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".

QueenBlueberries
why the laugh? Any employee who has to give away at least HALF of their income in tax is overtaxed. See how you would like it if half the week you spend away from your kids is for the benefit of others.

The tax bracket is far too low.

Really rich people are not on PAYE to avoid this anyway, the way their assets are in trust to make them avoid inheritance tax and so on.

Some posters are targeting the wrong people in their hatred.

I would say multi millionaires are rich. People with multiple homes, luxury cars, like I'm thinking of Kardashians and the like haha.

My husband makes 250k+ a year, we have 3 kids in private school, I'm a SAHM, we go on 3-5 vacations throughout the year and I think we are middle class. Def not rich. I clean my own house, shop for groceries at Tesco, completing my MA online so I can to back to work eventually, buy uniforms second hand. We are not frivolous and I think rich means you never ever worry about money. Don't even think about price tags. Fly first class always (or private), have household staff.

Icey4 see I’d disagree, I’d say a 250k income and 3 x private school kids is rich

It's perfectly possible to be rich and still think about large purchases, not flash your wealth etc.

The easiest way to define it is based on nationwide income. If you are in the top 5-10% of earners (as the OP is) then you are rich. Of course there are still the mega-wealthy above you, but you are still relatively rich because you have more money coming in than at least 90% of the population.

My husband makes 250k+ a year, we have 3 kids in private school, I'm a SAHM, we go on 3-5 vacations throughout the year and I think we are middle class. Def not rich

But you are richer than 97% of people in the country.

To be completely honest, if my friends or family regularly brought that up in conversation, I wouldn’t be asking myself if I were rich or not. I’d be asking myself if there’s something I’m saying or doing that could be provoking that reaction.

And as to what rich is, it’s all relative. Like others on this thread I grew up in relative poverty. I now earn less than you, but my wage is high enough to do everything I need it to do and a lot of what I’d like it to do. I may not be rich, but I’m rich enough!

But you are richer than 97% of people in the country.

richER doesn't mean RICH, I think that's where some people get confused. (not sure about the 97% either!)

I'm debt free have a total of 400K assets including house and earn 50K a year (single income household).

I consider myself to be one of the 'rich' when it comes to 'the rich should pay more in taxes'.

I don't think anybodies work is worth more than say 100K a year (37 hour week)...I'd propose 40% tax over 40K, 50% tax over 50K, 60% tax over 60, 70% tax over 70K etc, until 100% tax beyond 100K (for a 37 hour week).

If people want to earn more by working more hours, that's one thing. Earning 5x more for an hours work than say, a nurse, just because of random market forces seems wrong to me.

To me, ‘rich’ means being independently wealthy with no debts. It means ownership of substantial assets, eg properties, land, investments etc which provide sufficient income to live very comfortably without needing to work.

"I’d be asking myself if there’s something I’m saying or doing that could be provoking that reaction."

Its easy. I come from a family of working class very left socialist so just by doing well it provokes it. I've had cousins call me the rich bitch when I refused to pay his rent for the year on the basis "I can afford it so why not"

Being the first in the family to get out of a very well known dodgy area of a northern city and "do well" has a lot of resentment.

For many people living in sub Saharan Africa, well off would be having a tap in your village, and rich would be having a tap in your home. Most of the poorest people on here will have 2 taps in their kitchen and 2 in their only bathroom. So they're fucking loaded.

I have 9 taps in my house......I'm rich......beyond my wildest dreams!!!

OP I'd classify you as very rich given that you have a tiny mortgage and no kids. You can't have any money worries on that income.
To me, rich is the freedom not to stop working but to do whatever you want with the money you've earned from work, with no anxiety or need to forego one thing in order to afford another.
I suppose super-rich would be freedom to not work and do whatever you want with the money you've acquired.

until 100% tax beyond 100K (for a 37 hour week)

oh so that will motivate people to work, will it!

You do realise that over-taxing people mean they just move away?
I don't think anybodies work is worth more than say 100K a year (37 hour week) well, you are wrong. You don't seem to understand that people's salary can be linked to the revenue they bring to their own company .

Where do you think companies find the cash to pay the support teams, tax and so on? From the ones who bring it there, and need to be paid accordingly!

We can argue that some essential jobs are not paid enough - which no one can disagree with I hope - but not that some jobs are paid too much!

