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CBJSprague24 posted:Again, being well-off doesn't make you exempt from struggles/adversity/hardships/bullshit. You seem, uh, rather unselfaware. Lots of folks (in the US at least) can’t afford mental health counseling. I assure you that poor folks also sometimes have trouble getting laid, and they often have family members with health problems. Inheriting seven figures of rental properties makes these problems much easier to deal with. (I realize that a good chunk of this thread is v old, but thanks to whoever bumped it. It’s super interesting.)
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Sep 7, 2020 14:35
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I'm just like everyone else I have to decide if I want an rtx 3080 or a 3090. It's tough.
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Sep 10, 2020 18:32
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Jesse Ventura posted:You seem, uh, rather unselfaware. Lots of folks (in the US at least) can’t afford mental health counseling. I assure you that poor folks also sometimes have trouble getting laid, and they often have family members with health problems. Money doesn't buy happiness, it buys you the freedom to deal with just the problems you'd have anyway, without having to worry about a ton of other stuff on top.
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Sep 10, 2020 19:45
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"Money doesn't buy you friends, just a better class of enemy"
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Sep 11, 2020 08:16
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To answer OP's question, I guess it depends on how self aware you are? When all of your friends and their families are more or less leading the same kind of lifestyle you don't really notice your wealth unless maybe someone successfully points it out to you. I was born into it, though growing up I never considered that I was wealthy. I went to a private school and lived in a 2 story house in what I now know was an expensive area, was always well fed, clothed, etc. My parents both worked in different careers and also invested in property. The amount of financial privilege I had never occurred to me until after I tried living in share houses with other people in totally different financial situations, and I'd had a year or so to get to know some people and got to understand different points of view, and other situations that people are in, like why some people struggle with rent even though they're working full time, etc. I'm in my 30's now, but about a decade ago I got diagnosed with epilepsy which has seriously limited my options for work (can't drive, operate heavy machinery, do late nights/rotating shifts, work in extreme conditions) so today I'm really aware that without my good fortune I'd probably be seriously hosed without the support of my family - they bought me a small house in a financially safe area, I have no mortgage or other debts, but on top of that my dad gifted me and my brother an investment property of his that we can make money from passively. Without that assistance I would be renting somewhere or still living with my parents making next to nothing. On that note, I rented out a room in my own house for a while to help cover costs, the tenant was having his rent paid by his mum while his own house was being built (she was paying for his house as well). Despite all of his costs being covered, his mother never actually remembered to pay the rent on time, and I had to get in contact with her each month to remind her. The general attitude was that it wasn't really at the top of her list of priorities, and she would get around to it when she considered it worth the time (so usually a couple of weeks overdue, probably to fit in with whatever other payments she had her accountant making).
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Sep 13, 2020 15:08
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I recently came across a survey of what people considered to be rich in this country (not the US). Apparently I make 40% over the threshold. I'm not going to dispute that compared to >90% of the population I'm doing very well but... I think this speaks more to the lack of understanding just how wide the gap can be than me being actually rich in any meaningful sense, I think in terms of lifestyle this is really upper-middle class at best. My family did pretty well and there were maybe 5-6 really good years. I think my parents were pretty conscious of the privilege and the lovely situation most others were in so we lived pretty modestly in the same old apartment, never bought a new car, etc. Mostly though it was the ability to travel once or twice a year, make some quality of life improvements and not worry about money on daily basis. I was just a kid though, I'm sure dad was pretty burnt out from it all and by the time I graduated it was all gone. I remember one day mom asking me to get some money from the ATM and... there was just nothing there. I just had a decent education and ground my way through corporate to a mid-level drone. That's it. I can work from home or from the beach which is nice when there isn't a pandemic. The money is decent and because I'm single, it's really more than I can meaningfully spend so a lot of it gets invested. That said it's not that much and I could easily spend it all and more if I wanted a nicer house or fancy new car, or decided to take motorsports, flying or even diving seriously. I'm certain there'd be nothing left if I had a family to support too. One of my dad's friends is legit rich. Like countrywide famous rich. That's an entirely different level, where you can just rent a entire floor in a "skyscraper", have an army of drivers with Land Cruisers on standby, and buy your wife a Porsche to learn driving in. That's the kind of gently caress-you money that lets you do whatever you want. I'm not saying playing xbox, but quitting the work and just travelling for a year, or studying marine biology because you like whales, or whatever. I can't do that without burning through years of savings and possibly sabotaging my career. I have a few friends who are similarly or slightly more "rich" IT dorks and we're in a comfortable situation but not gently caress-you comfortable. I also have friends who are making less but it's not such a huge gap that we can't find a common ground, I'm close to a homeless person than to a really wealthy one. You can read my e/n thread to see how all this doesn't make you happier, but I'm glad I don't have to worry about food or shelter at least, that would've been even worse. Duck and Cover posted:I'm just like everyone else I have to decide if I want an rtx 3080 or a 3090. It's tough.
