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".

Watching this thread with interest, as the economics are somewhat different in the US.

We're in our late 50's, make a combined annual pretax income of about $180k, own our home mortgage free and have a pretty good pot of retirement savings. But we pay property taxes, state income taxes and federal income taxes and will spend somewhere around $350k putting our two DC through university. We also live in fairly expensive area near NYC.

No one here would think us rich, more upper middle class and comfortable.

We would certainly be considered well-off by most, and indeed in comparison to salaries in the UK, we are. Of course, it is also the case that, realistically, everyone in the UK is well off.

Poor is not having enough money to move from your mud hut to a shack in a village with fresh water, or having to choose which child to send to school, as the others are required to help with the daily foraging for food.

We are so fortunate to live where and how we do, that we often do not consider that millions around the world live on less that $1 per day. Although that number is decreasing rapidly - which is a good thing!

And yes, I am comfortable and it is easy for me to talk about these things. But, as some have mentioned above for themselves, I have also been poor by British standards - at one point I spent around 6 months living on a disposable income of £5 per week. But i still had a roof over my head, access to heating and water, and clothes/shoes/food etc

I would never dream of saying to someone in that position that the secret is hard work. It's making hard decisions, being lucky, and then identifying when to work hard.

Oh fuck off!
They have masses of money left over every month!

Being rude and abusive won't make you right you know
They have a perfectly respectable income, but that doesn't qualify as "masses of money". Some posters might have very low standard, it doesn't make them right.

The sad thing is that the really rich people can laugh at the bickering about what is a comfortable but not rich status by all means. By leaving people obsess about taxing the "over 100k", the really rich can get away with quite a lot.

Of course, it is also the case that, realistically, everyone in the UK is well off.

That's just nonsense now, isn't it?

When you are out next, try looking down and tell me if the homeless are well off.

If my car broke now i would have no money to pay for it to be fixed and it is essential. Money is a big topic in our house as we live hand to mouth. I would kill to be in your position. You are rich. However, with DS, we are rich in other ways. Id rather have nothing and a smile on all our faces than lots of money. (A happy family and enough money is obviously the dream!) I wake every day and pray the landlord doesnt decide to sell and the cars start.

I would class you as rich. Your salary is higher (nearly three times more) than our combined. We have approx the same on our mortgage as you. And we are comfortable.
FWIW I do think rich should pay more higher taxes. And would definitely class 90k as rich.

f course, it is also the case that, realistically, everyone in the UK is well off.

with free access to education, health, housing and so on, yes I'd say we are good. People want more, you can't blame them, and they are very quick to dismiss what real poverty is, because "Its not a race to the bottom you know"

Rich to me (and my generation) is owning a house with a mortgage you can pay and having enough disposable income left over to save a little, afford a holiday abroad, some luxuries like gym membership and treats like eating out from time to time etc without going into debt.

Free access to housing? Do you think the homeless are on a jolly?

Free access to education? Where is the access to education for those who were failed by school or failed by parents who did not enable access to school?

Free access to health? You mean healthcare I suppose. But let's be pedantic. Health isn't free. Health is expensive. For every decile that you move up through the wealth scale people will live longer and more healthily for longer. Even those who find themselves in the top 20% of the wealthy, will be outlived - as a cohort- than the top 10%. The poorest die the youngest, by far.

I just get annoyed with a good proportion of my family demanding the rich pay more tax,

Not sure how tax works for married couples, but assuming it's calculated separately you are already paying somewhere in the region of £35k between you each year, and £10-11k in NI (income tax by another name really), using very rough Salary Checker calculations. A single earner on your combined income of £150k is paying over £52k a year in taxes and another £7k in NI.

So yes you ARE paying more taxes than them by a large amount. Assuming they are on the lower rate for income tax, your top slice is 2.25x what they pay in percentage terms.

When you are out next, try looking down and tell me if the homeless are well off.

When I was a kid I had no shoes, and I thought I was badly off. Then I met a kid with no feet.

