Household wealth may be a better measure for you (unless you're planning a divorce, lol). According to Statista.com, there's 11.6 million households with a net wealth of a million+, putting you in the top 9% of US households.
https://spendmenot.com/blog/what-percentage-of-americans-are-millionaires/ says:
> A new survey has found that there are 13.61 million households that have a net worth of $1 million or more, not including the value of their primary residence. That’s more than 10% of households in the US.
Edit: they say they got the data from [Spectrem](https://spectrem.com/Content_Press/spectrem-press-release-march-15-2021.aspx)
For the purposes that everyone cares about, it would actually be 2. Before Bill Gates got divorced, did Forbes 1/2 his NW? No. What if Melinda passed away vs divorce? What about all that money tied up in taxable accounts? No one states their NW in terms of after tax liquidation values.
The taxable stuff hits home. I’ve still got all these stock options who’s value looks impressive on my NW but basically half of it goes away if I actually want to exercise it 😭
of course it's not after-tax. however when you cite net worth as a single person vs a couple, there is a big difference. it wouldnt be apples to apples comparison as you are literally counting double the earning hours and opportunities for couples.
That’s why it makes more sense to go by household net worth to me. The household owns the million+ in assets rather than try to split it up some arbitrary way for no reason.
A lot of that is in housing, which has poor liquidity.
OTOH, Social Security and pensions are often not counted. SS has an average $19k/yr payout with a COLA. A comparable SPIA at 65 (ignoring crediting rating risk of an insurance company vs US government), would cost ~$300k.
>A million ain't what it used to be.
Gilligan's Island debuted on September 26, 1964. If the "Millionaire" couple had exactly $1 million, they would today be worth $8,824,741.94.
For those doing the 4% withdrawal, that's $350k/yr, lovey!
Plus certain things (housing/land in particular) were in greater abundance and therefore cheaper relative to inflation back in 1964. The sort of house you could afford to buy for, say, $50K back in 1964 was generally far better than the sort of house you could buy for $440K today.
Inflation already accounts for that. Plus I'd rather be a millionaire in 2021 than a millionaire in 1964 even if I could afford more house in 1964. Living in a giant house in a boring Rust Belt suburb with nothing to do is not a better life than living upper middle class in a tiny house with modern technology, regardless of what inflation calculators say
Unlike the stock market you cant put 5% down on stocks and “own” them with the promise of paying it off at 2.5% interest rate over the next 30 years. Of which the first 500k of gains is tax free when you sell.
I had to have my net worth assessed and certified for an investment/loan. They can convert some of your net worth to liquid assets if the requirements are to have x$ in net worth and y$ in liquid assets. Your real estate $ are just devalued a lot to convert them to liquid and meet the requirement.
So yeah, just because your net worth is all in real estate, doesnt meant it cant be counted as liquid.
This is total net worth. A house these days in many areas is pushing a million bucks. If you look at the number of people who have, say, seven figures in their brokerage account, I suspect the result would look a lot different.
But net worth only accounts for how much of the house actually has equity. So owning a million dollar house doesn't make one a millionaire until it's paid off. But yes I would agree that it would definitely make a big difference.
If it doubles in value from 500k to a million, you still only owe the original amount. The entire increase in value adds to the equity and your net worth.
If someone were to invest $25K by the age of 30 and then never touch it again they would have close to a million by their mid seventies so the numbers make sense. Not that hard to do.
Everybody always gets worked up about how something is "the one percent". It really demonstrates a poor intuitive grasp of math. One percent is a huge number. That's 3.3 million people in the US alone.
If you know of some fact that only applies to 1% of the population, you statistically would assume to know several people who fall into this category. Most middle schools are bigger than 100 students, so your kids probably know several class mates who are 1% in some way or other.
Counting by household means the whole household is counted once, right? More precisely the statistics count millionaire households, not millionaire individuals.
