What makes you a millionaire (lighthearted)

[cait967]

Dh says if you sell every possession including home, and cash out every investment and count pension pot and it comes
to over a million then you are a millionaire

i say if you are including home and pension pot then you aren’t a millionaire (as you need pension and somewhere to live)

very light hearted but what do you call a millionaire. (I’m not a millionaire
under either rule very hypothetical)

Someone who has a million in the bank plus a big house on top of it x

I'd say everything bar pension pot to be honest.

I would include home equity as otherwise you could own a 2.5 mil house outright and not be 'a millionaire.'

I think alot of people are “paper millionaires” as in house is worth a lot but to me a millionaires needs to have liquid assets

But you could live in London and have a small house worth £500k. Then sell it and buy "up north" and release a chunk of it. Or even just rent and have equity in the bank.

So equity plus savings/investments excluding pension.

And it depends where you live. A million Canadian dollars is only worth around $556K in the U.K.

I think we need new definitions. Cause we have millionaires then next stop billionaire. Huge huge difference.

It’s all bollocks

the combo of my pension and house equity take me into the millons. This is one of interest to my kids.

I agree with you as there is a huge difference between net worth and liquid assets.

To be a millionaire to me that should be in liquid assets that you can access within say 30 days, so this would be excluding pension, home equity, cars, jewellery etc.

I remember an interview with Alan sugar many years ago. He was asked about billionaires. He said something like “not one of them could write you a cheque for 50 million right now, but I could”. Never forgot this as to me it’s about liquid assets.

I’d include home equity too. Property is an asset after all

For me, total net worth is assets minus liabilities.

Not sure why I’d exclude property, pension or anything else - I guess if you want to know liquid net worth 😂

I suppose if I think about it, net worth. I definitely consider someone with a net worth in the millions to be rich, regardless of where it is. I have an elderly relative I'd call rich - no-one really talks about it, but growing up I was vaguely aware that he'd patented a commercially popular formula (he's a chemist). I did wonder if he was rich, then one day I was suddenly old enough to realize that if you live in a six bed house in London with massive gardens (multiple) and a pool, you are certainly worth at least 2-3 million just in assets, and also have enough for lots of holidays, luxuries etc. As far as I'm concerned that's being a millionaire, even if you can't write a million pound cheque at this moment. And good for him, he earned it! I'm not expecting any kind of inheritance btw, there are lots of children and grandchildren first, just one day I got nosy and realized yeah, he's rich rich.

Anything that could be inherited.

I could write you a cheque for £50 million right now.

It would bounce though.

And I'd need to find a cheque book 🤦‍♂️

Your net assets . All of them to include pension .

Anything excluding pensions which to me is a salary for future years.

It’s crazy really. When I was a kid a millionaire seemed like a luxury jet at lifestyle. Nowadays I think you need at least ten million for that. It’s all about the billionaires now

A millionaire is someone with liquid assets of a million, we are getting close to this after doing far better than projected investment wise over the last few years.

Right time, place and decisions investments wise, could have also gone very badly.

I'd exclude pension just because I can't access that pot (at my age)

Now it could be left to someone if I die but I can't spend it as a pot. Bar 25%. So it's not accessible to me as cash bar over a very long time.

I think you have to exclude pensions as we're too young to access those.
I'm also inclined to exclude housing too. We live in an expensive part of the South East and our house is worth just under £1m but 2 bed terraces go for £400k or more so, as a family of four with teen DC of opposite sexes, by the time we'd done this place up enough to sell it, paid stamp duty and things we wouldn't actually free up much equity.

Yes time and inflation over time had played a big part in it not being as unusual. A millionaire in the 1970s would have been far more unusual than a millionaire in 2025!

Nope. A millionnaire is a millionnaire. Assets count.

It radiates me that one million seconds is about 12 days

whilst one billion seconds is 33 years

If you gave 2 people 5million pounds...
One bought a luxury mansion, leaving 950k in Bank
The second bought a 3 bed terrace in Yorkshire, leaving 4.8million in the bank...

You wouldn't say that number 2 was a millionaire but not number 1.

So yes, property should count!

There was a house on my street growing up that was built in 1870 and sold for £1000

in 1910 it was still worth £1000

in 1965 it sold for £6500

it sold again in 2000 for £400,000

now it’s up for sale again for £1.5 million

but inflation hasn’t risen at the same rate