Do you think the homeless are on a jolly?

sadly homelessness is not just a financial issue, the majority have mental health problem.

Where is the access to education for those who were failed by school or failed by parents who did not enable access to school?
Schools are there, what a ridicule comment. If a parent refuse to put their child at school , you can't blame the state

Don't be dense Lifecraft. You do acknowledge that these people exist and that it is possible see poverty in the UK?

Yes, so what? Do homeless people have access to free housing?

teyem as much as you would like to be part of the royal family, you cannot say that we are not in a rich country where everybody has access to help.

System is not perfect, but we don't leave people die of starvation in the street as a rule, we don't wait for people to pay for their medicine before treating them in hospital.

I think it depends where you live, how many children you have, how stable your job is, how many debts you have etc.

If you don't have to work and still have way more coming in per month than you need to live comfortably, then you're rich.

To be truly rich I think you need to have a big income AND high net worth assets.

We're on a below average income (less than £40k combined) but have a £400k house with no mortgage and around £30k-35k in savings. Some people think we're rich, because we own our house outright.

But we still live pretty frugally, as we're getting near retirement age and only have the state pension to look forward to (I already have a small occupational pension). We don't regard ourselves as more than ok financially.

It is true that being poor in the UK has a different meaning than being poor, say, in Haiti. But even if we have clean tap water and access to healthcare, poverty in the UK is real and children do go hungry, too hungry to concentrate at school, having poor support at home, mental health support being cut by gvt, etc. I don't mind paying taxes on my humble income, I supplement this by giving to various charities. It does piss me off though that people at the top - as well as large multinational companies - don't pay what they should because of some form of legal tax evasion.

Or other unfair stuff like the 'free' 30 hours of childcare which is a great help if a couple has a joint income of say, £50k a year but it's also available for couple with both partners earning £99,999 a year. That's unfair in my views. Government clearly makes decisions to help people with higher income in order to get their votes.

Having everything you need, most of the things you want, and not being overdrawn.

Yes, we live in a rich country. We still have abject poverty for some. I simply refuted that in the UK that there is no true poverty.

As an aside, you couldn't pay me to be a part of the royal family.

Individual salary over 50k = Rich
Really? My single friend earns this. After taxes and paying towards her pension, contributioj towards her union and staff parking, she gets 2700.

Her mortgage for her 3 bed semi is £900. Her childcare costs are £550. Her bills for council tax, water, gas and electricity, tv and broadband comes to £250. Food incl. essentials is £400. She pays £200 for her car and £150 petrol for commuting. That leaves her with £250. She gets CB and £120 from her ex, but add kids activities, school trips, clothes, haircuts, and putting something aside for repairs/house maintenance/goods replacement, she is left with nothing at all.

If she's rich, then so are a number of single mums on benefit who are left with more disposable income than her (especially when they get a good maintenance payment from their ex).

When I was a kid I had no shoes, and I thought I was badly off. Then I met a kid with no feet.

And then the kid with no feet met someone who couldn't talk, or someone with no feet AND no hands.

It is a sliding scale. Otherwise only those with no arms or legs at all are allowed to say they have it bad.

For me rich is being able to fly first class (entire family) every holiday you take, and taking several holidays a year :)

Owning 2-3 properties

Having savings of 500k

You better not ever complain that you have joint pain as you get older because "how dare you think that's bad when I have cancer and arthritis so severe that I'm wheelchair bound?" And then someone else says "well, I have one month left to live, so maybe I win This Morbid Game?"

I see ‘rich’ as having kids who are happy...and ourselves being happy too.
Financially, we are doing okay but still have less than £10k of savings which isn’t rich money-wise. But I guess, we are generally overpaying the mortgage and car loan each month so (as Martin Lewis always says), being mortgage free is the best way to spend your money, instead of putting it into high interest accounts that don’t make anything like they used to.

But going back to my first point, once my kids are happy (one has ASD and extremely high anxiety and the other has mental health difficulties and is waiting for a CAMHS assessment), then we will feel truly ‘rich’.