Well, I think my best friend is rich. Today she told me that she and her husband bought the house across the street (in a neighborhood of 500-700K homes) so they could have someplace to live for three months where they could keep track of the renovations on their current house.
Must be nice.
She gives great gifts, by the way, so I am not too jealous. [sub]Ok, I’m a little jealous[/sub]
I wouldn’t consider someone to be rich unless their net worth was $5M+. Under that, I would consider them upper-middle class. It isn’t hard for someone to own a small business or farm that is worth $2-3 million, and not be flying around in a private plane.
Everything was going my way. Business was growing, I had days with sales in excess of a million then…
the damn government took 3 zeroes off the currency!!!
Hey I didn’t say what currency!! It sure was fun counting those huge sums!! Bookkeeping was a little cumbersome though. 
I’ve heard that “bling bling” thing once before. What does it mean?
StG
CBEscapee, just wondering, when you were making the millions, was there ever a time when you thought it would be enough if you had X amount of cash? As in, if you finally got that amount you would stop and put your money somewhere safe and get out of the game?
Now that you’ve had your experiences, is there now an amount of cash where you’d think it was enough?
So, that would be like what, $400 american?
A million pesos were worth around $330usd at the time the government issued the “New Peso” which meant the decimal point was moved 3 places to the left. Large sums were getting so difficult to handle (and everything was a large sum) they had to do something. Regular calculators couldn’t handle all the digits.
Me too, but I just flew back from Turkey and exchanged my lira at the airport. I was also a multi-millionaire in Thailand and felt pretty rich there, frankly. Then I moved back to the US and felt average again.
StGermain: “bling bling” means bright shiny jewelry, sort of onomatopoeia for the sound the shiny gold would make.
Sorry, I can only afford one bling.
Your definition of rich definitely changes as your income goes up, because you realize that it takes a LOT more money to be ‘rich’.
My wife and I together make about $140K per year. You’d think we’d be rolling in money. But in fact, we each manage to put away about $400/mo for our retirement, we put our daughter in after-school care, and we have a nice house, although not a mansion. My wife drives a seven year old Ford, and I drive a new Escape. And with that, we’re pretty much tapped. We’re saving some money to get our basement developed, and that takes every other nickel we have. We bag lunches, and our vacations are typically a car drive away because we can’t afford to fly much.
And if we had twice the income, I imagine the house would be a little nicer, the cars would be newer, and the holidays a little farther. But I doubt we’d feel ‘rich’. I think you need some big money before money is never a factor. Even Michael Jackson managed to blow $500 million. If you want to jet around the world on a whim, buy nice watches and expensive clothes, drive expensive cars, and not work, you had better have a few million in the bank. Maybe over 10 million. Anything less, and at some point you’ll have to watch what you spend.
You know that bring up a point. I traveled a lot in some third world countries where $20 bucks is about a months salary and being a “rich” American didn’t make me feel very rich at all. I felt kind of embarassed. What I took for granted these people dreamed of and looked at me as being rich because I had food and clothing and medical care. I’m not sure I would want to have a lot more than the average man - it feels uncomfortable for me.
Didn’t mean to hijack…it was just a thought.
Hey! I thought “bling-bling” referred to “things” rather than actual money. Can someone clear me up on the gangsta crap so I don’t embarrass myself in polite conversation? Oh…and if you ever hear me use the “bling-bling” phrase in public, slap me. Hard.
And sometimes not even that. It’s good to live below your means, if you can.
Totally subjective question, isn’t it.
We are very comfortable, but we still work for it.
People have expressed jealousy of our circumstances (in that pseudo-humourous way, you know: “Oh, it must be niiiice! Ha! Ha!”
:rolleyes:
Well, er, yes, but we did and do WORK for it. Yet, we have relatives that call out of the blue looking for work or just a flat-out loan. People we meet at social functions, our son’s baseball games, through business, through pleasure, lobby us for donations for a cause, jobs for themselves or their kids, or flat-out loans.
We sponsor local sports teams and people consider that a sign of wealth.
It’s all perception, just like everything. And if people perceive you to be wealthy, then it’s okay to pester, kiss up to or just hate you.
To me, being “wealthy” means having your bills paid & access to anything you want, without working daily. Or at all. That’s not the case for us, so therefore, we are not wealthy.
I’ve always used bling-bling as a really general noun for the trappings of wealth… “Yeah, she’s got a lot of bling-bling…” (errr… used IRONICALLY! hrrmmrmrmph of course… whew) I’ve never just thought of it as only jewelry, but as all the things that Ludacris has in his surroundings in a music video, f’rinstance.
I heard/read/was told by a close friend that I reallyreally trust that a survey was once done where the question was “How much more would you need to earn to be happy?” and at all wage levels the answer was +25%. So, no matter how much you made, if you had an additional 25% you’d be happy. Now, of course, I don’t have a cite, so take it with a heavy dosage of salt. But, it sorta makes sense. Most everyone I know wishes they were paid an additional 25%…
I consider bling bling rich to be at the level where you can fly somewhere for the weekend whenever you want, wherever you want. How about Tokyo for sushi, dear?
I personally want to to shoot for the cool $1m mark and then ‘retire.’ Meaning, I want the $1m for security and old age, then I will drop out of the rat race and do what I want for a living- work in a magic shop, peace corps, grow grapes, ??? Still earn a living, but spend 100% of the paychecks and not worry about saving.
-Tcat
I agree with Tomcat and Peg… I’m about 32% of the way towards my goal of becoming rich.
I consider “rich” as complete insulation from normal financial worries. That means if you lose the job, you keep the house and the lifestyle. And it’s a house you like and a lifestyle you enjoy. The kids go to whatever schools they want to go to. Within limits, you don’t think hard before buying anything less pricey than an automobile.
I consider “well-to-do” or even “upper middle-class” to mean able to afford a nice place to live and not to have to think too hard before buying toys or taking vacations but if the income stream stops, the lifestyle changes dramatically.
I think another key “signifier” of being rich is when the cost of things isn’t the issue, but the time involved is. Many “working rich” spend so much of their time keeping up their wealth, that they value highly things that save them time or require little time. For instance, I doubt Bill Gates worries about the cost of a meal, but he might think twice about eating a meal that would take up two or three hours of his time.