# If you have $500K in investments and don't think you're rich, you will be beheaded. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 23, 2007, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769 "2007-10-23T23:01:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/161 "2007-10-28T05:33:14Z")
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp] You know, I normally like **VCO3** , froth and all. But the fact that he dropped this turd of an OP two days ago, and then embraced the better part of valor by staying away as everyone’s pointed out how factually wrong he was, does nothing for my respect for him. Sad. [/QUOTE] He has openly stated that he does not believe he should ever respond to people who criticize his Pit threads. The pit exists for him to rant into, period, much like one would should use a LiveJournal or a blog, he uses the Pit. After he made that admission awhile back I have consistently failed to understand why people will spend 3-4 pages rebutting the stuff he says in Pit threads when he has admitted he will not engage in debate and doesn’t have any interest in “hashing it out.” He wants to make a stupid thread and move on, at least in the Pit. That’s why the most you should do is post a few lines telling him how stupid he is and move on, actually trying to break down his argument and argue it on the merits is a fool’s game, he has no interest in doing it on this particular sub forum, so why should others do it in his threads? ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/162 "2007-10-28T10:50:16Z")
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde] He has openly stated that he does not believe he should ever respond to people who criticize his Pit threads. The pit exists for him to rant into, period, much like one would should use a LiveJournal or a blog, he uses the Pit. After he made that admission awhile back I have consistently failed to understand why people will spend 3-4 pages rebutting the stuff he says in Pit threads when he has admitted he will not engage in debate and doesn’t have any interest in “hashing it out.” He wants to make a stupid thread and move on, at least in the Pit. That’s why the most you should do is post a few lines telling him how stupid he is and move on, actually trying to break down his argument and argue it on the merits is a fool’s game, he has no interest in doing it on this particular sub forum, so why should others do it in his threads? [/QUOTE] Perhaps, because we started exchanging ideas with each other fueled by his ignorance but not reliant on it? ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/163 "2007-10-28T10:50:51Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] You might feel very differently about it in 20 years. [/quote] That’s possible. Ideally, I would continue working because I choose to, not because I have to. > [@](#): > > BTW, while retirement might seem far away, I assure you that it comes faster than you think, and you’ll be grateful later for investing now. Unfortunately, step 1 is taking care of the debt I have been accumulating to start my business. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/164 "2007-10-29T04:05:43Z")
[QUOTE=brazil84] Unfortunately, step 1 is taking care of the debt I have been accumulating to start my business. [/QUOTE] That’s an investment, maybe a risky one. If your business succeeds, and you get tired of it, you might be able to sell it for plenty to retire on. ---
**Author:** ![Eolbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@Eolbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eolbo)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/165 "2007-10-29T04:14:23Z")
Can anybody provide statistics on what proportion of Americans actually do have $500K in investments? In Australia a similar figure is bandied around as being necessary for a comfortable retirement yet in practice the average Australian enters retirement with less then $100K in retirement savings and about 70% of individuals end up being dependent on the government old age pension as their chief source of income. The average annual income in Australia is between 50-60K (or about $45K-55K in US dollars). The chief form of retirement saving is known here as superannuation which seems similar to your 401k schemes (you and your employer contribute to a fund, it isnt taxed, you cant touch it until retirement) ---
**Author:** ![beanpod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9adbd/32.png) [@beanpod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beanpod)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/166 "2007-10-29T05:40:10Z")
[QUOTE=fruitbat] I find this discussion fascinating as an investment professional. If there is interest I may do an "Ask the . . . " thread. I am unusual in that I am a salaried financial planner who has a knowledge of investment products, but works with the “Do I have enough?” question on a daily basis. I have hesitated posting this because each firm has a compliance department which is generally loath to have its employees giving financial advice on the internet. I think they would be OK though with a general educational discussion without personalized advice. I will send an email to them tomorrow if there is any interest. [/QUOTE] I’ve just been lurking in this thread, but I wanted to say that I would be very interested in such a thead, **fruitbat**. While there’s all kinds of information available, I’d be very interested in some general info from a professional–not just for the free advice (although that would be nice ;)) but I wonder what are some crazy misconceptions people generally have, and good ways to learn more about investing, or of course the bizarre stories that sometimes come up in “Ask the…” threads. I hope you start one. ---
**Author:** ![guyblond](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@guyblond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guyblond)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/167 "2007-10-30T05:17:22Z")
A couple can easily spend 500K at the end of life for nursing home care. ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/168 "2007-10-30T18:57:03Z")
[QUOTE=guyblond] A couple can easily spend 500K at the end of life for nursing home care. [/QUOTE] But under **VCO3** ’s plan, beheading the couple would simplify the costly nursing home expenses by thousands and thousands of dollars, and the money could now go to free pie eating contests for the poor who were unable to save. That just makes more sense to me, don’t you agree? ---
**Author:** ![ForumBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee59a6/32.png) [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/169 "2007-10-30T19:18:42Z")
**What Exit?** , I believe **VCO3** subscribes to my favorite parable, the parable of the grasshopper and the Octopus. “All year long the grasshopper kept burying acorns for winter, while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But then the winter came, and the grasshopper died, and the octopus ate all his acorns. And also, he got a racecar.” ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/170 "2007-10-30T20:24:35Z")
[QUOTE=ForumBot] **What Exit?** , I believe **VCO3** subscribes to my favorite parable, the parable of the grasshopper and the Octopus. “All year long the grasshopper kept burying acorns for winter, while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But then the winter came, and the grasshopper died, and the octopus ate all his acorns. And also, he got a racecar.” [/QUOTE] I don’t know that one, will it be an Oliver Stone film? ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/171 "2007-10-30T23:11:08Z")
