How much income does someone have to have before you consider them rich?

[buttersky]

For me it would be 500k income a year or more. I feel at this point most holidays, cars, houses can be bought without considering the price.

Rich for me is not having to work but getting an income over £200k+ pa from investments

400-500k. 200k is nothing in my area.

Being independently wealthy eg having enough investments / assets that you don't need to work.

You're not rich if you rely on work to generate an income. The rich test is having assets and investments generating ample spending money without really working.

5000 k might not be enough if you have a castle to maintain, a large number of dependents, or massive debts.

I guess its not just income, its also outgoings

sorry, meant 500 k, clearly! hard to imagine how 5000 k might not be enough for anyone!

Disposable income each month in the thousands (after utilities, property and essential food (not fancy restaurants)

It is not only about income though. You can be cash poor but asset rich.

Wealth isn’t about income. It’s about assets. What you own, not what you earn. My definition of a rich person is someone who can afford to live off the income of their properties, land, shareholdings, investment portfolios etc etc without the need to actually work.

£40,000 a year income

The average salary of the top quintile earners is £54,000 tastingbritain.co.uk/what-is-a-good-salary-in-the-uk/

That's where I'd place it - though of course many people on that salary won't feel rich because it doesn't match their aspirations and they will compare themselves to someone richer rather than someone poorer.

I think the income you need to earn be rich goes down as you use the income to build up assets and passive incomes to maintain any replace any that depreciate and for your day to day consumables.

And theres an element of well above average in the definition too. I dont know at what point you go from average, above average, rich, super rich.

In the UK, £42 k per year has been shown through research to be the threshold beyond which more pay makes less and less difference to happiness. I cant remember what research - but I remember I knew it once! although I guess with inflation, it could be a bit higher now, say £44 k per year?

Up to the threshold, happiness overall is likely to increase with income. Above the threshold, it doesn't

That's not to say many people are not perfectly happy with much less- it is a generalisation

Rich is about capital not income.

Person A lives in a £3million inherited house with no mortgage, £20K income per year from investments

Person B earns £60K per year and pays £2K per month in rent and has debts

who is richer?

As others have said, it's not really about income. It is about investments, inheritance, trust funds, that sort of thing.

My income bears very little relation to the money I have.

My DH earns about 250k p/a and gets about the same in bonuses and shares (not guaranteed). I wouldn't call us rich because this has only been his wage for the past few years and we are gearing up for him to retire so trying to sort out our house and save for future expenses. I would say we are fairly wealthy rather than rich. I do realise we are lucky though and if you met me you would have no idea as i am not fussed for clothes, bags etc.

In todays climate I feel 'rich' and very lucky. Dh and I have a household income of £110k. We're mortgage free, one dc, no childcare costs, no debts whatsoever, so we have lot of disposable income for holidays, making investments, savings etc. I think it comes down to personal circumstances and expectations. I don't think having more money would make us any happier- as I said we feel extremely fortunate.

£200k is not “nothing” in any area. That’s just ridiculous. It might be proportionately low for a small localised area of high earners, but nobody could argue that £200k is nothing when it’s so much higher than what 99% of people have.

(And before anyone accuses me of jealously, my household income is over £200k- I know what it’s like to live on that amount in an expensive area).

These days it's inheritance, savings, property. Jobs seem to be so insecure for everybody.

I'd say well off £100k plus and rich £200k plus

Not having to work.

Depends who I was talking to. Objectively maybe £100k? But if I were talking to DH I'd mean something more like "rich compared to us" which would be a different figure- maybe twice our income?

£100k is wild to me. Unachievable. We'll never see that amount of money unless we sell the house when we're 60odd and stack the money up in a pile.

Rich for me is owning a home big enough for each child to have a comfortable size room of their own, plus a playroom and living room big enough to fit more than one sofa, plus having say £1000 + disposable income after mortgage, CT, utilities etc. Actually scrap that, anyone who can afford a Tesla or a cleaner is rich to me!

1.2% of the world’s population have $1m or more in assets. That’s roughly £848k.

As PPs have said, assets not income.

Put your entire £848,000 in the highest paying account (4.88% 2 year fix - Thanks Money Saving Expert) and your pre tax income will be £41,382 per year.

www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/global-wealth-report/assets.html