What level of income, savings, assets, etc, makes you ‘rich’?

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medicatedmentor@reddit

It's relative IMO. Broadly defined as not worrying about your bills and having some discretionary spend that you don't need to think about.

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When your assets generate enough completely passive income that you're earning an average income from doing nothing, and those assets will grow in line with inflation such that your average income will never end. Congratulations, you've created a financial slave. You no longer need to work to be average, you're at tier one of being rich. Either relax and enjoy an average life or continue to grow, there are many more tiers.

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ElectricFlamingo7@reddit

So, pensioners?

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nfoote@reddit

Yes and no. Sure there are plenty of retirees who live very comfortable lives funded solely by their investments. And that's why most people in the rich categories are old, as it takes a lot of time to reach that 'stage one' (and infinite time to reach the later stages, ie they cannot be achieved by work alone). But if all you've got is the state pension then you're very far from an "average income" or any level of comfort. Rather than 'self sustainingly rich" you'd be more like "perpetual subsistence". And there's a LOT of pensioners like in that bucket.

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GanacheImportant8186@reddit

This is the right answer. Hands down, end of story.

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Cheapntacky@reddit

Exactly this. The term independently wealthy has gone out of fashion but I'd say that is what makes you rich. Having enough assets to support your lifestyle without additional income.

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bladefiddler@reddit

I'd also agree, the comment above describes what you correctly term 'independently wealthy'. Sufficient assets generating enough profit to sustain themselves *plus* provide an average personal or household income to live from is 'rich level 1'. I think there may be one stage before that, let's call 'financially secure'' - where you have enough capital amassed/saved to sustain an income for life, while depreciating - like a healthy pension pot long before retirement. From my own perspective that looks rich. If I never *had to* work again (to pay bills) but doing so continues to improve my lifestyle, then I'd certainly feel rich to a degree.

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Defiant-Tackle-0728@reddit

There is a difference between "rich" and "wealth". To paraphrase a quote I remember hearing from someone "Rich shouts, Wealth Whispers". But both to me are so much more than money. It's health, it's happiness, it's being satisfied with where things are. I'm not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but I bought my house from a local authority who was selling off derelict and semi derelict stock and land in more rural areas. So my house (3bed, 2 bath in the end) was bought for just 35k (which I had from compensation from 7/7) in 2013. It sits on 2 acres, and spent over 2 years renovating it, and renting a tiny 1 bed flat from the same council.i got a grant to renovate which helped re roofing and getting mains electric, water and sewage connected again. Another grant got me solar panels (reducing my electric bill) and air source heat pump. I did buy an additional panel for hot water more recently. All in all I got 50k in grants, spent another 35k of my own to get to move in status. Yes, I work. But my income is pretty standard (I make slightly less than the national average), by the time.i retire my pension will be pretty average. Do I work excessive hours to maintain my lifestyle? Keeping up with the Joneses?? Hell No, I do me, I'm not a fan of big fancy labels, or big mights out or expensive all inclusive holidays. I grow much of my own fruit and veg, I have chickens, a couple of rescue dogs and a cat who adopted me (don't know where she came from.but she is a friendly little thing) I buy half a pig or cow from the farmer down the road when he sends them off for finishing. I'm not a millionaire, but I'm content and happy, and consider myself wealthy, looking at where I started, in and out of care as a teenager and living alone at 16, homeless at 19, escaped an abusive relationship and survived both a Tsunami and a suicide attack. 16 year old me sitting alone in a grotty little bedsit would be amazed

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Non-Combatant@reddit

If I earned about 5x what I do now I'd probably be on my way to being one of the poorest rich people in the UK.

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West_Commission_7252@reddit

I'd say that the ability to maintain your lifestyle without the need to work or benefits would classify you as rich. So that would include a number of retirees that have a final salary pension, or sizeable pension pot and no mortgage to pay.

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TheNathanNS@reddit

For me, I'd say it depends on someone's mindset towards money moreso than having money in the bank. I'd say that saving and investing your money shows you're more serious about building your wealth for your own or your family's future vs looking "rich" by buying iPhone 16 Pro Max's, Balenciaga shirts, Louis Vuitton shoes and Gucci belts.

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West_Commission_7252@reddit

That's very much an old vs new money mindset.

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george4064@reddit

Totally agree. I think this steers the conversation towards what does being 'rich' actually mean, and how does that differ from 'wealth'. As you suggest above, two very different things IMO.

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Sideralis_@reddit

4m seems about right. That's the threshold for a household in the top 1% in assets. You could have a nice priority, and enough invested liquid assets to draw 100k per year indefinitely.

