I have no idea what rich means to me lol. We grew up poor, on welfare. Now, my wife and I have solid jobs, make a decent living. We have money put away in 401ks, we have emergency saved up in case we both lost our jobs for a year. Our only debt is a house and one car. We are comfortable I guess. My wife thinks we are poor and still wants to save every penny. My idea is that I won't live forever, so I spend however I want. I get to help my parents out in Mexico. My wife helps her parents if she needs to.
One good thing the pandemic has done is cured me of feeling that getting x% more dollars is ever going to make me feel better in any meaningful way. Dunking on fools on the internet, on the other hand, is totally priceless.
To me rich means you don't have to save money to buy a private jet, yacht, or spend $50,000 on a vacation, and you never worry about the price tags on clothes or cars. That being said, I'd take a great family, a decent job, love, peace of mind, and living comfortably over having money, a shitty family, a crappy job, or people using you for money any day.
That's good man. How did it cure you of "getting X% more dollars" will help you feel better in any meaningful way? No smartassness with this post.
Some people never worry about price tags on things even if they don't have money. To me, being rich is being sustained with your own financials to have the things you need and want. That's a different goal post for everyone, and can move throughout life. I'm not rich, but I'm aight.
This is a good place to be. [cliche] You can't take it with you, [/cliche] after all. I would also say that being rich is when you stop caring about what other people think of the car you drive, the clothes you wear, the house you live in, etc. You stop giving a crap about keeping up with the Jones's. Chances are the Jones's are just living paycheck to paycheck.
Read once that you are rich if you no longer pay attention to the prices at restaurants. I disagree with that one. To me you are rich if you have enough assets that creates truly passive income of let’s say $20k a month and no debt. Truly passive meaning if you own rental property you do zero work yourself and you have a property management company. Or you own something else like stocks that generate that income. No mortgages on you personal or investment properties. No car payments or loans of any kind. In this situation you would probably have several million in assets and plenty each month to travel or buy whatever.
Nah this is Millionaire Next Door doable. Just takes time and a lot of discipline. Helps if your DINKs for sure.
For real, my job was able to be done fully remote, I spent a ton less money bc no vacations or restaurants etc so basically it was like I got a raise, my house value went way up, I could sit at home and order all the dumb **** I wanted on Amazon and watch all the streaming crap around. I could drink the finest malted beverages, wines and liqueurs. I could cook fancy dinners at home if I wanted. None of these things moved the needle for me in comparison to the stuff I was worried about like health, societal collapse, family and friends that I couldn't see, my kids stuck on screens all day instead of school, most of which can't/couldn't really be remedied by any amount of money. Conversely the things I did enjoy were learning new skills (reading, podcasts online courses) purely for the sake of enjoyment and not for financial reasons. Like I tried some woodworking. I don't know **** about woodworking but I had some tools and i built **** out of old wood and it was fun. Making small pockets of order out of an entropic universe. If you offered me a million dollars cash or 'time well spent'' with family/friends or the ability to lose myself in an active task in a flow state (like playing music or whatever) I'd take the 'time well spent'. Money comes and goes. Time mostly just goes.
You're rich when you get to enjoy Rockets playing. Maybe get back into playoffs and win another 'ship.
I view rich as being successful in health, wealth and relationships. Health is number one, with wealth and relationships also being extremely important. If you can hit all three you are extremely wealthy imo. But in pure money terms, having financial freedom to basically do whatever you want. You don't have to work, can travel, give to charities, buy luxury items or things for your family with no stress and make money while you sleep.