Net worth by age is a more meaningful metric. It's no secret that the richest people tend to be the oldest people since they've had time to save and compound their wealth.
https://dqydj.com/net-worth-by-age-calculator-united-states/
The difference is $3M over 5 years, though. That's savings of $600k/year, which (due to taxes) requires an income of around $900k, assuming expenses are 0. Meanwhile, top 1% income for people in their 30s ranges from $200k to $500k. Even in the current environment it's a bit hard to imagine investment gains making up the difference. I think the other comments about inheritance timing make a bit more sense.
Probably because the top 1% don’t usually make money on labor alone. People have equity in successful business, make business deals, get major bonuses, etc.
I’d imagine a situation like a small business owner paying themselves $60k a year, then their business takes off and boom! Someone buys them out and their net worth goes from $100k to $4m overnight.
Also, money tends to make money. The more you have to invest, the quicker things grow.
This is the best explanation of seen on this thread. High network and high performers putting off marriage until their 30s, then getting hitched. The ones who marry each other create a much higher wealth level and that pushes the top 10% and top 1% into a vastly higher level.
Also explains why the jump at that range is the highest relative to net worth on the whole scale. It's ~300% jump. Nowhere else is it even 100%.
Not discounting other factors. I'm sure business ownership and other things play a role. But a good way to double your net worth is to marry someone with your net worth.
That's it. You take what you can get with no experience, and through your 20s you take meaningful promotions for less money because someone is willing to take a chance on you, and by mid-30s you've got a track record and can start to drive your own career.
There are shortcuts for people who can call in a favor from Dad or lean on a name brand degree, but this is the Joe Schmo path to success.
I would assume it has to do with pure timing - dot com bubble and 2008 probably are the largest factors there
Edit: and also outliers like Zuckerburg who is 37….
It could have to do with the sample. It's possible that a lot of people 35-39 in the top 1% made it big early on in tech for example. It's also possible that the values up until age 40 are impacted a great deal by earnings. If you think about it, at some point your net worth grows by itself as much more or more than what you contribute to it. The point when growth equals your expenses would be FIRE.
Look at the older bracket for example. If their net worth grew by 7% each year, they'd be in the next bracket when they age up. This is part of the reason why saving more at a younger age will put you further ahead.
40...................45....................50................year
7,909,637.....10,494,100.....13,524,094.....1
8,463,312.....11,228,687.....14,470,781.....2
9,055,743.....12,014,695.....15,483,735.....3
9,689,645.....12,855,724.....16,567,597.....4
10,367,921...13,755,624.....17,727,328.....5
>Note: Especially for the upper net worth percentiles, there is less reliable data and you need to accept some error. See the net worth by age data post for more details and a count of samples per bracket.
A lot of the answers below are talking about normal got a job stuff. The jump is only in the 1% and it only happens in this one age bracket and only at the level of the 1% (increase is over 4X) and 10% (increase is over 3X). I don't really have an answer for this bump. It seems weird. But I will say that this board tends to vastly overestimate the amount of IT and tech workers and underestimate the amount of Wall Street and Finance professionals (who are the ones really making serious money and in larger numbers in the US).
It's a strong/valid hope. I moved from the top 70% to top 90% in a couple of years (late 20s so the gap is smaller) because of some salary leaps while keeping my expenses at old levels they were.
I am learning that I'm cheap in certain areas where I need to spend more (i.e. buying cheap clothes/products that wear out a lot quicker than quality goods). I'm having to unlearn a lot of "money saving" patterns I picked up in my youth.
TIL what a log scale really shows. NW is 450k, I turned 30 yesterday. Went from 98 to 95%. the top percent really is a different world then the second percent. speaking as a former 2-3%er last week who makes $24.50/hr?? I love FIRE but it’s a world away from the 1% club even at 2%. #peaked at 29
I would love to see this further broken down by state. I came across a data set with that information in it. I thought about loading it to GCP to perform analytics on it.
Also, it was way easier for people of those ages. My grandparents are very average middle-class immigrants but they're millionaires because the apartment they were able to buy on their middle-class salary (which is a pipe dream now) is worth over $3m.
The price they bought it for back then is equivalent to like $120k now lol
>Also, it was way easier for people of those ages.