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Cupcake7591@reddit

No, owning a house or a car or having a good salary or savings don’t make you rich. One thing I dislike about threads like this one is that people have this binary mindset that you’re either struggling or you’re rich while in reality there are many people who are doing okay and don’t have financial problems while still being far away from rich.

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Round-Spite-8119@reddit

> reality there are many people who are doing okay and don’t have financial problems while still being far away from rich. Exactly - most high earners aren't stressed by day to day finances, but they still need a job. I'm pretty comfy, but it's like a day to day comfy, with ~6 months of savings. I earn >£100k, but it's not like i can just not work or tell my boss to fuck off - it wouldn't take long to find myself homeless.

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Qrbrrbl@reddit

This is it exactly. An unexpected bill for a few hundred isn't going to cause me financial hardship and I don't have to sweat about every day to day purchase I make worrying whether I can afford it or if there's enough money in my account, but that's a long long way from being properly rich and having "fuck you" or "fuck off" levels of money. I still need a paycheck every month to maintain this

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B_n_lawson@reddit

Reddit thinks literally everyone is either Oliver Twist or Jeff Bezos.

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osmin_og@reddit

With a boundary somewhere around the median salary.

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ASY_Freddy@reddit

this, lots of people don't understand the difference between rich and wealthy

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Effective_Horror_972@reddit

I think Health is wealth. If I was to be gravely ill with cancer , or something else just as awful. I would 100% swap, my home, my car, every penny I have and also forfeit every future holiday to be healthy!

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How_do_I_work_this_@reddit

Makes sense, I change my answer to this

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dkdc80@reddit

Net worth of at least 5M excluding own house plus non work income of over 10k net pcm.

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Suspicious-Movie4993@reddit (OP)

What about someone scooping 3 million on the lottery? Still not rich, or does a big lottery win make you rich by default?

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dkdc80@reddit

3M is a good sum, but it doesn't qualify as rich in my view. However, if you invest it wisely, you're much closer to achieving rich status than you were before, that's for sure. Jm2c

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ooft54@reddit

Expenses scale with income/wealth, unless you're very smart and don't scale your lifestyle as you earn more. So someone could earn £200K and objectively be very well off but if they're paying a £6K a month mortgage, car on finance, kid in nursery they'd be pretty paycheck to paycheck. I'd say the profile of someone 'rich' these days is probably owning 2+ properties (one providing a rental income), kids in private school, 3+ holidays abroad each year and you still have money leftover to save and invest a chunk.

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SD92z@reddit

100k income Over 1 million in savings on the stock market

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Sivo1400@reddit

Wealth management firms will generally only see you as a prospetive client with 1 to 10 million in liquid assets excluding your primary residence. Rich - 3m would be the very basic entry into Rich category (0.5% of UK population)

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Academic_Rip_8908@reddit

For me it's less about an exact amount, and more about financial freedom. I would consider someone rich, if they owned enough assets or passive income, and could afford comfortably to not work. If work becomes an active choice rather than a means to survive, then in my mind they are rich. For example; a landlord with multiple properties who still keeps his day job for fun, or someone with a lot of money invested that they earn interest on, or someone with generational wealth meaning they never 'have' to work.

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dragonb2992@reddit

Have a look in r/henryuk, r/fireuk From my understanding, it's when you have enough money in the stock market that the returns cover your outgoings, although that's "financial independence" rather than rich. It's generally agreed that you can get 4% out of the stock market after inflation. So for some a million would get you £40k a year. For others, it might be 2 million. It depends on each person's lifestyle.

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DogDetection@reddit

It’s become insanely hard to tell. The amount of folk I see with expensive Nikes and a couple of Rolexes has usurped the amount of people I see with nice cars.

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Peter_Sofa@reddit

I assume nowadays that these people have debt instead of wealth

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revrobuk1957@reddit

My first wife always said that she wanted to be rich enough to do all the shopping at Marks & Spencer.

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Suspicious-Movie4993@reddit (OP)

That’s a solid marker! Lol except there’s once was a time during the day in Central London stores where loads of stuff is reduced and the ‘peasants’ were able to afford to fill their trolleys! :)

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TedBob99@reddit

When you have enough investments/assets to have the relevant passive income to live your life properly without having to work. For instance, if you need £40k per year to live properly, then would need £1m. Of course, that doesn't mean fancy cars, fancy holidays etc.

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toast_training@reddit

At least the level you can live an easy life without worrying about money. So being able to afford. Private Healthcare. First Class Holidays (flights and hotels). Private Education for children. university too. Nice big house. New cars < £100k every few years. Retire<55. Great clothes, Technology, art, watches, jewellery. For a family this would be assets inc house of a few million and income £300k+.

