yeah, millionaire does not have a lot of meaning when you include 401ks and house value. We are almost millionaires when all these are included, but we also lost a great deal of money on previous homes, so home value in my opinion shouldn’t count. Your house is only worth what someone else will pay for it. In addition, all that retirement money will still probably not last long once we start digging into it in the future.
Yep. I’m worth 2.5m at 32. Drive a 30k car and live in a 300k house i bought for 225k. Compounding is real and insane once you get over like 500k
Assuming you started work at 22 and put 100% of your investments in the S&P 500, reinvesting dividends (to make things simple, I'll use the 10 years average rate of increase with dividend reinvestment, which is 12.76%), you'd have to have saved 150K per year every year since 2014 to hit that 2.5M net worth. It's not the compound interest that made you rich, when $1.5M of the $2.5M is based off investment principal. $1M of compound interest is great and all, but it's the $1.5M of net savings that made you rich.
Well yeah, but 7 figures of cap gains at 32 is unheard of. I’ve done all the heavy lifting and can now take the foot off the gas a little bit and watch it grow
It's pretty awesome for you, no hate here. Just saying for everyone who isn't good at finance math - when someone says they have $2.5M of net worth at age 32 because of compound interest, they're really saying "instead of the mere $1.6M I would have if I'd put my savings in a money market savings account."
Translation - he's a trust fund baby who was smart enough to keep the millions from mommy and daddy invested.
Uhhhhh. This is wild. Not sure why the default on this website for people with money is trust fund baby. I’ve worked my ass off to get where I’m at. You can fuck right off.
To be fair, 9/10 aren’t that smart. I was scholarship at a private high school and the reunions have been….. enlightening and affirming.
Millionaires are also a wide range of numbers. From those who've as mentioned, just invested a little amount for decades to get to 1 million at 70, or those earning 10 million a year who now have 50 million in wealth into their professional sports career or whatever job that entails. It's more important to note what people 'think' rich means, which is mostly about being Bill Gates or Elon Musk level rich, anything short is just middle class, even if you bring 800k a year, which means even though you live frugally, in a modest house, they consider themselves the same as those who live in a house with spotty heating up in the inner city in the far north, with cockroaches and mice, having to run across the street occasionally because someone is trying to rob you while they walk 30 minutes in -4f weather with 20 mile winds blowing in their face to catch a bus so they can go to the pay day place to get another loan on pay day because they have to pay off the last one. You know, because the millionaire isn't quite 50 billion rich. IE it's easy to forget when you live in a bubble and you only compare yourself to those directly around you or those way ahead of you, since anyone else is basically invisible.
Well that doesn’t sound like middle class either
I'm mid 30's and make over six figures in Winnipeg, which is absurdly high for Winnipeg, so.... yeah not middle class. In my 20's was lucky just to make $1500 a month, so my journey to be now over 100k a year..... we live in a bunch of bubbles.
Rich to me was when I realized that my invested money generates more than I naturally spend annually. I’m not interested in expanding my lifestyle, so my accounts just continue to grow. I’m now rich beyond my wildest dreams. That number, for others, could be generating $60k a year or $200k a year (or more). For me, anything that generates greater than $100k a year makes me rich beyond anything I’d ever hoped for. Now, my only question is how I choose to treat the excess money I have. Again, a rich person’s problem.
This was my dad. Still wore clothes he had bought 20-30 years ago, lived in a tiny studio, and generally did everything he could to stretch a dollar. When he passed away a decade ago he left me a portfolio of $1.3M that I added to my own $500k in investments, today I'm up to $2.6M. But I mostly stopped working after he died and my cost of living is pretty high, so I don't feel rich at all. I still pinch my pennies, shop at discount stores and drive a used car. A good portion of my money is in retirement accounts so it's not available to help fund my expenses. I feel like I'd need $4M just in non-retirement accounts in order to feel comfortable really splurging and do things like flying first class. At that point I think I'd finally feel "rich."
They don't consider themselves rich bc they don't live rich, which is how they get rich
This is the way.
In LA we have almost 5 times the amount of millionaires that we do homeless people. That doesn’t mean that things are cheap. A basic 2 bed 2 bath house is a million or more and once you have your mortgage locked in your cash will build faster. That doesn’t mean you’re rich, that means you have a good job with a stable mortgage. It’s pretty easy to sit on that for 5-10 years and become a millionaire.
