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Important qualifier on that that's missed for most "the very rich". The "rich" are often quite penny pinchers. My grandfather is "rich" (several millions, and i
by mlindner 7y ago
Important qualifier on that that's missed for most "the very rich". The "rich" are often quite penny pinchers. My grandfather is "rich" (several millions, and in a very cheap place to live in the midwest) but he lived his entire life being extremely strict on spending and controlled personal finances very carefully. He still complains when there's large money to be spent on something that should be cheap.
- umvi 7y agoI found out that my grandfather was a multimillionaire later in life as well, but I would never have guessed because he lives in an inconspicuous house in a middle class neighborhood and drives an inconspicuous car (Honda CR-V). He complains about milk and gas prices like most people and basically just doesn't telegraph his wealth at all (except by buying exclusively Wheaties as his breakfast cereal). He grew up during the great depression though, so maybe that has something to do with his miserly ways.
- hurrdurr2 7y agoMaybe this is just me, but I don't actually consider having a couple million dollars as "rich", I know a couple folks worth hundreds of millions, and the way they behave are certainly different.
- maxerickson 7y agoIt's enough to maintain a swell lifestyle without working. It is meaningfully different than not having enough money to stop working. That there's people with even more money is true enough.
- trenning 7y agoIf you only know person worth $2 million, they're rich. If you know 10 millionaires, the person with $2 mil might not seem so rich to you anymore.
- geggam 7y agoThe United States farm real estate value, a measurement of the value of all land and buildings on farms, averaged $3,140 per acre While the average farm size has been increasing approximately two acres per farm each year since 2012, the number of farms is decreasing. Today, the average farm size is 444 acres. 444*3140 1,394,160 US average farmer is a millionaire. Go ask one if he feels rich.
- tudelo 7y agoDo most farmers actually own the land that they work on? I was under the impression that most farming is done by large companies and that there are not many small independent farmers that exist.
- geggam 7y agoWhen I was working on farms ( 30 yrs ago ) most farmers were still on property they owned. During that time I saw the shift to corporate farms and I dont know that answer as I have found less labor intensive work. Most of the corporate structures I saw were family or a combination of family and friends.
- Merrill 7y agoA couple million dollars is a retirement nest egg. You can stop working, stretch it carefully until you die, and leave a small sum to your heirs. To be very rich requires upwards of $100 million. Then you can access high paying investments which will generate enough income to afford a couple houses, hire help, buy a boat and a plane, and have enough left over after taxes to increase your assets to offset inflation. Actually, if you want a jet plane (with hired pilots, mechanics, hangers, etc) and a couple nice houses (>$10 million each plus staff) in the nicest places (Beverly Hills, Palm Beach, Jackson Hole), you need upwards of $1000 million.
- benhurmarcel 7y agoA couple million dollars is more than a nest egg. You can retire immediately and provide for your family and yourself your whole life with that kind of money.
- war1025 7y agoOnly if used productively. Which, assuming you built it from more or less nothing, you probably have been doing to get to that point. Having money does not make you wealthy. Having the correct financial arrangement to consistently make more than you spend is what makes you wealthy.
- ghaff 7y agoEntirely dependent on location, lifestyle, family status, etc. Yes, with $2m you can retire tomorrow and get something like $100K/year in pretty much guaranteed income not pegged to inflation. (You can argue the numbers but certainly <$200K/year with moderate risk.) And you can certainly live on that amount of money but equally certainly not with an opulent lifestyle--especially if you don't own your house/condo, have college expenses, like to travel/eat out etc. ADDED: Yes, you're "rich" but not jet-setting in business class at resort hotels, multi-million dollar coastal city condo, eat at top restaurants on a regular basis etc. rich. Which is actually just fine for a lot of people who have no particular interest in those things.
- 7y ago
- bdcravens 7y agoFrom the sounds of it, they're relatively rich for the part of the country they live in.
- PeterStuer 7y agoIt is not 'just you', but it does peg you as being part of a tiny part of the population that can hold these beliefs. For the very very vast majority 100K in liquid funds would be a fortune they could never imagine acquiring outside of a huge lottery windfall.
- leetcrew 7y agoGP said nothing about liquid funds, and this thread is mainly talking about people's life savings. in this context, one million dollars is really not much. if you have no job or pension, one million in assets grants you the ability to spend about $40k a year safely. you could certainly have a comfortable retirement this way, but it would be far from a luxurious lifestyle.
- hirsin 7y agoWhat are the implications of only buying Wheaties for breakfast? That doesn't scream wealth to me, but I also don't eat breakfast cereals, so have a blind spot.
- umvi 7y agoIt was mainly a joke for people familiar with breakfast cereal prices; I consider a box of cereal that is less than ~$2.50 to be a "good deal". I've never, ever seen Wheaties for <$4 per box, and it's never on sale.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tictoc 7y agoYeah. The very rich intrigue me. I wonder what they think, where they go, what they eat, and what they watch. Can't be the same shit we got.