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BattleHistorical8514@reddit

This list is a bit silly. You don’t need to be flying first class, have 4 kids in private school, fly first class, pay for tuition, have brand new range rovers and spend loads of money to be rich. You’d need to be a decimillionaire to afford the lifestyle you mention. This very much feels like “poor person’s idea of what rich looks like”. **Most rich people couldn’t care how expensive their clothes are**. Simply put, being rich is being able to live a reasonable lifestyle from the assets you have. Typically, it’s the beginnings of generation wealth. It’s hard to define better than that as everyone has a different definition of reasonable. It’s not about the lifestyle you lead… it’s about the base level of lifestyle you can guarantee yourself without working.

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StoicMote@reddit

£1 over what an MP gets paid.

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royalblue1982@reddit

It's about how much your life choices are constrained by money. How often are you choosing to do things because you need more money and not do things because they cost too much. If you work for your income then that honestly limits the amount you can say you're 'rich' - until you can afford the lifestyle you want on your passive income then you're still chained to your job as much as anyone else. I think of the Sopranos where Anthony Jr. considers their family rich because they have a big house and his gangster dad is pulling in tens of thousands each week. But then he visits a friend who lives in an actual mansion and clearly has money well outside of their finances. And you still see how the Carmella worries about what will happen to them if Tony dies, and how often Tony himself is scrambling for money. I mean, I understand if people argue "How can a family that lives in that sort of house, with a swimming pool, a separate cinema and easy access to thousands of dollars, where the dad is in expensive therapy, the mum doesn't need to work and that kids get everything they want, be anything other than rich?". I get that, I do - but, I still think that fundamentally they aren't in a different social/economic sphere to everyone else. They're just richer working class people.

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kipha01@reddit

I feel very privileged to be a white straight male, no debts, mortgage paid off, have a decent wage, two pensions, decent savings, married and no kids, and lead a minimalist no drama lifestyle. Do I consider myself rich? Yes, in that I have no worries. Am I Richie Rich? Hell no, I think I'd need to have a net worth of about 10m at least, about x40 my current net worth.

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DragonicTime@reddit

Having enough money that you never have to think "Can I afford that?".

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Western-Fun5418@reddit

You're rich when you don't need to work.

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VolcanicBear@reddit

I own my house outright, earn enough to have to salary sacrifice to avoid extra tax and I am fucking miles away from "rich". I'm a lot better off than many, but I'm nowhere near _rich_.

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Emergency-Aardvark-6@reddit

What savings?!

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Ill-Move3630@reddit

Like you say it's subjective. Personally, I just see it as 'being able to buy or do X,Y,Z without having to worry about it'. Me and my wife do well, but we still have to think about every financial decision we make these days. If it was the 90s we'd be laughing, unfortunately not the case now. Like other posts have alluded to, I know the lads down the pub who wear £400 designer trainers and a 5 grand watch because they are doing well, but they still have the financed car, the big mortgage etc. I also know someone who looks borderline homeless on any average day, yet has millions ticking away in gold that he doesn't know what to do with. That's the sort of 'rich' that's closer to my original point.

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Wakingupisdeath@reddit

Enough money that you can say F*** You to your boss, quit your job and still maintain a high standard of living relative to the rest of the population and likely never need to work again if you don’t want to however that may require downsizing.

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SlickAstley_@reddit

Air in your lungs makes you very rich

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AaronAmsterdam@reddit

If you can afford all you want, then you are rich

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PoliticsNerd76@reddit

If you’re not within 5 years of being able to retire off of your assets exclusively (ie, no state pension in your models), you’re not rich

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wonkyOnion@reddit

For me being rich equals being self-sufficient and having no bills to pay at all. There is couple of channels on YouTube that showed ppl who moved to some forest, disconnected from grid, having water from local stream or well, electric from solar, small farm with veg and animals. Those ppl are rich. If they need something they can't produce themselves, they can go to work for a month or 5, but if they can't be bothered, no problem, they can quit on the spot, because they have everything they need to live.

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aperturephotography@reddit

I'd feel rich having no debt and comfortably living on a 40hr week 😅

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tmstms@reddit

If I have X, someone who is rich has about 10X.

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Suspicious-Movie4993@reddit (OP)

That’s a good measure but how do you know how much someone really has to apply that multiplier? Someone driving a Range Rover on HP must have good income in the first place but is the guy who works at ASDA who spent his inheritance buying one outright more or less rich?

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tmstms@reddit

I don't think cars count at all, unless they are very very special. The guy who spent their inheritance on a car is simply not rich any more. Cars are depreciating assets unless very classic or unusual, and if you cash the asset in, you no longer have a car, so you have to buy another one. I certainly cannot tell how rich someone is from their outward appearance or lifestyle. I guess I am taling about things in a bit of a relative way too. The threshold of being rich in absolute terms is quite high, and is probably on the lines of *If you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it*- a really rich person never even thinks about money on a day to day level. People also have assets (esp of a historic nature) that are doubleedged. A stately home makes you rich, but it might cost a bomb to run and mean you have to open it to the public or make a deal with the state for art treasures.