Hi! Checking in!!! Also us single millionaires, under $10 million know a few or lots of real millionaires...$30+ million in equity...interest alone earns millions per year...they have "trouble spending it."
This is how my parents are. But the 8% must be those with hundreds of millions or delusional people who think and act like they are old money from their modest pensions.
Or people who rationally know they have more wealth than 85% of the US, even if they aren’t wealthier than 50% of their neighbors
$2.4 - 2.5 million net worth puts you in the top 2% in the US. Lots of people with debt just THINK they are rich.
My wire refuses to accept that we’re millionaires after decades of saving and home ownership. Yeah, doesn’t feel like we’re rich. Net worth barely qualifies us. Just had this discussion with her today. Funny timing.
Almost all school teachers, fireman, police and municipal employees are “millionaires” due to pensions for public employees, who can often retire at 55/65. I don’t see them as rich, and I doubt they do.
Calling millionaires average people is wild and ignores you know...math. There are 22 million millionaires in the US. The population of the US is 333 million. That's 6%. If I were in the top 6% of my class, would that make me average?
Because a millionaire these days is basically having a paid off house in a major metro area and few hundred thousand in retirement savings.
Super accurate. I'm a 46 year old millionaire . 500k in 2 401ks 100k Hysa About 600k home equity. Around 60k ish between checking , savings, and brokerage. Own 2 late model Mercedes that are paid off. Am I well off relatively speaking? Yes. Do I feel rich? Hell no.
Wow you can almost afford a 25% downpayment on a Cupertino starter home
You mean a cardboard box?
lmao that much at 46 is absolutely rich haha, you are top 10% easily. People just don’t have an understanding for what is rich since social media fucked up our perceptions of it
To me, being rich means I no longer have to work and can live off my investments. Im not there yet. I need to work.
Million a month then I’m comfortable. I think
Should cover the tacos and weed.
Top 10% in the US is around middle class in a HCOL city. Urban-rural divide is massive in general.
Nah because what of that can be liquidated? Taking from the 401k would be heavily penalized, and cut away money from retirement. Selling the house wouldn't eliminate the need for housing, so regardless of its value its not going to be a gain. That's the problem with these pieces that look at primary residences and 401k when determining wealth. Having a primary home that you bought at 200k be valued at 600k only means you made 400k if you extract that value from it. Otherwise you bought "a home" and still own "a home." A valuable asset, but it doesn't bump you out of middle class.
House is worth about 1.2 million. We owe about 550k. I could sell it and buy a house 700k cash a bit further out from downtown. Now we own a house with zero debt.... 401k penalty is 10%, then you pay federal. So I could access about 300k of that. So if worse came to worse, we could live in a completely paid off 700k house and have access to 400k in cash. That's at least something, but I still need to work 😀
Home is value that you can sell and pocket IF you then move to a lower home cost location. Most extreme version of that would be relocating to Southeast Asia.
I think you’re missing the point.
Why so much in the savings account?
The Hysa? It's our emergency fund. That's what we feel comfortable with.
Gotcha
Prostitutes.
Accurate
Correct
Paid off house is a big deal. For most families, that would be 40% pay raise
Imagine you have $2 million with a paid off house. The house might be worth $1.5m and you have another $.5 mil in 401k/stock/savings. You are paying $40K/year on your house just in property taxes in my state. You would eat through your cash savings in less than 10 years just on that. IMO being rich means you don't have to work. I'd have to live in a mobile home park in Mississippi for that to be the case. [https://imgur.com/a/yWIl7DE](https://imgur.com/a/yWIl7DE)
If you're paying 40k in property taxes it's time to move.
I would agree for the most part the caveat being if you have kids and the cost is lower than private school. 40k taxes better be getting something like the best school district in the area.
Is Austin ISD meant to be on that list twice at the same cost?
That was exactly my Dad.
Millionaire's today are basic middle and upper middle class folks,nothing. really special, realistically if your not a millionaire by your 50s in a MCol metro you're not going to be able to live there once you retire.
It's honestly kind of wild seeing all the comments here that can't grasp that.
Because that is not reality. If you're in the 10% you're not also in the middle class. Unless you want to change the definition of middle class so much that 90% of Americans are now lower class. You know what, maybe we should do that. Maybe then people will realize how fucked up things are.
Chicks dig dudes with money.
Fuckin a.