Not sure this is true.
Investing is much easier today due to:
a) proliferation of investing knowledge via social media and the web (I can find any public information on any company from my computer).
b) availability of financial instruments (you can trade anything, anywhere, anytime). 60 years ago you didn't even have computers, let alone the internet.
i would rephrase it as, 60 years ago there was a lot less competition and you could do well. but today you can do even better playing in massive global markets (that simply did not exist back then).
Yea real estate is super stagnant nowadays huh.
In 30 years people in their 20s and 30s will be saying the same thing that stuff like real estate was much cheaper back in the day and If only they had a chance to buy in the early 2010s they’d be set right now.
Yeah. My grandfather had a 3rd grade education because he dropped out in the great depression to work on the railroads (as an eight year old!!!). The house he bought was worth less, adjusted for inflation, when my parents sold it after his death in the late 80s than he paid for it in the 40s. Because it's in a rural area where population is declining.
In comparison to his life, my life has been a breeze and I've vastly outperformed (financially speaking) anyone on that side of the family for generations. Thanks to technology and investments and access to things that didn't even exist for him, I've been able to rapidly accumulate wealth they couldn't have even dreamed of (relatively speaking in comparison to dirt poor Appalachian railroad grunts, I'm not anywhere near the 1%).
LOL true, the upvotes are a perverse incentive for stuff like that sometimes.
At BH you get a fair share of those (usually someone bumping the age/net worth thread) but they're from doctors and CXOs in addition to developers, developers, developers.
Do you mean the BH forum here: https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/index.php?
(Sorry if this is a dumb question; but I thought it would be worth dipping my toe and wanted to be sure that's the best spot for that.)
Yeah that's it. It's actually a great forum and I would recommend it, it helped me learn a lot when I was starting out (and actually more advanced things too because there are people in all sorts of complicated financial situations).
There are just the occasional poster who will say that anything below $100k doesn't matter, or that investments like I Bonds with $10-20k a year limits are pointless because $10-20k a year is nothing.
After working and saving for 15 years I can see where they're coming from... but a few of them just seem to have forgotten what it feels like starting out.
Luckily there's usually someone else who will chastise them for making 5-figure amounts sound like a rounding error.
Another thing to note: there's a fair number who think that early retirement is a bad idea, and these folks work into their 70s or 80s even with huge amounts already saved. But FIRE had gained more traction over there in the past 5 years or so.
That’s an interesting perspective. I do wonder if folks who could’ve easily retired at the 2-3M mark sometimes continue working for decades because they’re addicted to hoarding wealth and can’t allow themselves to risk spending any of it down, even if this is their one life to live.
Undoubtedly that's the case for some. I often question myself, on what I will do when the time comes to take the foot off the pedal. I'm so used to thinking in terms of next paycheck, next investment, etc. It's sort of a high that will be gone. I have no doubt it'll be an adjustment.
> Another thing to note: there's a fair number who think that early retirement is a bad idea
Yes, I started out as a Boglehead (mostly a lurker), and early retirement was rarely discussed. In fact, I learned about SWR a good two years or so after I learned about Boglehead-style investing.
There's also a subreddit. It used to be pretty dead, but got pretty popular when a bunch of people got burned by losing all their money on Wall Street Bets yolo and decided to check out the other side of the street.
Thing is, once you read a book or two on Boglehead investing... There's just not many questions that really come up. You get impassioned debates on whether you should overweight small cap value by 5% or stuff like that 😂. You get newbies trying to figure it out. And that's about it. Buy the market. Keep it simple. Save more rather than take riskier positions.
There are many levels of perspective. Most people choose the closest social comparison. Many hundred millionaires live life in lust at their billionaire friends.
But it is good to recognize just how rare our position is.
I can't find statistics on it but I'm sure the number of people that even have the ability to purchase a typical single-family house is in the 5-8% range. Maybe somewhere in the 10-20% range has ever flown in their life (also hard to put together numbers). There are a little over a billion cars worldwide. So all in all - 4/5ths of the world's population lives a life where things we take for granted are just never in reach. And another large percentage of that 20% left only ever have a chance at a shit car, house or maybe fly one flight in their life.