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danddersson@reddit

Your health, both physical and mental. Plus, not being in a war zone. If you are good on those three, you are rich.

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zephyrthewonderdog@reddit

Passive income. If you can decide to go and live somewhere else in the world for a few months and it makes no difference to your income because of assets, investments, property, managed businesses etc. You are fairly rich. I know someone who decided to go and stay in Florida for 6 weeks during the winter because the weather was pissing him off. His staff just ran his companies while he was gone. He actually made more money than normal while on holiday.

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beesandsids@reddit

I would say that "rich" is having enough in liquid assets that you do not *have* to work (or claim benefits in the case of those who cannot work) in order to maintain an upper middle class lifestyle. My interpretation of "upper middle class" would be people who are born into high earning families (often the children of doctors, lawyers, CEOs etc who have grown up to be doctors, lawyers, CEOs etc themselves), who generally are privately educated and can afford to privately educate their own children, who own their own cars and property outright.

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ArtistEngineer@reddit

For me, the following things are **rich**: * never have to worry about money * can buy whatever I need without cutting back on anything essential * can easily save towards a long term goal like buying a nice car, or putting money into a pension to retire early (see **Wealthy** below) For me, the following things are **wealthy**: * assets provide a steady enough income that I could stop working and stay rich

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ItsIllak@reddit

I'd say that if your savings and assets gave you a £2-3 thousand disposable income per month, that's "rich enough". That could be a combination of lots of investments, or few fixed outgoings (especially not housing/car). But, if you have to earn that, you're probably not rich - you're probably earning and spending, or maybe making very, very slow progress towards the above goal.

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GovernmentPrevious75@reddit

Income - anything Iver 250k Savings - anything over 12 months expenses Assets - anything over 2m

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JayR_97@reddit

Id say basically anything over £70k+. You're not gonna be struggling on that kind of salary unless your just really bad with money

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scouserman3521@reddit

It's profitable. The mark up on coffee is huge. The price is at what the market will pay, and we pay it.

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Round-Spite-8119@reddit

Very few people earning a salary are "rich", IMHO. I mean, there comes a point certainly (is it the owner of Bet365 or someone who takes their millions via salary - fair play). Rich to me is where work is basically a choice, and you've accrued substantial assets. I mean, even if you're earning £250k a year, if you're living payday to payday because you stupidly rent a £20k a month apartment in London then you're not rich. You *should* be, and you *could* be, but you aren't. Likewise, if you earn much less but have substantial successful investments - then you might be. It's net worth, essentially. Anybody putting simple earnings figures is being silly

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knightsbridge-@reddit

This is entirely subjective. You're going to get a different answer for everyone you ask. When I was in my teens and early 20s, I thought people who owned their own house was rich, because everyone in my family lived in social housing. I still sort-of do. Many people will obviously disagree with that. These days, I go by the skiing measure. Aka; if you know how to ski, you're probably rich.

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Known-Wealth-4451@reddit

It’s funny because I’m a New Zealander, working class to lower middle class and I’m quite good at skiing. I grew up in a small town just an hours away from a mountain that had a members only ski field. Basically everyone at my school knew how to ski because the club didn’t charge us kids at the local school. The parents and sometimes teachers for PE just took us up on second hand ski gear and we cottoned on pretty quickly. When I moved to the UK everyone thought I was ‘posh’ for knowing how to ski, and refused to listen to me when I said it really isn’t if you’re from where I’m from!

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Suspicious-Movie4993@reddit (OP)

Interesting because I learned to ski at 14, my parents had very little money (dad was unskilled and only wage earner, 3 kids) but somehow paid the £198 to let me go on a school skiing trip so I learned how to ski..

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spattzzz@reddit

I’d feel rich not having to work any longer.

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Quiethoughts@reddit

I’m of the opinion that rich or poor is relative. However, from a capitalist POV, you could be considered to be a UHNW individual if you have 30 million in liquid or investable assets.

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FluffiestF0x@reddit

It’s completely subjective. I was on 30k at uni, I had a mortgage to pay etc so didn’t have much left at the end of the month so I didn’t consider myself well off, my friends thought I was stupid rich though

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Nyx_Necrodragon101@reddit

Not having trauma surrounding money.

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Budget-Feed2433@reddit

Tbf "Rich" is subjective, if you have a Bentley in a run down area, then your rich. If you have a Bentley in Dubai, Your poor. Its not only about the WEALTH you have, but the environment of which you hold the wealth in.

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