To ask what people consider rich....

[Imoen]

I'm possibly going to be flamed but Im genuinely curious. I keep reading on thread about its ok for the "rich" or the rich are getting richer etc....

I've also had several conversations with friends/family and often the throw away comment is "its ok for you, you're rich".

Thing is, I don't think we are. To me rich is not having to worry about working again.

WE both have very very good salaries which I'm grateful for an I know we're lucky (me 90K, him 60K) and we have a mortgage on a 4 bed house worth 280K. (130K left to pay).

But I would not say we are "rich".

I would love not to have to worry about money. We manage on our salaries but we have only had one foreign holiday in 6 years, our cars are ok but we bought them from salvage and fixed them up.

I really wish I had done better in school :(

Unless you're talking about the 1% (IE privates jets and Daddy buying you an island for your birthday kind of rich) then I think it's all relative.

I come from a poor background and a lot of people in my home town have never worked, and the ones who have mostly work minimum wage. They all seem to think that I'm rich because I have a "real" job and a husband with a "real" job. The fact is that right now we're really struggling to get enough money together to put down a deposit on a house, and we both did very long degrees that mean we have masses of student loan debt to pay off. I think it will be a few years until we've got enough money to get a mortgage on a modest house.

We're certainly not poor by my standards - we never worry about making the rent payment and if I wanted a take away, a new pair of shoes or to go and meet a friend for lunch then I can usually afford to do these things without worrying too much about our budget. But to the circle of friends we have now we are probably considered to be quite poor, because we don't have a flashy car and we can't afford to jet off somewhere fancy for a holiday at the drop of a hat.

Like I said, it's all relative.

I'd consider us "comfortable" because we own our house with no mortgage 3 bed terrace, inheritance paid off the mortgage & don't need to budget to get food on the table. Family income is less than £40k, we have 3 DC & I can't imagine us ever being able to afford a foreign holiday. We often don't go away on holiday at all, but will ensure we do a few day trips, or maybe a night away in a YHA or Holiday Inn, each year.

We have all we need, therefore we are comfortable. To me, anyone with a family income of over £50k is rich. If you earn enough that the bank will give you a big enough mortgage that you can live in a decent house, even if that means budgeting, you're rich to me! I'm desperate to move, can you tell?!

"Rich" is a wealth-level, it's nothing to do with income. I think "rich" starts at a net worth of tens of millions.

I think psychologists have said we measure our success/wealth relative to others rather than absolutely. E.g “I’m richer than my co-workers”, “I’m richer than my family” = success.

You could feel unsuccessful with a household income of a million if everyone else had a household income of 5 million.

By this reckoning most people might be happier having the best house/drive/car etc on a normal street rather than the worst house/drive/car on a posh street, as long as the neighbourhood was nice enough that crime and anti-social behaviour weren’t an issue.

@Imoen
It sounds to me as though you are in a very good financial position and rich is probably a fair enough word to describe your circumstances. You could realistically pay your mortgage off in the next 2 or 3 years and be even more well off.

Its not clear from your post if your combined income of £150k is before or after tax but either way its alot more than most household in the UK. This tool will give you an idea of where you are in comparison to others: www.ifs.org.uk/tools_and_resources/where_do_you_fit_in

I'd say you were rich.

We have around 60k coming in a year and we're 'comfortable'

Its before tax.

I just get annoyed with a good proportion of my family demanding the rich pay more tax, refusing to define rich but then in other conversations call us rich.

But when we point out do you mean "WE" should pay more tax, they say no we don't mean you but you are rich.

Head bang on brick wall

I'd say someone with an income in the top 10% or asset value in the top 10% is rich.

To me rich is :
debt free (including no mortgage)
either a second property or other investment
top of the range car
Multiple holidays a year
Working because you WANT TO as opposed to HAVE TO

We are asset rich, cash poor I suppose. Out of the above list we are debt free incl no residential mortgage, top of the range car, investment property for DC (although that has 50% mortgage). We both enjoy our jobs & work part time since our outgoings are low. But we do have to work. We don’t have a great savings pot & holiday in the UK not abroad (lack of cash means small holidays). I watch what I spend because I’m trying to build our savings. However, if you asked my family, they would call us rich or at very least, well off.

There have already been a bazillion threads on this. Usually one or two a week.

You are near the top 5% of earners and your husband top 10%. So objectively you are among the richest in the country yes.

To me anyone who doesn't really have to think about money before e.g. buying a car or going on holiday overseas or dealing with a surprise home issue like replacing a boiler or a roof - by which I mean think about it in a "hmm, can we afford this and what sacrifices will we have to make to get it?" kind of way is richer than I can ever dream of being, but I think rich-rich is never having to think about the cost of anything, ever, and not having to work again/any longer/ever without that having an adverse impact on your comfortable standard of living.

To me the OP is comfortably off. Breaker is wealthy. The Aga Khan with his strings of racehorses and private jets is stinking rich.

I thought I agreed with the 'decisions not made with any regard to finance' but then I don't make decisions that way.

We moved out of Manchester back to NI taking a massive pay cut-about 30k odd is our total household income now but we have no mortgage & spend lots of time with extended family & pottering in our garden. I've never been happier.

However, fil is more than comfortable & due to this, I don't bother any more about saving for the future as there's already a little in trust for dc. If there wasn't, then I'd be concerned about savings. We don't care about fancy holidays & I have just stopped drinking wine every night so expect to feel a lot richer soon

Rich is having enough cash and assets to support a very comfortable lifestyle without having to be in employment.