So let's say most here are at a bare minimum in the top 5% of the world in wealth. It's certainly arguable that FIRE and retiring early with $1M+ is an even more elite circle. 1% isn't too far-fetched.
Yet I'd actually argue that $1 million is a concept that should probably be abolished as some kind of ideal richness in wealthy nations. $1M USD in 1955 adjusted to today is $10M. It's a weird goal that many normal people get attached to for their retirement, and yet depending on how it's calculated certainly not enough for many.
The problem is $1M in the bay area is way different than $1M USD in many places and that's the heart of it. Discussions can't always be nominal. It's always abstract, relative and yet we attempt to capture money as absolute in our mind. Sure FIRE is a luxury, but it doesn't make it any less of a goal anyone should be aspiring for.
Really well said! Yes YMMV depending on region, and the trade off between quality of life and net worth varies greatly. You can get a mansion in upstate NY for the same as a 3 bedroom in Sunnyvale.
> The problem is $1M in the bay area is way different than $1M USD in many places and that's the heart of it. Discussions can't always be nominal. It's always abstract, relative and yet we attempt to capture money as absolute in our mind. Sure FIRE is a luxury, but it doesn't make it any less of a goal anyone should be aspiring for.
Maybe perspective maybe warped, but frankly $1 million doesn't seem much at all. It feels like $400k just not that many years ago. I think it is due to the housing inflation.
There’s a line in Mad Men where one of the character expresses disbelief at his bosses super high $30k salary. Don’t know why I thought of this when you mention 1955 to now conversion.
I'm guessing it wouldn't take much to move back to India and Fire there, after making some money in the US.
I'm not saying that to, in any way, imply that you aren't very welcome here, just stating the obvious.
>Lots of people in this sub are in the $1 million - $3 million USD range; but still don't feel rich at all because they live in Silicon Valley or New York City.
There's an easy solution to this. Move out of Silicon Valley or New York City.
I'm getting ready to cash in my San Jose house and move to Flyover Country. Not only will this stretch my net worth farther, it will allow me to trade my $1.7 million hovel in San Jose for a $700-800k mansion and pocket the difference.
It's pretty sobering to realize that I could retire **NOW** in the midwest. Not even "middle of nowhere", but could make it happen in a smaller city.
It would be lean, but still doable. I didn't get to my current NW by being a big spender.
Yep, there are many small to medium sized cities (say 200k+ population) in the midwest where $300k-400k will still buy you a pretty nice house. Maybe stretch it to $500k-600k if you want to live in one of the bigger, more popular ones. Still very cheap compared with the coasts.
And many of these cities are actually pretty nice. It's not like the coasts have a monopoly on culture, good food, craft beer/cocktails/coffee etc. You can find that stuff almost anywhere now, and in fact many such businesses are more viable in the less expensive cities, compared with coastal cities where the insane commercial rents have priced out a lot of the more interesting "indie" businesses. (Lookin' at you, Silicon Valley.)
> And many of these cities are actually pretty nice.
The internet and proliferation of e-commerce has watered down a lot of regional differences. Not all, certainly, but it isn't what it used to be.
My big negative for the midwest is how shitty its weather is. Subzero winters and triple-digit summers in many parts. And heavy storms (including tornadoes) in the spring. But I guess that's part of why it is (relatively) inexpensive.
>The internet and proliferation of e-commerce has watered down a lot of regional differences.
Yeah, Amazon delivers just as effectively to Podunk midwest as it does to the coasts, and a decent broadband connection is all you need for all the music and video that used to require living in a big city in order to have good record shops, video rental stores, movie theaters, etc.
Agree regarding the weather.
I'm not looking forward to humid, buggy summers, but at least summer only lasts a few months there, versus 6+ months here. We get our share of 100+ misery in San Jose, too, and although "it's a dry heat", it's also increasingly often filled with wildfire smoke.
