https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-t ... ly-wealthy
I’m low-end wealthy with a net worth of over four million (USA) dollars. That's not "rich" to many people, but it suits me.
I love being a stealth millionaire. I live in a home that I purchased for $240,000 cash. My neighborhood is very middle-class. I drive a Nissan, and my wife drives a Honda. We buy our cars new (also with cash), but we keep them for approximately ten years. Not a soul, other than my wife, knows what we have. When we die, our children will very likely be quite shocked.
I fix virtually everything that breaks. I rotate my own tires. I have a garage full of tools, because over the years, I always bought the special tools to repair things, rather than paying someone outrageous prices to “fix” it. The tools have saved many, many thousands of dollars.
We shop at the Dollar store for things like detergents and cleaners. Our favorite restaurant is In-N-Out. Ninety percent of the time, I wear jeans and a black "polo" shirt (non-branded). People have actually commented on my limited wardrobe (shockingly rude), but I don't care -- because a couple of these commentators likely had a negative net worth!
OK, now here's the fun part. I never worry about money. I can buy anything I want (except jets, yachts, and ridiculous houses, I feel). Luckily, I enjoy a $10 purchase as much as many people enjoy their $10,000 purchases -- probably a lot more, because I'm not worried about making payments. Everyday expenses, utility bills, insurance, gasoline costs, and medical bills don't concern me. Though I do carefully compare prices - even on things like toilet paper.
I have never worried about whether I could pay a bill. If I need $500,000 in cash tomorrow, I can literally get it out of the bank. I enjoy walking into a car dealership every ten years, and writing a $27,000 check for a middling car. Their jaws drop, their eyes get wide - because they don’t think I have twenty bucks in my Walmart jeans, and they see my ten-year-old compact car sitting outside…(the one I'll sell myself, not trade in).
Travel costs don't concern me - and we travel a lot. We might sometimes splurge up to a “Premium Economy” seat. People wonder "where-do-you-get-the-money-because-you-don't-look-rich."
Luckily, I don’t have a thing for Maserati’s, wooden yachts, or jewelry. In addition to travel, I spend money on guitars, sound equipment, books, computers, and decent transportation. My wife likes needlework, not Dior. Our hobbies are inexpensive, in the overall scheme of how much money we’re talking about.
I grew up in a lower middle-class family, delivered newspapers for five years, and enlisted in the military (E-1) after high school. So much for my “privilege.” I achieved my wealth by working in non-managerial positions (as a scientist) in corporations for 29 years. While I was paid well, I never made more than $130,000 until the last four years of my career (I'm retired now). I used the tortoise approach to accumulate wealth.
I read so many questions where people ask how to "get rich quick." The key for me was frugal living, a decent education, careful saving and investing, and total avoidance of get-rich-quick schemes. All very boring, but it can work for you too.
There is a contingent of people (not usually nasty - but sometimes snarky) on Quora who believe you have to inherit money, or "get lucky" in some way in order to become financially independent. Or, being greedy, they spend their time scheming about a quick billion, when a million or so might work (almost) as well. They think all rich people live like basketball stars, when in fact, the vast majority of self-made millionaires don't live anything like that.
Update 9–11–2016:
My father recently passed away. He was 89. Just like my kids who know nothing of my financial situation, I knew nothing of his. He grew up in the worst of the Depression. He had a 9th grade education. He worked hard all his life (with the most horrible on-call hours) as a maintenance worker. He raised 5 kids on his meager salary. Even though he was frugal, he immensely enjoyed every second of his retirement, which lasted thirty years. He bought an RV, traveled extensively, and always had a newer Camry — which I supposed was his “treat.” He told me that he got so sick of fixing cars during his working years that he now only wanted cars that were under warranty.
We went to sort out his affairs after the funeral. To everyone’s surprise, we found out that Dad had a net worth north of $800K. He never looked or acted “rich”…far from it. But, he was. The current American median net worth for his age group is $150K. Dad was actually in the 82nd percentile. Thus, Dad would certainly be considered wealthy by his peers.
He was just one more example of a stealthy near-millionaire. He would not meet many people’s idea of wealthy, but he was certainly financially independent, with no financial concerns. That’s what really counts.
I am not trying to say that everyone can do what I did, as some comments have implied. I know full well that I am an outlier. However, too many people give up before they start, saying that “things have changed” - that the good old days are over. Of course things have changed - but some things have gotten worse, and some things have gotten better. Everyone should work towards financial independence for themselves - whatever their means - and you don’t need four million to be independent. Start as soon as you can, and keep at it. Dependence on government is an alarming trend (this is certainly something that has gotten worse). We owe it to ourselves and to our fellow citizens to be as self-sufficient as possible.
Update 02–07–2017:
I have gotten some comments suggesting that my life is not “high quality,” because I am perceived as not spending enough money at a fast enough rate.
Some people may think that just because we have X million dollars, we are not enjoying life unless we spend it at a higher rate than can be sustained. Or, that we should have already spent it.
For one thing, I can’t show up at the Skeet Club driving a Mercedes. It might make some perfectly wonderful guys down there feel different, or treat me different. I guess I could get new friends and a new club, but it would be a lot easier and a lot more fun to just keep driving the Nissan, and stick with the buds I know. No need to stock up on a new Orvis wardrobe, either.
Each person has a different idea of what constitutes a "high quality of life." I always think of our personal lives as pretty high quality -- certainly in terms of material things. We've traveled extensively all over the world, we buy new cars with cash, and we live in a home that, in our area, would be judged upper middle class. That's a high quality of life by most definitions.
We now have sufficient means to live out our years on a comfortable income, and to maintain an economic lifestyle that 99.9% of the world would envy. While we don’t overspend, we also don’t worry about running short. Being satisfied with what you have enhances the quality of your life.
Even more important: My wife and I have been married 40 years. Our children are successful professionals with no criminal records, illegitimate children, or drug habits. We are all well educated and well read. We don't depend on the government for anything, and we would have to be starving before we would. Many people would give anything for this particular form of quality of life.
Most retired people are not dead yet; they still enjoy laughing and having fun, they still dig sex even if things don’t always work out as planned, and they are nowhere near ready to check out. They might not move quite as fast, and they may drive a little slower. However, there is some perception that anyone who builds up a nice nest egg should just give their money away (the children can make better use of it), then jump into their own graves — because they surely can’t be enjoying life.
Our age must be taken into consideration. Yet, this subtle point is often overlooked. My wife and I have been at this a long time. For a young person, four million dollars may seem beyond comprehension. Why would anyone need that much? For a person of my age (60+), it is not unreasonable at all. It's just a sad fact that very few people have managed to achieve anything remotely near it, as most people are woefully unprepared for retirement. By the time they start to think about planning, it is already way too late. The median net worth of Americans at age 60 is $172,000. For many people, retirement is going to require a big step down.
Most people want to maintain the same lifestyle after they finish their working career. No one wants to run out of money in retirement. Especially, people do not want to be dependent on their children. If you’re intentionally living a life that may make you dependent on someone else in the future, then you are living the wrong life.
After many careful calculations using different methods, and considering that our families are long-lived, we have determined that $140,000 a year is the maximum amount we can safely spend. We have no pensions, so we are totally dependent on our nest egg.
This puts everything in a different perspective. If we start spending in excess of our self-allotted amount, it will put our entire future in jeopardy. Most people would agree that our yearly income of $140,000 would be very fine and nice - plenty for a very comfortable retirement. But, it puts us a very long way from a basketball-star lifestyle. And, I really don’t need that Mercedes.