I don't think anyone who needs to be an employee to pay for their car, their mortgage and the kids school can be called "rich", a 6-figure salary is nowhere near enough unfortunately. Comfortable, yes, but not the people who need to be penalised and over-taxed.

or having in excess of 10 millions in the bank sounds about right too.

'overtaxed' ahah.

It's a difficult question to answer. We have a combined household income of 82k. This, I realise, is an awful lot more than some people have but I don't feel rich.

This is because I live in a very expensive city in the South East with a reasonably large mortgage. I have 2 children with the general expense that comes with them, and go on on holiday once a year which has to be in the school holidays.
I realise this makes us fairly comfortable but i wouldn't categorise us as rich.
We have to think about how we spend, and certainly couldn't afford private school or luxury holidays.

I would say rich people don't have to think about how they spend and can afford significant luxuries. I don't think it necessarily comes with an income bracket because outgoings can vary wildly.

I don't know.
I generally consider myself pretty rich to be honest but I'd wage a decent bet that no one else would class me as such.

I think I feel this way as I came from a very poor childhood - single parent household and my dad wasn't on the scene/ never paid maintenance, council house that was in serous disrepair, my mother struggled with alcoholism so holding down a job/ not spending what little benefits we had on alcohol was an issue. Electricity would often get cut off, I'd be embarrassed in school when it would be brought to my attention that my book rental etc hadn't been paid for, not much food in the house (or would live on noodles/ cans of spam etc)

DH and I now own a large (mortgaged!) 5 bedroom house in the country, we can pay this mortgage comfortably and we can meet all of our other bills each month, we each have a car, we go on at least one foreign holiday and a few weekends away per year (with our 3 children) that we can afford. I'm able to save €100 a week, we have nice days out/ can eat out and not worry. Our electricity has never been cut off.

So I tend to think I'm loaded to be honest, I pinch myself sometimes because I cant believe that this is actually my life.
Again, we're probably not loaded by many people's standards - we both work and take home a little over the national average (not UK) wage but DH does have a second income.

I've never heard anyone call themselves rich, no matter how high their income/capital/wealth status. lucky, comfortable, well off etc but never rich. i wonder why that is?

fwiw, to me a rich person is someone whose yearly household income is over a million GBP (in uk), owns a house with no mortgage, doesn't have to worry about the prices of everyday items. Can choose quality over cost.

On the Sunday Times rich list the measure of richness is billions not millions for the top ones

Most of the UK is considered rich. It doesn't make you happy though and everyone wants more.

I'm a partner at a big 4 accountancy firm in a senior leadership position. My job is very flexible and I'm on my second mat leave atm. My husband owns a very successful company. I was doing well before I met him and I won't give up work now that my salary is meaningless.

I think DH and I are rich and your household income is the same as ours so I think you must be too. Except our four bedroom detached house is in London and our original mortgage on it was £500,000.

We are on a combined salary of around 110k. Our house is worth 460k. We have no mortgage and have nice holidays. We don’t think of ourselves as rich because we don’t flash the cash or buy things just for the name or to keep up with the neighbours. We are comfortable and happy and our DC are kind, down to earth kids that value what they have.

Obviously it relative.... it's safe to say millionaires are rich but below that level it becomes harder to equate what rich means.

People have called us rich but for the last few years we've felt hard up. 70 k household income, decent size mortgage, loan payment for new kitchen, two cars to run and two children to clothe and feed, expensive area to live in.
We genuinely don't have lots of disposable income right now. If we have a couple of hundred a month to save we're doing well.

Some would shout it's all choices and we're rich.

To me to feel rich, we'd have to sell the house move 25 miles to a town with low house prices, pay the debts. Buy a 2 bed terrace for 60k stick 200k in to investments, downgrade the cars.

If we did that we'd be very well off possibly rich... we could have great holidays and expensive hobbies!!

I too think Breaker’s definition is a good one. Although it is possible to never reach it if your material aspirations keep expanding.
I think we have crept into the rich category in the last couple of years on her definition, but I can see how some people could get trapped into constantly upgrading their lifestyle to match their (large) resources so that they never feel “safe” or free.
At all levels of affluence, people around you have nicer things; we have a couple of relatively modest foreign properties in nice areas. That is incredible and we love them. However some of the friends we’ve made in the main one, have stunning multimillion pound properties there, and there are multimillion pound yachts in the marina.
I love our houses and love being debt free so I’m not remotely tempted, but I can see how people, as awful as it sounds, feel they should have x, and x becomes normal.
You can be a worried multimillionaire if the upkeep of your chalet in Klosters, villa in Umbria, house in Hampshire and the holiday and lifestyle expectations of your family means that you bump against your available liquid cash limits every so often, and you fear the consequences of a downturn. They are still rich though, they just aren’t managing it well.
If you have a high household income, nice house and lifestyle and could afford things like private schooling if desired, you are well off.
I grew up in a well off family, was well off in my first marriage, not well off at all but not proper poor for a few years then crept back up over a period of 10 years.
DH grew up poor, became relatively well off fairly quickly in adulthood, then plateaued for years before rocketing in the last 7 years.
The best think about wealth for us is absence of anxiety. Of course we still worry about friends, work, family, health etc. But the nagging anxiety and constraint of lack of money is absent, that’s a big deal.