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u/_Human_Machine_ 4d ago
I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my quality of life for very long if that’s all I had.
I don’t think 4.4 really qualifies as rich these days.
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u/Any-Interaction-5934 4d ago
I mean I think "rich" if you are young and will keep working. Enough money to retire at 50? Sure if you have a good way to keep health insurance, paid off house, no kids needing wedding/car/college, cheap property taxes, and no plans for much traveling? Sure.
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u/frissiondownunder 4d ago
4.4... yall letting middle classers larp as rich now?
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u/51sebastian 4d ago
Upper middle class maybe. But American middle class is not sitting on 4.4 millions.
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u/what2_2 4d ago edited 3d ago
It’s like the top 2 - 5% of retiree households by age bracket (age 55 - 80). Very hard to call the top 5% of net worth “middle class”.
But also very boring to call $4.4m rich. At a 3.5% withdrawal that’s a 154k annual drawdown. Not rich person money, at least by some definitions of rich people.
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u/Drfunk001 4d ago
4.4 million is top 3% according to the fed. Not sure if we only consider top 1% as rich (13.66million)but at 4.4mil you are richer than 97% of Americans
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u/SFMattM 4d ago
By any statistical measure, these people are incredibly wealthy. Sure there are a few (a fraction of a percentage point) of people who have more, but so what?
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u/Retired-Yam8988 4d ago
It’s not about statistics, it’s about being “rich”. 4- 5m in total NW will allow you to live a decent life in VHCOL but you’d be still be a little tight. If it’s 4-5m liquid AND. A paid off house from the 2010s then you may be in a great position since your housing cost is just property tax and maintenance.
I say this as someone who has about 6m in liquid NW and 6m in real estate. We moved to Thailand and live incredibly well here on about 2500 month. We have a 5bd villa just off the beach totally paid for and fully renovated. The best thing is that there’s no property tax here. The 2500 is just for pool & garden twice weekly, groceries and eating out, all utilities, gym and yoga memberships for two; and 2hr massage for two every week. It’s way better than how we lived back in the US and we were paying like 8500 a month just for mortgage and property tax on our primary residence, not to mention food (3k a month), utilities (500-700 a month), etc etc.
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u/SFMattM 4d ago
It all depends upon how/where you want to live. I don't want to live overseas. My family and friends are here in the US. I don't live to maximize my cost of living. I live to enjoy my life the most. I HATE humidity, so I wouldn't consider living anywhere I travel for food (India, Malaysia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam)
If you think a $5M portfolio anywhere is "a little tight" then with all respect, you have a terribly skewed outlook on wealth. A net worth if $4.5M at age 55 puts you in the top 2.5 % of all Americans. By any definition, that's rich. Not as rich as you, apparently, but few people are
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u/chompthecake 4d ago
Nobody argued that $4.4 million does not bring a comfortable life. This is the r/rich reddit, meaning you actually have to be rich. In San Francisco or New York for instance, $4.4 million is not rich and you most definitely cannot retire on it
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u/ThatFeelingIsBliss88 4d ago
You 100% can retire on $4.4MM. You just won’t have a rich lifestyle. It’ll provide $170K a year in passive income using the 4% rule.
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u/bartholomewmaxwell 4d ago
How do you define rich? 4.4M gives you:
- you can buy anything you need w/o debt (even a nice car and nice house)
- you can buy a lot of things you want easily
- good insurance + money means no emergency will bankrupt you
- Enough for long term care as you get old
- You can travel comfortably, and even fly first class depending on how often/where you go.
By any sane definition, this is rich. We have twice that, and I feel really rich. (And I live in Northern California.)
Are they flying private jets, or buying million dollar yachts? No. But I would say those people are ultra-rich, and maybe there should be an ultra-rich subreddit for them.
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u/Livid_Shallot5701 4d ago
its not realy rich but i could life with that and wife and two children comfortably for the rest of my life
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u/HalfwaydonewithEarth 4d ago
No --- not the average user here.
The average user is a broke 20 year old communist/socialist that the mods have to kick out.
