What would you count as “rich”?

[partytimed]

I know it’s probably all relative but would be interested to know. My DB and SIL are rich IMO but they don’t think they are, my brother often makes comments to imply they’re strapped for cash.

hes told me he earns £280k and she earns £40k. Two kids in private school. They live in a house worth £1m but still have £300k mortgage to pay off.

in contrast our household income is £80k, live in a much smaller house, two kids. It grates a little bit that he’s always pleading poverty!

Depends on your perspective. I have earned high salaries, and low salaries. I count myself as rich but not because of money. I am rich as I have good friends, and had the best wife in the world. Or maybe I am just lucky?

I mean rich as in financial for this though, not in terms of general luck and happiness.

All of my family are millionaires. That’s because we have good health, good lives and we all love each other.

I’d say your DB is relatively well off but not rich. Rich in my mind means having enough cash to be financially carefree.

@Fodencat

I would agree. Even though your brothers income is high he will pay a lot of tax, mortgage and school fees.

To me, rich is nobody in that house ever needs to work again, unborn children never need to work. They have at least one other house in another country, no mortgages.
Anything less and I’d call them “well off”.
So I’d say your DB is well off but isn’t rich.

What he means is they don’t have much disposable income. Lots of high earners don’t have much left at the end of the month.

Private schooling and a £1m house is his decision so if he is strapped for cash it's his own fault. He could save £40k by dropping private school so perhaps remind him if he's being a nuisance!

But rich to me is never having to work again unless you want to rather than have to.

(I'm in an expensive part of the SE before anyone witters on about the house being a 3 bed terrace in Peckham).

I think people only think they are rich if they are Jeff or Elon level.

I’d say they were nicely ‘well off’ rather than rich. 160,000 take home not including any extra tax he will likely be paying on any benefits such as Bupa for all four of them, and not including pension etc. then takeaway £60-£75k for boarding school fees then extra savings, does not RICH make. To me at least. I don’t imagine he’s ok the breadline each bloody month, however.

I’d quite like that life, though!! Sigh….

Post tax, would it be about 160 versus 60 (ish?) and then your family can access tax free childcare which change it again. With progressive tax systems, it’s not as dramatic as it initially sounds. He should absolutely cop on and not be complaining to you, but while he’s privileged to use private school and have a large house, I can see why he doesn’t perceive himself as rich.

I don't think anyone, apart from Robbie Williams, would actually call themselves rich.

Based on previous threads on similar topics, it seems that people — whether they earn £80k or £250k — tend to define “rich” as having more money than they do

Why on earth are they pleading poverty?

Compared to me both yourself and your brother are rich.

But as PP said it’s about disposable income. We all make different choices and have different priorities and circumstances.

Not needing to work is rich to me. So having some sort of passive income or wealth base that negates a job.

I would have thought that with his salary he could pay all bills & his wife's money could all be saved if they wanted!

Often people stretch themselves mortgage wise.

Does he need to live where he does to get the income he does?

Is it a particularly big house for the family?

So their take home is £165k (£135k+ £30k). Mortgage approx £40k per year. School fees approx £60k per year. Leaves about £65k per year.

Your take home is about £60k (assuming the £80k is split pretty evenly). You say much cheaper house so I’m going to assume £12k mortgage. No school fees. Leaves about £48k per year compared to their £65.

So they probably have £17k more than you, or £1,500 per month. I assume they’ll have bigger council tax bills, utility bills etc. So not in tiny-violin territory, but maybe the gap isn’t as big as you think.

Obviously the difference is that eventually they will have more assets including the larger house, and bigger pensions (I’ve assumed everyone pays 10%).

It’s about choices isn’t it? Huge mortgage, private schools, expensive cars, meals out, holidays etc and at the end of the month the person earning £280,000 pa may be left with the same amount as the person earning £28,000 pa. To my mind they are rather stupid if that’s the case, but they have the choice, whereas the person on the lower salary probably doesn‘t.

People see rich as having enough money to live an extravagant lifestyle and still have loads left over. They’ll say they’re not rich because by the time they’ve paid the mortgage on their big home, paid school fees, paid for the upkeep of their horses and two cars they don’t have a lot left. They can’t see that they’re rich because they can afford to do those things in the first place. They want their cake and eat it.

You read of lottery winners who have blown £28M and gone bankrupt in a few years. Even they can’t afford absolutely everything they wanted, but nobody could deny that they were once filthy rich.

Agree with this!

What I find interesting is that my household income is above average but we never feel well off. Why? Because neither of us grew up particularly well off and we married young and had no money at all for many years until our careers took off. You don’t lose that sense of not feeling like you don’t have enough money. You don’t ever stop and go ‘hey I’m wealthy now’ . You always feel like the pack of cards will fall down at some point and you will be back at square one. Objectively people like the OP will pass comment and say you are rich and look at your fancy lifestyle but I don’t think you ever are able to feel it. I don’t think I would ever feel rich until I had about £10 million in the bank (never going to happen!)

People always think rich is earning at least 50% more than they currently do.

I think it’s quite hard to think of working people as Rich. It’s still precarious, mortgages and wages aren’t really a rich signifier

that said they’re clearly comfortable enough and whether you or they consider them rich is quite meaningless

100K income doesn’t even feel rich even tho it’s like top 2% uk earners

Rich to me would mean being able to buy anything you wanted and not having to think of the cost.