# What Did You Consider "Rich"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 28, 2019, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672 "2019-03-28T17:29:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/41 "2019-03-29T14:50:51Z")
Until I got to about 8 or so, I had no concept whatsoever. My world was small enough that amounts of money past what it cost to buy an X-Wing or some Star Wars figures were not real. And we were solidly middle class at that point too- we didn’t lack much. When I was about 8, I was aware of “rich”, but it didn’t mean anything real- it was Richie Rich type stuff- fantastic wealth that got you palatial estates, butlers, etc… Starting when I was about 11 after my dad got laid off, I started noticing that we had a lot of relative scarcity compared to the rest of the neighborhood. My parents couldn’t afford to just throw down a bunch of money to go eat pizza after every weekly swim meet in the summer. We didn’t have enough money for me to get the clothes I wanted- I got what they had at the discount store or surplus store. And so on… I definitely formed a conception of upper middle class (my peers’ families) versus cash-strapped (mine) which centered around the relative scarcity of cash- my friends didn’t necessarily get the very best of everything, but rarely were they getting value brand stuff, much less secondhand. I still didn’t really have a conception of “rich” until high school. ---
**Author:** ![Clawdio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d07c76/32.png) [@Clawdio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clawdio)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/42 "2019-03-29T15:00:54Z")
As a kid in the 80’s i think people that drove new cars were rich. Our cars were always beaters. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/43 "2019-03-29T15:01:34Z")
I always thought that rich meant more than one foreign holiday a year and the ability to eat out without worrying about the cost, I don’t think I ever considered it in terms of material items. I’m happy that I’ve got a fairly low threshold. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/44 "2019-03-29T15:46:55Z")
When I was younger, I thought being rich meant having a big house, a swimming pool, and fancy cars. Also going on vacation by airplane across the country(to DisneyWorld, etc) and overseas. Now that I am older I realize a lot of the people I knew growing up who were doing these things on credit and were basically living paycheck-to-paycheck like my family was except they were juggling larger amounts of money. It caught up with a few of them and they ending up bankrupt. So now, to me. being 'rich" implies to me you don’t have any debt and are free to blow thousands of dollars without any impact to your net worth. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/45 "2019-03-29T15:55:49Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Same here. I didn’t know anyone with an in-ground pool, and I didn’t even want one. But that would have been proof that they were rich. To me, someone who had an in-ground pool and didn’t use it was rich. They could afford something expensive just for decoration and prestige. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/46 "2019-03-29T15:57:29Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > When I was younger, I thought being rich meant having a big house, a swimming pool, and fancy cars. Also going on vacation by airplane across the country(to DisneyWorld, etc) and overseas. > > Now that I am older I realize a lot of the people I knew growing up who were doing these things on credit and were basically living paycheck-to-paycheck like my family was except they were juggling larger amounts of money. It caught up with a few of them and they ending up bankrupt. > > So now, to me. being 'rich" implies to me you don’t have any debt and are free to blow thousands of dollars without any impact to your net worth. Heck yes. We have a very modest house and a modest car. My kids go to school with some very wealthy children and of my son’s friends lives in a big house and his dad drops him off in an Aston Martin. Don’t get me wrong, they are lovely people he’s a great kid, but when my son says “why is our house and our car not as fancy dad?” I have to point out that we have different priorities. People have different ways of spending their money and things aren’t always what they seem. What I _don’t_ say (but know for a fact) is that they cannot afford to take anywhere near the number of holidays we do and that they very nearly had to sell their house and car last year because the size of their mortgage couldn’t be covered after a small reduction in income. So yes, rich to me means not having to care about any of that crap. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/47 "2019-03-29T16:00:34Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > Now that I am older I realize a lot of the people I knew growing up who were doing these things on credit and were basically living paycheck-to-paycheck like my family was except they were juggling larger amounts of money. It caught up with a few of them and they ending up bankrupt. Yeah, in a little bit of irony, my parents, who were cash strapped from when I was about 10 to when I was about 17 apparently continued socking away retirement money and saving where they could, while my friends parents spent their money like it was on fire. Now, when they’re all in their 70s, my parents are chilling and living the retired life without any real day to day money worries, while some of my friends’ parents are still working because they don’t have any savings. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/48 "2019-03-29T16:13:58Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > I think I’ve told the story before of when I overheard my father telling my mother that he had just gotten $100 in some way (I don’t remember how, and it’s not relevant to the story). I figured that meant we were rich, and could now afford anything. After all, there couldn’t possibly be more money in the world than that! > > So at least at one point in my childhood, you were rich if you had $100. In a similar vein, when I was about ten an uncle who had a pilot’s license joined a flying club so he could use its Cessna 172 (they were new at the time). When I asked him why he didn’t just buy his own plane he said, “I don’t make that kind of money; how much do you think a Cessna costs?” “… $200?” He, my older cousins, and my dad thought that quite risible. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/49 "2019-03-29T16:53:52Z")