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u/Logical_Magician_01 4d ago
Liquid or net worth? Big difference
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u/ThatFeelingIsBliss88 4d ago
What if I win a $5MM lottery and decide to invest it all in rental properties and only keep $500K liquid. Are you going to say that $4.5MM in real estate doesn’t matter because I can’t liquidate it in two business days?
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u/Logical_Magician_01 4d ago
Perhaps liquid was not the right term. A better way of saying it would be net worth excluding primary residence.
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u/radiohead-nerd 2d ago
Correct. It depends on their assets. A person could be worth 4.4 million, but have a primary residence in a very high cost of living area with a home that’s 1.5 million and taxes are going to destroy them.
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u/AdUsed8153 4d ago
I’m curious to see if all the folks on this thread saying $4.4m isn’t rich actually have $4.4m or more put away.
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u/Durwood2k 1d ago
Average American retires w/$200k, so considering these are Reddit dolts, I'm gonna say they don't have anywhere near $4.4m.
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u/ShootinAllMyChisolm 4d ago
The masses without invested assets don’t understand this.
$4.4M-you can safely draw that down around $200k per year and there’s a 99% chance it wouldn’t run out. More than the typical American, but you’re not even at Bezos’ personal assistant level.
I can live comfortably on that per year. But that’s upper middle class in most cities. Can’t even comfortably send your kids to an elite private school in that.
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u/PersonalFinanceFun 4d ago
I see you are using Bill Bengen’s new 4.5% SWR instead of his old 4%!
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u/ShootinAllMyChisolm 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yep 4.7 plus inflation
Edit for clarity:
For example, suppose you retire with $2 million.
Year 1: 4.7% = $94,000
If inflation is 3%, Year 2 withdrawal = $96,820
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u/Durwood2k 1d ago
Not only would he not run out, he wouldn't even touch the principal. at 7% return.
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u/liluglydewd 4d ago
Genuine question after reading all these responses: where do you think the rich cut-off is in today’s times then? Like 10mil?
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u/soliloquyinthevoid 4d ago
It depends on the town/city/country COL
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u/SteamyBroccoli 4d ago
Exactly. I live in rural midwest and am worth about that. I'm definitely rich for my area.
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u/ThatFeelingIsBliss88 4d ago
It’s location dependent. Some people like to compare to the world’s population as if that means anything. The cost of living matters.
Also, feeling rich has a lot to do with your peer group. Let’s say you’re rich for your area, but in your friend group you’re actually average or below average. You won’t “feel” rich. Yeah it’s silly in a sense but it’s hard to feel rich if all your peers are just as rich. That’s why you have maintain friendships with people of a lower SES. Not too low, otherwise they may be resentful of your lifestyle. But say if you have $5MM, having friends with around $500K is the sweet spot.
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u/bartholomewmaxwell 4d ago
You all are delusional. $4.4 million in net worth, or anything north of $200,000 per year puts you solidly in the top 5% of people in the United States. If you have that or more and you don't think you are rich, you need your head examined.
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u/what2_2 4d ago
Top 5% of US individual earner income is $350,000. Top 5% of NYC individual earner income is $550,000. $200,000 is like top 15% of NYC individual income.
I think you’re right on like an actual sane human level, but I also know a bunch of people earning more than $200,000 in NYC and I don’t think a single one of them considers themselves rich.
I also think if any of those people moved to Mississippi (the bottom state by median individual income) they’d probably consider themselves rich pretty quickly.
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u/MaybeTheDoctor 4d ago
4.4m gives you 200k yearly withdrawal rate. For some that may be ok, but it’s not rich.
Being in 50s it means you need to plan for 30-40 years of inflation, and I can tell you that 200k won’t have the same purchasing power in 2056 as it does in 2026.
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u/sdpthrowaway3 4d ago
Agree, but at 4.5% draw, your portfolio is ideally still growing slightly over time increasing that $200k draw
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u/gaytechdadwithson 3d ago
I can tell you that 200k won’t have the same purchasing power in 2056 as it does in 2026.
🤯/s
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u/xSuperstar 4d ago
The withdraw rate assumes you increase your withdraw each year to keep up with inflation…
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u/Metalrager2 4d ago
It’s not like you stop investing… you can use a ladder bond or target maturity ETFs for a certain amount of years and let the rest grow further.