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Sep 21, 2020 23:22
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mobby_6kl posted:I recently came across a survey of what people considered to be rich in this country (not the US). Apparently I make 40% over the threshold. I'm not going to dispute that compared to >90% of the population I'm doing very well but... I think this speaks more to the lack of understanding just how wide the gap can be than me being actually rich in any meaningful sense, I think in terms of lifestyle this is really upper-middle class at best. 
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Sep 22, 2020 06:39
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I won't get into a lot of details--my family is "well off", not "rich" (those two things are entirely different), but I will explain the money as mulligans premise. Anyone who knows me well enough has heard this, sorry to anyone on SA who knows me IRL because they've probably heard it. Money erases mistakes. It allows you a transition from Plan B to Plan C... to Plan F, to Plan G... to Plan Z. My family is frugal, but it's all in the interests of mulligans. There are very, very few mistakes that money can't fix. That's what money does, what it actually does: it makes problems go away. The greater the magnitude of the problem, the more money is required. Ideally, you never, ever need it. Live a good, clean life. But if you make a mistake, your money is there to help you compensate for the error. It allows you to get back on track, provided you had been on the right track. Oh, you accidentally spilled resin on the carpets of your apartment? Whoops. You don't get your deposit back. Okay, whatever. It's a mistake. Oh, you forgot the put the roast away and it spoiled in the grocery bag? Whoops. Buy another. It's not worth getting sick. Oh, the easement on this property isn't what you expected? Whoops, buy the adjacent property. Et cetera.
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Sep 22, 2020 06:48
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The great illusion is that one ever has enough to be safe. That’s what the poor know.
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Sep 22, 2020 06:55
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Well, at some point it's "go to whatever college you want, majoring in whatever you want, and emerge knowing you owe nothing" and that is not immaterial.
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Sep 22, 2020 06:58
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That’s still middle class, upper middle class. That was my wife’s experience.
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Sep 22, 2020 07:01
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I've mentioned before that I see "rich" as 15-20mil+ and it's a different experience; I do know people like that but at some point it depends on sensibility. But to another extent, it depends on if you can genuinely hit Plan Z without major life hiccoughs.
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Sep 22, 2020 07:16
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Bar Ran Dun posted:That’s still middle class, upper middle class. "Upper middle class" is what rich people call themselves when they still have enough self-awareness to be embarrassed about it.
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Sep 22, 2020 07:19
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Bar Ran Dun posted:That’s still middle class, upper middle class. That was my wife’s experience. You're right, we're not rich. Nevermind, you can discount that.
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Sep 22, 2020 07:27
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Look at it this way, the thinking is still about precarity (I don’t know if I’m creating that word or not but I’m going to use it). Money gets rid of problems by creating options is middle class thinking. The rich have somebody else to do that and to think that for them. They don’t think like that. They tend to be naive to all those problems, unless they didn’t start rich.
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Sep 22, 2020 16:00
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If you're not rich enough to flee to a compound in New Zealand you're stuck on this boat with the rest of us.
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Sep 22, 2020 22:10
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As per the posts above, the answer depends on who you ask. To me personally, being rich is not having any debt which is a goal I reached in my mid 40s. It feels great because I always had a serious (possibly non-rational) fear that entities I owe money to have the ability to literally ruin my entire family's life by taking my house for example. I've been lucky in the sense that I never had an issue repaying my debt as per the agreed terms, but still always had the feeling of a sword dangling over my head. My lifestyle is somewhere in the upper middle class echelon, and although I don't drive a Porsche for example (which I would like to), I certainly consider myself rich according to my personal definition. A close family member of mine is worth in excess of USD 10 Million, and his definition of being rich is the knowledge that he doesn't need to own a USD 1 Million Bugatti, but COULD own one if he so wished. Having this amount of cash has allowed him to retire very early and spend more time with this family as well as the pursuit of his hobbies such as gardening (on a grand scale) and I quite honestly envy him and his situation somewhat. This money has essentially removed just about all major concerns from his life with the exception of potential health problems which of course are also highly mitigated by being rich. He lives in a really nice area, in a really nice house, on a massive beautiful property, has a few up-market cars like BMWs & Audis as well as a USD 200k supercar and goes on occassional luxury holidays when he feels like it. Basically, he doesn't seem to have much in the way of worries in his life that normal people have and he never seems to be forced to do anything that he doesn't actually feel like doing, like going to work for example. If some major calamity were to affect him where he lives, like war or something like that, he could easily just simply move someplace else with little worry, and contingency plans like alternative passports have been in place for ages (EU, basically bought through the "investment" of many many Euros). To me, he sits in the best place, rich enough to be almost completely worry free, but unaffected by the bullshit the mega-rich seemingly are affected by ,such as concerns about someone else at the country club having bought a yacht 3 ft longer than theirs. I know a few people at that wealth level where bodyguards take the kids to school (in a 3 blacked out Mercedes AMG convoy please), and can't help but think that this type of rich brings introduces more worries. In summary, being rich to me is all about how money removes worries in my life, makes more time available to do the things I enjoy and to a lesser extent, allows me to buy shiny things / material possessions. There is a vast gap between my financial position and that of my close family member, and I strongly believe that his money has put him into a position where is generally happier than I am (which doesn't mean that I am unhappy), which makes me feel envious.
