What qualifies someone as being financially rich?

Question

In other words, in your estimation, what defines someone who, financially speaking, is "rich"?
Is there a line in which someone goes from being "middle class" to "rich" and, if so, where is it?
Is it dependent on the number of material things owned?

Answer 1

First, this is going to be hugely dependent upon the area in which you live. What counts as "rich" in Nigeria is not exactly the same thing as in Germany or the US. Second, the terms are significantly ambiguous and arbitrary. What follows are some general criteria which many consider to adequately describe various social classes.

Basically, one moves from being lower-class to middle-class when one is able to move beyond living paycheck to paycheck. Lower-class people basically function on a cash basis, paying for things as they need them and using all of their income for current expenses. Lower-class people have very little financial security. Most of the people in the world - even in the US - fall into this category, though the amount of money you can earn and still function this way ranges from less than a dollar a day in Africa to $20,000-$25,000 in the US.

Middle-class people have enough resources to be able to save and invest a little bit: they have more money than they need to spend on a daily basis to keep afloat. Middle-class people have some degree of financial security: a single financial crisis won't necessarily bankrupt them. The middle-class tends to be the most vulnerable of the economic strata, since there is always the danger of falling back to a lower-class existence. In the US, a middle-class income ranges from $35,000 or so all the way up to about $150,000 and even a little higher.

The difference between the middle-class and upper-class has less to do with the amount of money you spend in a given year and more to do with how that money is obtained and used. They have financial flexibility. The rich are able to not only save and invest, but have enough wealth enough that their wealth alone provides most of their income: they don't have to work for a living. Middle and upper-middle-class people can earn quite a bit of money - even more than $100,000 a year - but their income is all earned income. If they stopped working, they would be in immediate financial crisis. Rich people are under no such pressure.

In the US, it takes several million dollars in savings and investments to be financially independent - at current interest rates, you would probably need around $5 million to be truly able to live solely off your income without starting to burn through your capital. In other countries where the cost of living is lower, this figure is also proportionately lower.

So on the whole, what makes one "rich" has less to do with a specific dollar figure and more to do with crossing a line where one is able to move from needing to work to being able to live without earning income.

Answer 2

ignore regulation. Too many attorneys... whether you do see to savor speaking alot. in case you will take out a enormous loan for college you extra clever locate a job upon graduation. I propose learning jobs in call for with the aid of fact there are a good style of fields that have manpower shortages and that equals money. No. a million is probable ability and materials, and of direction, wellness care.

Answer 3

affluent: having an abundant supply of money or possessions of value; "an affluent banker"; "a speculator flush with cash"; "not merely rich but loaded"; "moneyed aristocrats"; "wealthy corporations"
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Wealth usually refers to money and property. It is the abundance of objects of value and also the state of having accumulated these objects. The use of the word itself assumes some socially-accepted means of identifying objects, land, or money as "belonging to" someone, i.e. a broadly accepted notion of property and a means of protection of that property that can be invoked with minimal (or, ideally, no) effort and expense on the part of the owner. Concepts of wealth vary among societies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealthy

owning a lot of money or expensive property
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/richer.html

In my humble opinion, if you make more than $250,000 annually, you are considered "rich."

Answer 4

It all depends on the area you live in. Around me if you drive an Escalade your "rich". In Hollywood a million dollars in your savings makes you average. Get it?

Answer 5

Couple of houses, 3 cars, a hefty insurance policy & liquid cash to last long to the next generation & ofcourse lots of good luck after that...is like rich
A bank loaned house/car, a small insurance policy & liquid cash to last long to the next 4-6 months & ofcourse lots of hardwork after that...is like middle class

Answer 6

One who spends less than he earns is rich.

Answer 7

I like cheese.