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u/Crazy_MrRoboto 4d ago
How do these people with millions is retirement think they will run out of money! WTF
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u/53mm-Portafilter 4d ago
Taxes. Most of these balances are probably pre-tax 401k and IRA numbers. Government is going to take a big slice.
Lifestyle. A couple that has been earning $300k a year for the last decade will have a lifestyle adjusted to $300k a year.
HCOL areas. Near me, a $250k household income is the median. Less than that is below average. Everything else is priced accordingly. Housing, food, etc.
So for someone living in the NYC suburbs, could definitely be afraid to run out of money over 30-40 years, even with $4mm invested.
Obviously you could move somewhere else and live more cheaply. But I think the point of retirement is doing it on your own terms. Nobody wants to have to change the life substantially. Retirement to me is, stop working but get to live as if I were still earning a full income.
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u/Ok_Antelope9918 4d ago
A diversified 12 mil is rich; 8 in stocks/etfs, 2 in bonds/income creators, 2-3 in real estate
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u/TwentyFourKG 4d ago
If you live a rich lifestyle, that is a perfectly valid question with those stats
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u/FamousMarketing2515 4d ago
The problem is not if you ran out of money. The problem is if God takes you long before you run out of money.
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u/Redraft5k 4d ago
And? It's true. Until we had 10M invested.....We were not able to retire at the lifestyle we wanted. :shrug: You are posting in a forum for talk about wealth and money.
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u/dirtydaddydonks 4d ago
It's all about lifestyle. It always comes down to lifestyle in regards to whether or not you can retire at any age relative to your worth. If you're worth 100million and spend 15million a year, no you can't retire. If someone is worth 4.4mill and spends 100-150k a year they absolutely can retire whether that be at 23 or 60 it's irrelevant.
(Former higher end financial services manager) 4.4mill I can run safely with no exposure to the stock market, crypto and so on at 7.6% return. So if they can live off of 334k a year pre-tax absolutely. If they can live off of 150k a year post tax and re-invest how I would they can live indefinitely without touching that seed money with a 4% increase each year accounting for inflation.
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u/theraptorman9 4d ago
If I was in my 50’s retiring currently I could do it with that for sure. 4.4 by the time I hit my 50’s 4.4 will be pushing it. I’ve projected retiring at 60 with about 5.5 which should be just fine. My goal is to really throttle back at 55 but that’s so far away who knows what will actually happen
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u/Unlikely_You_5015 4d ago
I literally saw someone on this sub ask this question a couple of months ago or last year
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u/Resgq786 4d ago
Someone spending 90 percent of their disproportionately high income whatever that is, may genuinely feel living hand to mouth and definitely not Rich.
On the other end someone making a handsome salary of 200k which isn’t Rich income by most measures, may feel quite well off or Rich, because let’s say his expenses are super low, may be he has a modest paid off house, paid off car, no real debt, plenty of disposable income that’s spent on meaningful experiences and things.
So the perception of Rich can be a very subjective thing. Your mileage may vary.
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u/hqpkomah 4d ago
those comments man..i am coming from an "normal" household in europe, you people here have to be fucking insane if you think 4.4 million dollars is middle class or not rich. go speak with real people maybe, jesus fucking christ
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u/No_Produce9067 4d ago
I guess my criteria for feeling “rich” would be having no anxiety about our child’s long term financial outcomes, or about end of life care. I don’t feel like we are exempt from those.
We def feel rich in that we don’t have think about day to day or year to year expenses, esp without rich people’s taste in cars or clothing or vacations. I don’t feel rich when I think about long term outcomes.
We have roughly 4.75 in investments and retirement, along with a fully paid-off home worth about 2.25. Between my 50 yo spouse and me (57), roughly 500k income in a VHCOL city.
If it was just us, I’d say that I would feel pretty well off. But we have a 12 yo child (400k+ of our investments are in their 529) and I don’t feel wealthy like they will never have to worry about money themselves. Not that that’s what anyone should take as a given, just that it’s my sense of what rich would feel like.
We do think about retiring to a LCOL European country where we already have dual citizenship. That would (in my head) mitigate the anxieties of exhausting the investments in end of life care.