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Sep 23, 2020 13:24
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BlueBull posted:To me, he sits in the best place, rich enough to be almost completely worry free, but unaffected by the bullshit the mega-rich seemingly are affected by ,such as concerns about someone else at the country club having bought a yacht 3 ft longer than theirs. This isn’t a mega-rich problem. This is envy and it’s one of those things that money can’t fix. Like most everything else, money can help (see a therapist / just buy a bigger boat). But to really get past it you’re going to have to do some work on yourself.
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Sep 23, 2020 14:14
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I certainly don't disagree, but I was trying to highlight that in my experience with those kind of mega-rich people, this attitude seems to be quite common. That close family member of mine certainly seems to be pretty immune to it and doesn't engage in the dick-waving contests. Maybe it's connected to the fact that he grew up in a very poor background rather than inheriting his wealth. I should actually ask him about it over a few beers one day, he's a very chill guy. And as I said, although I freely admit to also feeling somewhat envious, in my case I think it's not so much aimed at the material things as such, but rather the lifestyle the close family member of mine enjoys. However, I certainly don't consider the envy I sometimes experience as something that eats at my soul at night or requires therapy. Quite frankly I can easily balance this out by thinking about the fact that I am very lucky to be in the situation that I am in now, and remembering the worries I had in the past regarding the hold a bank had over me and even moreso, my family.
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Sep 23, 2020 14:54
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Fragmented posted:If you're not rich enough to flee to a compound in New Zealand you're stuck on this boat with the rest of us. https://www.newzealandnow.govt.nz/investing-in-nz/visas/investor-visa 3mill nzd. Roughly 2 mill usd. At least that's invested I mean you'll have other expenses too. New Zealand is one of the more expensive options.
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Sep 26, 2020 00:54
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mobby_6kl posted:I'm close to a homeless person than to a really wealthy one. buddy you have no idea what you're saying here. you're talking out your rear end
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Sep 26, 2020 02:43
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Money has diminishing returns. You can’t arbitrarily quit work for a year, but you’re still closer to the guy who can than the guy for whom fifty bucks could mean life or death by any metric other than “number of dollars”
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Sep 26, 2020 16:49
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I absolutely consider myself to be rich, simply because just under 40% of my pay goes into rent. Not some anti-capitalist jibe, but a pragmatic look at my finances. By design, I have so few expenses. No car, no dept (Aus Government HECS doesn't count). Just rent. And I stand to, eventually, inherit a big chunk of stuff. But I can spare so much of my pay to buy shares. Every couple of months I buy a chunk, increasing my overall wealth. So it's more and more. It's like a 4X game where you buy money-buildings. But really, I'm rich because I'm not toiling 16 hours a day trying to find food. I'm rich because I'm not being oppressed by my government while living my life. I'm rich because I'm actually able to afford a dwelling, for my very self, on the efforts of my own labour.
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Oct 13, 2020 17:26
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Money has diminishing returns. You can’t arbitrarily quit work for a year, but you’re still closer to the guy who can than the guy for whom fifty bucks could mean life or death by any metric other than “number of dollars”  I think this was discussed in another tread, but basically everyone thinks they're middle class for a number of reasons. I've seen the income deciles so I know better in numerical sense of course. Tiggum posted:You definitely sound rich to me. But as someone said earlier, people have different definitions so that's what I was talking about. Maybe it's rich vs wealthy semantics or working vs capitalist thing. I'm sure my view has been affected by personally knowing that one very wealthy guy, and having seen up close how you can go from a "rich" level salary to not being able to afford food due to a series of unfortunate events.
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Oct 15, 2020 10:47
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Responding to the envy element, one recipe for happiness is to have friends who are poorer than you are (or at least a blend). if you are always hanging out with people who are much richer than you, chances are you'll find it difficult, and be envious, regardless of how much money you have. Of course some people are always able to look at what they have rather than what they don't have, but one's environment makes that easier or more difficult. I suspect also that a lot of people who wanted to become mega-rich did so to address some internal insecurity or anxiety which getting really rich does not actually address.
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Oct 21, 2020 16:41
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TheMostFrench posted:To answer OP's question, I guess it depends on how self aware you are? When all of your friends and their families are more or less leading the same kind of lifestyle you don't really notice your wealth unless maybe someone successfully points it out to you. I was born into it, though growing up I never considered that I was wealthy. I went to a private school and lived in a 2 story house in what I now know was an expensive area, was always well fed, clothed, etc. My parents both worked in different careers and also invested in property. The amount of financial privilege I had never occurred to me until after I tried living in share houses with other people in totally different financial situations, and I'd had a year or so to get to know some people and got to understand different points of view, and other situations that people are in, like why some people struggle with rent even though they're working full time, etc. what kind of "investment" property did you get gifted?
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Nov 4, 2020 00:19
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