My DP and I have a combined income of 68k, we live in London zone 5 in a rental property. No DC (yet!). We are pretty comfortable, after our rent and bills are paid and savings topped up we have a nice bit of fun money. But I know that’ll all be eaten up when we have kids and have childcare costs etc.

I wouldn’t say we are rich, but we have friends living further up north in 40k/50k income households - although their rent/mortgage is cheaper of course, but they might think we are rich. It all depends who you ask.

But mainly I am just very thankful that we have decent jobs, we don’t have to watch every penny and we have a roof over our heads. We don’t have to worry about paying rent and bills. Yes we can’t afford a deposit to buy where we live, we can’t go on fancy holidays without saving and we couldn’t afford a new car outright - but we are happy, and we are do OK. We can have a nice meal out and go to the cinema and book a city break. More money would make things easier, but I do also think I’m pretty happy as we are.

richER doesn't mean RICH, I think that's where some people get confused

Right, but since everybody is richer or poorer than somebody else, the easiest way to OBJECTIVELY actually define "rich" is based on where you fall in comparison to the rest of your population (in this case the national population). If you earn more than 97% of the population, you are rich.

And actually I was curious about the percentages too so I looked it up on here: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/income-and-deductions-2010-to-2011

Earning 200k or more actually puts you in the top 0.8% of taxpayers in the UK.

icey of course you're rich! Flying first class or privately? 3 children at private school, staff, income of over 1/4 million per annum?? Honestly how could you possibly think that's not rich? I say that coming from a single income household of over well over£100k so not totally overawed by your salary.

but does it mean any tax payer, or just the people on PAYE...

I consider us to be rich and our household income is around 70k (well, my husband’s income- I’m studying so not working at the moment). I grew up in poverty so the fact I never need to worry about petrol and wouldn’t be phased by an unexpected bill does make me feel wealthy. I’m south east, for context.

I think we do ourselves a disservice only considering material/financial 'richness'. It gets in the way of who we really are underneath it all.

Honestly how could you possibly think that's not rich?

If you look at the price of properties in London, it's not. If you look at the hours I am guessing her DH has to work, and the possible pressure, it really isn't.
Being rich doesn't mean having to work to pay the bills ,especially to work for someone else

A lot of people don’t look at the whole picture.
Children in private school doesn’t necessarily mean rich. for many parents it means well off and strictly prioritising education (and de-prioritising holidays, meals out, new clothes)
Lowish income doesn’t mean poor (if you live mortgage free and your parents do all childcare, an combined income of lets say £30 000 is well off)
i like the definition of “decisions not financially motivated”, because it takes everything into account.

We went on holiday at Christmas to the Carribean

I just don't believe we're rich

Can you really not see how contradictory those two statements are?

Being "rich" means that you have "fuck off money".

Basically, you're not rich unless you have so much money that you can tell anybody you like to fuck off, and there are absolutely no consequences for you.

Very very very few people have that much money.

OP there are lots of societal divides at the moment due to austerity. I'm going to use WC/MC here which I'm sure some people will find insulting but really we are all aware of UK class systems, so for ease... People who would have classed themselves MC are now finding they are living on similar wages/means as WC, which causes a lot of anger as in this day and age we expect our living standards to improve. This in turn means that the WC sometimes get cross when they see MC call themselves 'poor'. Sometimes the MC person is actually living on similar wage but perhaps has a house left to them or sometimes may just have gone to University or had a good job at some point. This marks them as 'other'. So, anger on both sides. Then you have a large wide yawning gap (with the odd MC still clinging on in the middle but fewer than before) and you have the multi-millionaires and the billionaires, who can do what they want when they want. These have almost become mythical creatures as people can't actually comprehend having 1 million let alone a billion.

The point is, while we are all fighting each other at the bottom of the pile, the richest do in fact get richer. They are who we shop from, buy our homes from, our cars, holidays, mortgages.

So OP, although I am sure you are better off than a lot of MN'ers you aren't really rich. A lot of people don't even class having £1mil in assets as 'rich' these days, considering most homes (in SE) are worth £250k+ That is because austerity has inflated the inequalities to such an extent the true wealth of the minority is incomprehensible to most and therefore they'd like to pick apart someone more accessible.

I don't think anybodies work is worth more than say 100K a year

So if I told you if you gave me £100, and I would invest it in my hedge fund and turn it into a million quid within a year, but if I was successful, you had to pay me £150K and just keep £850K, you'd turn me away, because no ones work is worth more than £100K a year.

Mumsnet economics at it's finest!!!