How much would it take for you to earn before you felt rich?
According to a recent report, 2.5 million UK households earn £88,000 per year – more than 3 times the national average household income.
Yet 90% of these people do not class themselves as rich – they reckon being rich means earning £150,000 per household, with a paid off mortgage, owning more than 1 property as well as being able to send their kids to private school.
Of course, the problem here is that it’s all relative. I don’t feel rich, yet looking from here, if our household was earning £88,000 I think I would be very happy. For families on lower incomes, I’m sure they be very happy living on what me, my partner and kids live on.
And earning a certain amount each year doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be financially secure. If your spending expands to meet your income, which I often think is the case, then you might have nice stuff and live an extravegant lifestyle, but you still might not have the financial stability of someone who watches their pennies.
Do you feel “rich”? How much do you think you need to be “well off”?
For me *rich* is not needing to worry about whether you can afford something. Which either means lowering your expectations, or increasing your means. I’m working on both.
I think 99% of people will never feel ‘rich’. Financially speaking, they will always want more, first the second home, then a boat, then a mansion, then a football team…theres always more. True richness (if thats a word) comes from being happy with where you are now, not only financially, but in terms of relationships, work/life balance etc. The majority of people will never appreciate this.
My Dad earns £52,000 pounds a year, my Mum earns roughly the same, I am 13 so I don’t know, but I don’t consider that to be rich quite frankly XD, I don’t go to private school, our mortgage isn’t paid off yet, we have one house. The only thing I consider that could qualify for being “Rich” is that I travel abroad 4 times a year. I have been to 20 countries which is, 4 continents and 25 states of America including Hawaii and California. Apart from that, No way hosay am I rich.
Our annual household income is around 200,000pounds. We have 1.5 million pounds in cash or shares, three properties, no mortgage, no loans – but we don’t feel rich. Probably ‘rich people’ are the ones who have what you can’t afford; therefore no-one ever says they are rich.
It’s hard to tell when you’re rich… but boy is it easy to know when you’re poor!