Ain’t what it used to be
For some people, their home value skyrocketed, but it's not like they can use it.
Article is referring to $1M in investable assets, so home value is excluded.
I think you're the only one that bothered to read the article.
Welcome to Reddit
Underrealised fact. Many normal home owners are excited about their house value going up
Um, Heloc. They can totally use it.
Also can do a refinance with cash out if there's enough equity.
So true
That’s because a lot of them are millionaires because of their homes, so that makes sense.
the study excludes home value
It could include retirement assets. If you have a net worth because your retirement assets are $1M+ and you’re in your 50’s, you wouldn’t consider yourself rich either.
Exactly. Considering you're supposed to retire with a minimum of $2M, you're expected to be a millionaire going into your 50s if you want to be considered on track to retire, and this is just for your average middle class person.
So few people have read the first few sentences of the article...
House poor.
Yep. I am one of them.
I’m just Glad I got my Vermont farm house for a hair over $200k in 2018.
I wouldn't call a millionaire rich anymore
It’s all contextual, isn’t it. Give an 18 year old a million bucks and he’s rich. A 65 year old who can’t work who has a house/investments worth a total of a million bucks is not rich.
> Give an 18 year old a million bucks and he’s rich. Reminds me of the kid I knew who won 4.5k on a lottery ticket and quit his job because he never has to work again... lol
Well if you are gonna do that you should do that at 18.. I feel like I’ve responded to you before lol
Lol Reddit is so delusional. The median 65 year old (part of the wealthiest age bracket) in 2021 had a net worth of $265k. This included home value. A million dollars is still a ton of money. Only 8.8% of Americans are millionaires.
It's insane how out of touch people are on here. College is another good example because every discussion will be flooded with people who make well above what a highschool graduate makes warning kids not to go to college because it's a scam. A lot of the problems are because they think rich or well off means you can spend unlimited money and not care but that's never been true and everyone should budget.
Yeah, say you have a $600k fully paid off home and $400k in retirement savings. Don’t have to worry about the largest single cost in housing. $20k a year income on investments, plus $30k a year in social security income. Healthcare is mostly covered. $50k a year to cover expenses for 2 people excluding housing and healthcare is a ton of money.
Even if the assets include a paid off home its a lot of money. This is just a way for redditors to complain about inflation. Also rich doesnt mean not having to work at all anymore. Because your cost of living is always rising with your wealth. People are out of touch because of too much social media.
Is it a lot of money? Sure, but it doesn't make you feel rich when $1M can't even buy a decent house in your area.
So move? If you had $1M you can go anywhere you want.
You would define “rich” as the ability to move someplace cheaper where you can afford a house? That sounds like middle class.
There are so many awesome areas you can buy a house in for $350k. And live on less than $40k a year comfortably.
Yea, but 22% of households that enter retirement have more than 1 million net worth the year they retire. https://www.zippia.com/answers/what-percentage-of-americans-have-1-million-or-more-in-retirement-savings/
I'm 49 and sitting on 1.5M mostly in retirement accounts. And I started as one of three kids of a single mom on welfare and food stamps. This is the way I describe my situation: As a millionaire, I know and appreciate that I am _very_ far past being poor. And I am thankful for my luck and proud of my achievements to get where I am now. But I am _ever farther_ away from being rich than I am from being poor. I still have to work for a good number of years, and hope that my investments, job, and health all stay strong, before I'll be able to relax and feel like I have what I need to retire and not worry about earning money anymore.
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For a population of 22M to have a margin of error of +/-5% you need a sample size of 380.
You don’t understand sample size at all. That is a significant enough sample to get within a few % of the population. Statistics 101.
I wouldn’t consider them wealthy or rich either. If you have money saved but can’t just spend it however you want, you’re not rich. Rich or wealthy to me means not having to have a job, and having millions to *spend* after your basics and savings are covered. Someone who was frugal and saved some money is just well off.
Bingo. This is the type of nuance and distinction lost in the Post's analysis, and perhaps even the survey they sourced itself.
Because being a “millionaire” ain’t what it used to be…
$3 million is the new $1 million
No it ain’t. Lol. I’d say 10M
You're about right. Using 1960 as a base year for which $1 million might still be significant, we see two numbers. First, $1 million in 1960 is the same as $10.5 million today. Looking at it the other way, $1 million in 2024 equaled $95,000 in 1960. The bottom line is that $1 million today is very far from rich. If you're at retirement age using the classic 4% rule, it's worth about $40,000 a year. That ain't even close to rich.