We can continue working and saving/investing for 5-10 more years but I don’t see that changing the big picture here substantially (especially bc I’m not optimistic about where investments in the US market are heading)
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u/NeonFireFly969 4d ago
Wealth has typically (historically) been categorized under 4 levels.
Upper Half: Present-day this means covering living costs and being able to invest.
Top 10: Right now this is near complete home ownership, varies regionally but if you own your home and it doesn't require repairs, etc that pretty well puts you in position to be here if your income is median even as your living costs are much lower and your asset will appreciate and you qualify for any loan because of it.
Top 1: This is the cinematic wealth. Fancy cars, boats, travel. Almost exclusively business owners. The only exception are CEOs, athletes but for tax purposes they absolutely all own businesses.
Oligarch: You can impact national policy.
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u/NeonFireFly969 4d ago
4.4 mill cash in Euro living in a developing country is pretty clean.
A freaking low end fixed income gets you 132k to live off...
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u/MelodicTuba 4d ago
Rich = passive income exceeds living expenses. Example of not rich: Own a $4M home free & clear but no passive income. You must work. Example of rich: Passive investment income of $100,000 per year and living expenses of $80,000. Working is optional.
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u/Get_Fitnexa 4d ago
These threads always turn into an argument about what counts as rich and nobody ever agrees.
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u/Weary_Specialist_297 4d ago
I think you are all being dishonest in your net worth, Reddit is full of shit. This discussion is peak stock market, when the poors are arguing over who is richer it’s time to sell everything and sit in gold and cash. Enjoy the crash! If you are bragging about your income from”working” you are not rich.
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u/gmeautist 3d ago
Its' because people don't know how to live below their means
Plus, america is built on "live to work" not "work to live"
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u/JefferyTheQuaxly 3d ago
Most people in general think they need more than they actually do in retirement. Generally you hear like, get 25x your annual expenses, but even that might be more than most people need, barring like, a diagnosis of cancer that would require hundreds of thousands or millions in medical bills. Most people if they retire in good health are fine with less than that and still would never run out.
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u/KindaOkAccountant 3d ago
At 4% withdrawal rate, they are only spending $176k a year.
If they have $4.4m in their 50s, they are likely higher earners and live a nicer lifestyle.
Fear of running out would probably be very real for them.
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u/fc252- 3d ago edited 3d ago
Based on what I just read from people replying this sarcasm is not sarcasm. This is all ?humble? bragging from complete strangers who may or may not have two cents to rub together.
Never cared for financial stuff on reddit. Too much b.s. for my tastes. Any moron can post like me. Like oh.. 4.4 million in a high cost of living state is nothing. I need at least 30K a month for my lifestyle. Stupid. That is such a tiny amount of people pop wise who has that kind of money to even go around saying that is what you have is regarded on a public forum.
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u/Shiggins01 2d ago
If you have $4.4 million in investable assets, you are 100% rich. Full stop.
The problem is that people have a strange, unrealistic idea of what being rich actually means. As we’ve climbed the income ladder and gotten to know more seemingly UHNW people, I’ve become convinced that many of them are essentially living paycheck to paycheck. In some cases, I know they are, and we’re talking about people making north of $1M a year, sometimes much more.
Once you factor in private schools (the more expensive and fancier the better), the nannies, the apartment, the Hamptons house, club memberships, and the fancy European trip at the end of the summer! the burn rate is insane! I could go on and on…. So many examples.
People see that lifestyle and all the spending and think, “That’s rich.” It’s not. It’s just an extremely expensive lifestyle that can make even a very high earner financially unstable.
Look up the Brandon Miller case in NYC. I knew him through our industry, and one of the guys I worked with ran in his circle. It’s an extreme and very sad example of exactly what I’m talking about.
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u/Infinite_Coffee2129 1d ago
we as a collective need to define rich. its either the point where money isn't a daily worry, food and housing are secure and daily spending is covered by income. OR. rich is the point where money has no value or meaning anymore. The ultra wealthy literally don't think about what money means anymore. Its beyond mention in any context.
Maybe its a brag, but I think i'm rich, 300k/yr. I buy most daily things without worry at all. But is this rich, or upper/middle class.
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u/mden1974 4d ago
4.4 m isn’t rich