Reading "The Millionaire Next Door," as much a of a cliche or a classic as it is right now, really opened my eyes to some of this nuance for me. The book points

Reading "The Millionaire Next Door," as much a of a cliche or a classic as it is right now, really opened my eyes to some of this nuance for me. The book points out that many high earners are still living paycheck to paycheck, and some lower earners do quite well by saving aggressively. So who is rich, the software engineer who earns $120k/year in a LCoL area and takes expensive vacations and buys photography equipment and has a nice house & great car and has little saved, or the senior school teacher who makes $80k and saves a ton, but doesn't take the expensive vacations, drives a 20-year-old Civic, and enjoys gardening? What's the definition of rich? What's the definition of value? What do you want in life? The other aspect is (as you and parent posters note) the comparison with others. If you live in an expensive area where everyone drives a nice car, pays for a gardener, and sends the kid to a high-tuition school, you'll stand out if you drive a 2008 Civic, have an adequate but not nice yard, and send the kid to the public kindergarten. "Comparison is the thief of joy," said someone. I personally was much happier with my un-professionally-landscaped yard and small house and used car in my middle-class neighborhood when I realized that those were reasons we have a higher net worth than most of our peers, not signs that we don't.