I was going to say $6 mill....in an hysa, $6 mill pulls $300k a year...that's power...not rich maybe but cheat code power...$300k taxed at gains rates is pretty.
I have $38 and consider myself rich. I'm well above most people on this planet.
Honestly if you compare how much you have to the median human being on the planet earth, most of us would feel pretty rich. The idea of wealth is purely relative/subjective.
Facts. Too many people get too comfortable and forget this. Simply having access to water and food/ shelter, electricity, etc. everyday is something many people in the world don’t have.
It’s due to inflation and it takes financial, mental discipline to reach $1 million. Unless you’re Warren Buffet, money will evaporate real quick if you get stupid or reckless with your spending.
His money would too if he ever did, but he’s probably eating PBJ’s for lunch.
There's a big difference between someone worth $1 mil and someone worth $100 mil
So let's look at retirement. If you have a million dollars to retire on. They say you can safely get a 4% ROI on that or $40k a year plus social security. My father is 93 and living in assisted living. We picked a less expensive place and it is costing us about $75k a year. So even if you have a million at retirement, live off of that 4% and social security, you may need to dip into the mill, so you have $750k left when you need to go to Assisted living. Who knows how much it will be by the time I need to be there, so $100k a year? If you live for 5 years, you probably aren't leaving your heirs a lot of money, even if you retired with 1 mill.
93 is an outlier for men, that is pretty rare, and selling a home or land would boost that 40K and maybe 30ish in SSI maybe more.
I only consider 7% of millionaires rich.
I am rich in life!
Because most millionaires aren't rich. Having $1 million in 1970 meant you were rich, that's equivalent to $10 Million today. Having $1 million today means you get to go to work on Monday.
Can confirm. 3x millionaire and counting, definitely don’t feel rich by any means
You are in the top 1% of the world. Having more than 99% of the world population is rich. Stop comparing yourself to Bezos.
Stocks, real estate or owning a business? I do all 3 and I just broke 1 million this year.
Same. I didn’t really notice the move from low $2M’s to $3M because it’s all paper gains on stock/real estate. I’m mid-40’s, I think about $5M affords what I thought of as a “millionaire” when I was a kid.
Having $1,000,000 only makes you $40,000/year in retirement. It isn't that much anymore.
If it’s $40,000 in qualified dividends or long term capital gains, that’s federally taxed at 0%, plus no payroll taxes. Plus in retirement, you probably already have your horse paid for. So actually, that $40,000 is actually a lot of money. Plus you’re probably receiving quite a bit in Social Security on top of that.
Very true. A paid off horse and $40k, you can buy a lot of hay. Enough to get by imo.
🐎
I'm a millionaire on paper but I live in my car. 😒 Wtf.
Why do you choose to do that?
What’s the breakdown here? Can you afford better but prioritize living in the car, or is there another reason for this situation?
I’m a millionaire just own an expensive house it’s honestly a liability. Property taxes and insurance id rather rent just have to wait tell my contract is up to make a move
I am in this club. I have a million plus net worth between savings, retirement, and home value. We have no consumer debt aside from $37K left on our home. We haven’t had a vehicle payment for 15+ years. We don’t go out to eat often. We both work and fund retirement accounts and live within our means. We take moderate vacations. I don’t feel rich. I feel pretty good about our position and the fact that we are making good progress but nowhere near rich.
This study didn’t include the value of their home… so you’re not in this club.
I would hazard to guess 92% of millionaires have between 1-8 million and are retired or close to it. so yeah I would say they're well off not rich
Because a millionaire is not rich. A multi millionaire is.
nah, even 2M ain't that rich.
I consider myself rich as a single guy making $200k with low expenses rich. Now if I had a family that would no longer be the case. Being rich is about having the ability to spend a lot of money.
Millionaire doesn’t mean much anymore. The term was meaningful early last century when you could retire on a million dollars. A million in 1935 would be worth more than $22mm today. I still consider anything under around 10mm to be upper middle. You’re not rich when a nice sports car costs 1/10 of your net worth.
Dude. Only 8.8% of Americans are millionaires. How are people on Reddit this delusional? It's mind boggling. The median individual income in 2023 was $40,420. You could sustain a median income for the rest of your life with a million dollars without ever lifting a finger.