What’s the definition of “rich” to you?

Makes me think of this story:

The Fisherman And The Businessman by Paulo Coelho

There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village.
As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish.
The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?”
The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.”
“Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The businessman was astonished.
“This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said.
The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day?”
The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.”

The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman.
“I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.”

The fisherman continues, “And after that?”
The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.”
The fisherman asks, “And after that?”
The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!”
The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”

Here is a story for you! You might be able to extrapolate what truly RICH is?!

Ken Behring, the former Seattle Seahawks owner passed away a few years back.

Prior to his passing, he gave one last interview!

He was asked: Ken, you have everything. What does really make a difference in your life?

His answer: “at first, I thought that being rich would make me happy. I bought a big house and a big boat. Then, I realized it don’t make me happy. I bought a bigger house and a bigger boat. Then that also didn’t make me happy! I bought more houses and a bunch of yachts and bunch of planes. Then I bought the “hawks!” That also wasn’t enough.

One day, one of partners said to me: Hey Ken, Im getting a few buddies on my G6 and we are flying over to Bosnia. I heard a lot of kids lost their legs due to mines. We want to donate some wheelchairs.

Ken gets up and goes. In Sarajevo, he picks up a small boy who lost both of his legs of the sidewalk and places him into a brand new wheelchair. The boys started crying, and through tears - says to him: “ Sir, please come here, I want to look at you for one last time, what is your name?”

The translator tells Ken, the boy (Mirko) siad, he wants to remember you name, so when “he goes to Heaven to mention you to God!”

Ken, visibly shaken, gets back on the G6 and flies back to Seattle. Sets up a foundation and long and behold buys and distributes over 44,000 wheelchairs around the world, from Africa to Asia.
Then he tells the journalist: This 7-year old boy taught me old man the meaning of life!
That Day, I found true happiness!

Being able to choose to work ever again without compromising my standard of living.

True Riches is having both time and money. I’m becoming rich on my way to being wealthy, but paying with shortage of time.

As a 25 year making 110k+ with a significant other making the same in a MCOL, I feel like we are rich. We have the potential to max retirement savings, buy cars down right, and save for a house, while not having to worry about little things. My advice is don’t get sucked into consumerism and buy brands because of name and status

Where your home, health, family, happiness are not in jeopardy due to your financial situation.

Not having to pay attention to the total at the cash register when I buy something.

I think at $300k total household income most people would consider you “rich” in the U.S. but there are obviously different levels of being rich.

Full disclosure: not sure if this is "rich" but this is my personal next level goal.

Personal property worth 1.3m. 15k cash flow per month from rental properties. Income after expenses of $10k per month.


Rich is probably not having to do this type of math. Also, Personal chef. Cleaner. Butler.

Rich is less this about money and buying things, more about family, friends, stress levels, health, reasonable financial security. Its also hard to accept this at 22, and many wont accept it til they get money and realize...

Being able to live the lifestyle that you want off the income/interest from your investments without needing to work. So, someone who makes a lot of money working and blows it all to an inflated lifestyle is farther from being rich than someone who lives well-beneath their means.

I also feel like a lot of marketing/corporate propaganda is designed to make us feel like we want that inflated lifestyle and keep us running on the hamster wheel without actually progressing to becoming rich.

I’d say $5 million of liquid net worth

Note that most of these responses are heavily skewed since a majority of users are upper class and or highly educated. Lots of people would consider most of our current income “rich”. All relative.

Homeowner in HCOL area

Being happy

For me, it’s about living a rich life. That’s going to equate to a different monetary amount for everyone depending on location, family, interests, wants…. you know.

I would feel rich if I could own a modest home in a nice area, eat out for one meal a day, and spend time doing what I like to do. Which is mainly hanging at the beach, making music, writing, watching movies, and traveling.

When I look back at the average day and realize I’ve spent 8+ hours working for someone else just so I can pay the rent to live in a city I don’t love but I moved to solely for this job, well…. I could be making 10x my salary and still not feel rich.

I guess time really is money, huh.

Having ability to use my time as I please (which MIGHT mean not having to work because I have cash flow to support this lifestyle).

Paying for convenience (think services such as delivery, cleaning, eating out more frequently)

All this equates to essentially having FAT Fire status somewhat early in a life would be rich to me.

For me personally that would be 80K expenses a year and not having to do a day of work anymore if I decided to (and instead focus on hobbies/volunteering/vacationing)

Using numbers, it would need to be investments that allow me to withdrawal 100K a year without ever running out and a fully paid off home.

Right now my annual living expenses per year is around 33K without counting church tithing. I'm single and living a comfortable life. If I was a homeowner my expenses would likely bump up to around 40K, so the 80K expenses I mentioned above would be pretty much balling out.

I think most of the people on this app are rich compared to the majority of the population. Its a matter of feeling financially secure that motivates most of us. So for me, it would be able to survive off interest and dividends. I have pretty low expenses. That would be around 2.5 mil in investments.

Being “rich” is a state of mind.

Do you have happy and healthy kids? Check! Can you pay the bills? Check! Can you afford to travel and live your life in peace? Check! Do you have personal and professional freedom, such that you can take you kid to see the dolphins on Wednesday morning without asking for permission someone? Check . You are rich! You are rich beyond belief! And no material possession in the entire world would make you happier! I guarantee it! Trust me- personal experience.