> [@TRC4941](#): > > Buzzfeed had this question that was posed on (I think) Reddit. > > When you were a kid, what was it that in your mind showed a family or person had lots of money? > > I grew up in the 60s & 70s in Minnesota. My mom stayed home for most of my childhood (she was a telephone operator and worked as a cashier in a grocery store at different times for a year or 2 - PT jobs). My dad worked for the city water and gas company repairing furnaces, etc. So in my mind, a dad that wore a suit to work was the epitome of a rich family. Also, a household with 2 cars was pretty ritzy. When I was a kid I’d say someone who had a nice car (A big, powerful US muscle car), a nice big house (with 2 TVs), maybe a boat and who could go out to eat at restaurants and stuff or go on vacations to exotic places like California or Texas WHEN EVER THEY WANTED! :eek: That, to me, would have been ‘rich’ beyond my dreams. I didn’t have a dollar per year figure when I was a kid, or concept of how much money such a dream would take, but that would have been rich. It’s funny how perceptions have changed in my own mind anyway, as well as how the above shaped what I became and why. I never really thought about it before considering my answer to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/50 "2019-03-29T17:07:34Z")
It wasn’t so much a new car that signified wealth when i was a kid, but we thought anyone driving a Cadillac must be rich. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/51 "2019-03-29T18:26:45Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > So now, to me. being 'rich" implies to me you don’t have any debt and are free to blow thousands of dollars without any impact to your net worth. I guess it depends on how one interprets the “blow thousands of dollars without any impact to your net worth” comment. Are we to take that as meaning that say… 10k isn’t material to your net worth either way (which would imply net worth in the multiple millions, I think), or does it mean that you could spend say… 3k without it really having any significant impact on your lifestyle or financial status? The second is a LOT more achievable than the first. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/52 "2019-03-29T20:40:24Z")
I grew up working class in the seventies. To me cable tv, going to the beach every year, and a car purchased by the parents meant rich. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/53 "2019-03-29T21:14:21Z")
When I was a little kid in a pretty well off household, rich was owning a Delorean and maybe a bunch of Gucci bags. When I had graduated from college and was paying my own way, rich was being able to pay for rent, healthcare AND food - all at the same time! - and having money left over afterwards. Edited to add that I graduated high school in the mid-90s & grew up in a relatively well-to-do household, even though my parents were divorced. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/54 "2019-03-29T21:45:29Z")
When I was a kid, my dad had some “rich” friends. Business associates really. They were rich because: they drove nice cars, they had “investments” whatever they were, Dad implied that they were well-to-do. So, nice car and a reputation for wealth. I know that one of these associates made some bad business decisions and Dad was left dealing with lawyers etc. Dad wasn’t financially involved in the losses but was part of winding down the investment (I don’t know what it was probably a business) and Mom was not happy. When Mom wasn’t happy, Dad was very sad. I noticed. ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/55 "2019-03-29T22:44:23Z")
I can’t really provide financial figures, but when I was a kid (late 1970s-early 1980s) the stereotypical “rich guy” was a JR Ewing type Texan. And he probably could even afford a top loading VHS player. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/56 "2019-03-30T01:50:00Z")
Since third grade, I grew up in Fairfield County, which is one of the wealthiest counties in the country. Mostly because of towns like Greenwich, New Canaan and Wilton. People I grew up with didn’t seem that “rich”. Sure, a couple of kids had parents rich enough to buy them fancy sports cars. But there weren’t any giant mansions in my town. My family has a summer house out in Shelter Island, NY that my working class grandfather built like 50 years ago. It’s not super nice or anything, and doesn’t feel like some rich person’s Hamptons House. But it’s still kind of a nice thing to have in the family. To me “rich” is like my cousins whose dad owns an insurance company. One of them works for her dad while the other is doing the “trust fund kid” thing, living the hipster life in New York, hanging out with his prep school friends and pretending to dabble in the arts. ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/57 "2019-03-30T17:07:36Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > So now, to me. being 'rich" implies to me you don’t have any debt and are free to blow thousands of dollars without any impact to your net worth. Mine was, and still is, similar but with a variation. “Rich” meant a family that could blow thousands, or maybe just hundreds of dollars on “stuff” or even just much better versions of necessities without putting them in a bind at the end of the month. ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2019, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/58 "2019-03-31T11:12:17Z")
When I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, the rich people lived in the foothills, the really rich people lived on one specific street in an entirely different subdivision in the foothills and the super rich people all lived along a terrace that overlooked all the city parks along the river that they built and named after their wives (there are three currently) if you were a single person making 20g a year you weren’t doing to shabby either. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2019, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/59 "2019-03-31T14:59:25Z")
When I was a kid, rich kids wore trendy clothes (Benetton, Polo, etc.) and skipped school to go on fancy holidays. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2019, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672/60 "2019-03-31T19:32:34Z")
> [@TRC4941](#): > > All of that would have been way beyond my imagination for real people to have. That was the stuff of movies and TV. Hah! Speaking of movies and TV, I guess my first idea of “rich” was people who had household staff because all the rich people on TV had at least someone to take care of the home. TV taught me that rich people all had a live-maid, butler, chef, or driver. Except for the Brady Bunch. Sure, they had Alice, but they didn’t seem rich. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-consider-rich/831672.md?page=4)