- bdamm 7y agoFrom what I've observed, the very rich don't generally "watch" much at all. For example, Gates, Buffet, and Musk are all widely reported to read voraciously. Its almost impossible to have a big TV watching habit and also a big book habit. As for the rest of your verbs, I'd expect the spread to so wide as to be unusable in forming a singular data point. While certainly having access to institutions I could never approach, even billionaires have been known to eat McD's, and I'm sure that Bezos has eaten at Whole Foods. They're just people, after all.
- donalhunt 7y agoIsn't the problem that rich people are better at accessing the "value" of something... i.e. if there is no / limited value then it should be cheap... Is value synonymous with ROI in this case?
- lucas_membrane 7y ago"The wilfully idle man, like the wilfully barren woman, has no place in a sane, healthy, vigorous community." -- Theodore Roosevelt In America, we pretty much all agree that wealth originates in labor. The crucial open question is, 'Whose labor?'
- graton 7y agoReminds me of the book, "The Millionaire Next Door". Seems like many of the people who have accumulated wealth tend to be fairly frugal.
- jorvi 7y agoReminds me of a German saying I can't quite remember (something like 'erber, gerber, versterber'). Basically the first rich generation is very frugal because they had to work hard to attain it. The second generation maintains it, not really adding more but not frittering it away either, and the third generation throws it away on ski resorts and fancy cars. That's also one of the few things I do respect about 'old money': they really drill it into their kids to not be ostentatious and wasteful with the familial wealth, thus escaping the aforementioned trap.
- 0xcafecafe 7y agoI have heard it in english too: First generation earns it, second learns it, third burns it.
- kamyarg 7y agoIs it this one: > Die erste Generation schafft Vermögen, die zweite verwaltet Vermögen, die dritte studiert Kunstgeschichte, und die vierte verkommt. > Bismarck (1815–1898) EN: > The first generation creates wealth, the second manages wealth, the third studies art history, and the fourth degenerates.
- scrumbledober 7y ago“My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel” - Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum
- ColanR 7y agoFrom what I understand, that penny pinching is often why the rich are rich (excluding those born into more wealth than they can spend). Edit: I'm getting the impression that a large subset of people replying ignored my parenthetical comment.
- mikeryan 7y agoPenny Pinching does not make people rich and is not "often" why they're rich. This is a horrible misconception.
- swsieber 7y agoIt's not the sole cause, true. But it'd definitely a differentiator. Sort of how like practice isn't the only contributing factor to being skilled, but talent without practice is useless too, soo...
- the_gastropod 7y agoIt sounds like you may hold the misconception. Only ~12% of millionaires inherited their wealth. The remainder are "self-made", in that they lived below their means, and saved.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- magashna 7y agoMillionaire doesn't mean too much these days considering you can take a long road there with fairly conservative investing and a decent income.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoThere's a difference between spending below one's means and penny-pinching. Penny-pinching is refusing to tip the waiter, it just makes you an asshole.
- mikeryan 7y ago
- merpnderp 7y agoMy grandfather was similar. Died a millionaire while never making more than $30k/year. He just paid for things in cash and made sure to always invest. The only luxury he ever spent was on my grandmothers car. Everything else was on a budget and cheap as could be.
- tudelo 7y agoI feel like a life void of luxury is... not preferable.
- lutorm 7y agoSpending little money frees up your life from having to earn a lot of it. That trade-off starts looking pretty attractive after you've been chained to a desk for a decade.
- filoleg 7y agoJust like most things in life, I feel like it is all about the right balance. Penny pinching and then dying a millionaire sounds awful, because what's even the point of having all those millions if you lived like you had nothing the whole time? Just a number on some imaginary scorecard? Wasting away all your earnings and living a life of "luxury" with nothing in your savings is at least just as bad, because if something catastrophic happens, you got nothing. Gotta strike that happy balance, where you get to enjoy the money, yet still have a substantial chunk of it saved.
- owenmarshall 7y ago> Penny pinching and then dying a millionaire sounds awful, because what's even the point of having all those millions if you lived like you had nothing the whole time? Building generational wealth for your progeny. GP said their grandfather died a multimillionaire. That money can go to his children; managed well over their lifetime it will double several times over. And learned frugality on their part means they have an even greater sum to hand to any children they have (like GP!) And if a catastrophe struck - be it a local one like joblessness or divorce, or a global financial crisis, whatever - grandfather knows that his austerity guaranteed his children shelter, food, and education in the future. That's a powerful reason to make decisions. Hell, in our animal brains, that's probably one of the most powerful drivers of decisions: what should I do to benefit my family?
- esmi 7y agoA time proven way to get rich by old age is to not spend money. It's a decent way to stay rich too. P.S. If it "should be" cheap doesn't it make sense to complain when it's expensive?
- riffraff 7y agomy dad used to tell a story of him working at gas station in italy in the 60's as a small kid, a guy with a Ferrari came by and asked to fill his tank, and when paying there was some not-insignificant amount of change, so my dad asked "so, I'll keep the change, ok?" and the guy replied "You know kid, I have a lot of money, really a lot. You know how I made them? I never gifted anyone anything. Now, hand over that change.."
- bluntfang 7y agoWhile I don't disagree that your grandfather was wealthy enough to not worry about things, "several millions" isn't in the same ballpark as the people we're talking about in this thread.