[QUOTE=Eolbo] Can anybody provide statistics on what proportion of Americans actually do have $500K in investments? [/QUOTE] Not exactly what you’re asking for, but here are a couple of sites showing breakdowns of net worth by age: [Median Net Worths (By Age)](http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/2006/11/median_net_wort.html) [Net Worth Comparison By Age and Income](http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/networth_ageincome/index.html) [More here](http://money.cnn.com/2003/01/23/pf/millionaire/fedsurvey/) [And here](http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/english/at_home/consumers/debt/worth/net.php) To summarize, if you have $500,000 net worth, you’re doing pretty well by comparison to most folks. ---
**Author:** ![ForumBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee59a6/32.png) [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/172 "2007-10-30T23:16:55Z")
[QUOTE=What Exit?] I don’t know that one, will it be an Oliver Stone film? [/QUOTE] I think Denzel Washington runs around with a gun for ninety minutes. Breakthrough stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/173 "2007-10-31T02:45:24Z")
I didn’t read every post so forgive me if I repeat. Private college now costs up to $50,000 per year. So, three kids times four years = $600,000 ---
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/174 "2007-10-31T02:55:02Z")
[QUOTE=spoke-] Not exactly what you’re asking for, but here are a couple of sites showing breakdowns of net worth by age: [Median Net Worths (By Age)](http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/2006/11/median_net_wort.html) [/QUOTE] Thanks I feel better now. ---
**Author:** ![ForumBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee59a6/32.png) [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/175 "2007-10-31T05:52:32Z")
It amuses me that people think being able to live out 15-25 years of your life living off the extra you earned qualifies as anything but rich. Face it, guys, even the poorest of us are rich as hell. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/176 "2007-10-31T07:00:12Z")
[QUOTE=spoke-] To summarize, if you have $500,000 net worth, you’re doing pretty well by comparison to most folks. [/QUOTE] True, but people looking at these numbers should look at the comment at the bottom - doing better than the median doesn’t mean you’re doing well, just that most are doing even worse. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/177 "2007-10-31T13:13:18Z")
[QUOTE=ForumBot] It amuses me that people think being able to live out 15-25 years of your life living off the extra you earned qualifies as anything but rich. Face it, guys, even the poorest of us are rich as hell. [/QUOTE] I think this has only been said a dozen times in this thread. Yes, that would make us rich by world standards, but not by US standards. That is the difference. I agree and I think almost everybody in this threads agrees that if you can save $500,000 or more for retirement, you are rich by World Standards. I think most of us are measure ourselves to US standards however. Most of us probably have a picture in our minds that “Rich” = servants and a giant house and expensive luxury cars. I hope you can see from where us “well off but not rich by US standards” posters are coming. Jim ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/178 "2007-10-31T13:58:01Z")
[QUOTE=spoke-] Not exactly what you’re asking for, but here are a couple of sites showing breakdowns of net worth by age: [Median Net Worths (By Age)](http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/2006/11/median_net_wort.html) [Net Worth Comparison By Age and Income](http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/networth_ageincome/index.html) [More here](http://money.cnn.com/2003/01/23/pf/millionaire/fedsurvey/) [And here](http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/english/at_home/consumers/debt/worth/net.php) To summarize, if you have $500,000 net worth, you’re doing pretty well by comparison to most folks. [/QUOTE] Note that if you remove the house from the equation entirely, most people look an awful lot poorer. I’ve seen some houseless net-worth figures somewhere that showed that the medians were close to zero at the 30-39 range, and only around $40,000-$50,000 by the 40-49 range. Again showing that perhaps a lot of folks are banking on selling their house as their path to retirement. Wish I could find those figures again. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/179 "2007-10-31T14:39:02Z")
[QUOTE=Una Persson] Note that if you remove the house from the equation entirely, most people look an awful lot poorer. I’ve seen some houseless net-worth figures somewhere that showed that the medians were close to zero at the 30-39 range, and only around $40,000-$50,000 by the 40-49 range. Again showing that perhaps a lot of folks are banking on selling their house as their path to retirement. Wish I could find those figures again. [/QUOTE] I think a lot of people do plan on selling and moving somewhere smaller/less expensive. Whether they stay or sell, though, a major advantage to owning a home is that you (presumably) have paid off the house by retirement age, and therefore now have a place to live rent/mortgage free for the rest of your life. Imagine how much cheaper it would be to live right now if your housing cost was removed from your budget! ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Machine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Ice\_Machine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Machine)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769/180 "2007-10-31T15:27:37Z")
Some things in this thread have been a real eye-opener, especially \*\*spoke-'s \*\* links. I didn’t realize how little people saved. I started accumulating wealth much later than most and although in a slightly higher-than-average income industry not near the top end yet I’m still well ahead of $500K. I had always assumed I was below average, maybe my dream of retiring early can be a reality. I believe it is much better to own than rent but folks shouldn’t be banking much on house value. It seems to me too many people need to keep up with the Jones and live beyond their means. I live modestly and our house is only 20% of my net worth. I somehow recall that your house should only be about a third or so of your net worth. To directly answer the OP, I don’t believe I’m anywhere close to rich and prefer to keep my head, thank you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-have-500k-in-investments-and-dont-think-youre-rich-you-will-be-beheaded/423769.md?page=10)