What's rich?

Former_MSE_Natasha

Poll Started 6 March 2007: What's rich?

Above what level of income would you say makes someone rich? Not 'well-off' or 'comfortable' but rich! Now to try and simplify it, we're talking in UK terms (not a global perspective) for someone who's single with no kids and no inherited wealth.


A. £20,000/year
B. £40,000/year
C. £60,000/year
D. £100,000/year
E. £200,000/year
F. £500,000/year
G. £1,000,000/year
H. £5,000,000/year


Click reply to discuss or vote here.

33pelter

Well this question depends on how relatively 'rich' you are e.g. a tramp would think the owner £1000 is rich but a millionaire would think nothing of this. It also depends on whether this is the total amount of money they have, their income per annum, their money on top of their assets etc. The word rich is defined as, "having wealth or great possessions; abundantly supplied with resources, means, or funds; wealthy: a rich man; a rich nation," and abundantly sugests, "present in great quantity; more than adequate; oversufficient," which would indicate thousands of £'s but again this is relative as hundred of thousands would be required to be classified as rich in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (in my opinion) but £1000 sterling could make you appear 'rich' in parts of the middle-east or Africa. My answer was 200,000 !

meher

Being rich means you couldn't possibly account for the money you have possession of.

Think if you're single with no children or financial commitments, sucessful, own business and even without any liabilities and life all hunky dory your £5 000 000 could still vanish in no time should you have legal hassles or health issues in the UK.

Deb_Williams

Can't seem to access this week's vote.

Anyone any clues? It usually works fine.

MSE_Martin

Hi Deb

There's a glitch with one of the 6 main site servers, that it doesn't show the vote. So you've landed on that one Im afraid, if you close down and reload it should be fine.


Martin

hennypenny_2

Thinking about todays house prices, paying a mortgage on the national average house price will eat up a big chunk of money. Now if this is a seriously rich person, then more than likely they will live in a house that costs far in excess of the national average so mortgage payments alone could cost £40,000 grand a year (approx 10 times my £50,000 morgage and monthly repayments, therefore earning £100,000/year would not be considerably rich once tax, morgage, insurance, etc is all paid. Although to me £100,000 is seriously rich, I don't think it will go very far living that kind of lifestyle.

jobbingmusician

I remember being very comfortable when I was earning £48k and single. Then some builders ripped me off, leaving me with £100,000 of debt (or at least, money i needed to spend in order to make my house habitable). Now I'm poor, as I live in a house which could be condemned at any time by the Council.....:(

I'm also now supporting 2 people on the money, but that's another story

CarolnMalky

To me being rich is having enough money to pay your bills and a wee bit of pocket money left!!

Mark_Beech

There are a number of ways to be rich.
I live in a house worth £350k with no mortgage ..... I have £150k of savings .... I'm retired and have a pension of £18k per year .... but I wouldn't say that I feel rich. A better description would be 'comfortable'.
When I was working I was earning about £55k per year and I felt richer then ... even with less savings.
I think one of the definitions of being rich is when you are shopping in a supermarket and you don't bother looking at the prices (I still did 'cos old habits die hard when you've been poor!) ... but I didn't feel that I needed to.
Another definition of being rich is when you think of what you might like to buy .... and you've already got it! If you have absolutely everything you could ever need or want ... then there's no point in having a raft of surplus cash on top.
But ... at the end of the day it's all irrelevant if you haven't got good health ... and I've suffered from chronic ill health since I was 21 ...... 31 years ago!
Best wishes and good fortune to you all!
Cheers

mr_forward

£100K a year is the mark you need to be at in order to bank with Coutts & Co. (private bankers to the rich and famous). £100K pa salary or a Million Pounds in liquid ca$h.

they might have changed this threshold now but £100k a year sounds pretty rich to me.

Kind regards,

Dan

Bella56

Goodness me, I found the results of this poll so offensive. I can't believe how many people actually think that you need an income of £100000 or above to be rich. At our current income (£21000/year) my hubby and I can afford to have a nice lifestyle with 1 foreign holiday a year and save up; double that to £40000 and we'd be rolling in money!

The rich-o-meter at the Channel 4 website is interesting because it tells you just how many people are less well off in the UK or in the world:

http://www.channel4.com/money/chat_vote_win/richometer/index.html

And I'm sure that lots of people will say that being rich means having a massive house & mortgage, but that's surely not essential as just having something to keep the rain off your head makes you very rich indeed in comparison to millions of people in the world!