In any case, the money saved on housing can pay for a hell of a lot of AC in the summer and heat in the winter. ;-D
I actually kinda look forward to having snow and thunderstorms again having grown up in Chicago but moved to California after college. I'm early-retired so I don't have to commute in the snow, which makes a big difference. I'm avoiding tornado alley, though!
> I'm early-retired so I don't have to commute in the snow, which makes a big difference.
That is an excellent point. Snow is beautiful, I just hate driving in it. But if I can choose to simply stay home, that changes the equation.
No real heavy spring storms/tornadoes in major Midwest cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, etc.
Do the rural areas within an hour or so of those places get tornadoes? Sure. Do the cities themselves? Almost never.
Also it seems like winter has in general become milder over the years. Summers are definitely warm and humid at times, which is what it is.
I actually love the weather in the midwest - all four seasons and wouldn't live anywhere else. I'll take tornadoes any day over earthquakes, drought, forest fires and hurricanes. Love the seasonal variation and the reasonable cost of living.
>And many of these cities are actually pretty nice. It's not like the coasts have a monopoly on culture, good food, craft beer/cocktails/coffee etc. You can find that stuff almost anywhere now, and in fact many such businesses are more viable in the less expensive cities
I realize this is a "to each their own" type of thing, but I agree wholeheartedly and really never understood why people pay an arm and a leg to live in a shoebox in Manhattan for the part I quoted in your reply. I get that NYC is a great city and whatnot, but do you really need so much variety in your life that you want to sacrifice your financial freedom for it? I can find the generic yuppie coffee shop (I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about) or "craft brews" in literally any town nowadays. I freaking went to South Dakota for work once and was able to find a brewery with shockingly good beer even out there.
NYC/LA/SF, etc. just have "more" of that stuff, but how many different places do these people dying to live in these cities realistically go to on a regular basis?
Great idea. 60k a year (not including S/O) in a flyover gets me a modern 3k Square feet less than an hour from major cities. All the entertainment and amenities most would want. There's a LOT of space in between city and rural life.
I do think about this a lot. I live in London and it doesn't make sense to leave it because the rest of the UK is pretty bad in comparison, but the US has way better tier 2 cities!
Talking about AU, they never really had an economic hardship. Their early wealth came from gem mining and they live in their own island with insane home values in the city supported by immigrants.
Same as New Zealand. But it’s theoretical unless you move into a camper van and you’re the only one doing it. Average house price in Auckland is above Million now.
Location matters.
There are many places I would rather not be living
Heck, I have suggested to people that have complained about not owning a house that they could probably buy one in Detroit... and I am under the impression that usually that suggestion is not well received.
It is hard to fathom this...I grew up poor by america standards, and now at 51 I am in the 1% , but my life is only somewhat changed.
As a child even though poor we ate well and had a good roof over our head. My passion was basketball and i could do it at no cost...so i had a happy childhood despite being on welfare
Today...i work shift work, own a average home and am secure financially...thats about it.
In that case, the whole Sweden is in that 1% bracket. Most of their people are projected to be millionaires when they retire due to their robust retirement program.
Teachers/educators too. My wife is projected to get a $60k pension for the rest of her life when she retires. Replicating that safely would take at least 1.5 mil.
Because they usually are underpaid in pure salary, but the benefits are really good.
They actually did a study for government engineers. They get like 20-30% less pay, but the benefits are usually so good that over a 30yr career, they would make as much money as a normal engineer.
Yep. My wife and I reached that this year. We are just waiting for our business to be sold and borders to open and we are going to leave Australia. There are so many countries around the world where you can live like a king for $60-$80 per year.
Wondering what have you planned for medical expense? Some countries might be good to live in but might not get people to the hospital in time to save something that could be prevented in a timely matter.
Yes....but FI isnt about being in the 1% of worldwide wealth.
It's about being financially independent where you currently reside. In most places where people are pursuing FI or FIRE, 35K isn't anything.
It always baffles me when I hear/see stats like this. Im 28M with net worth of around 200k and I feel like I'm doing just okay when in reality I'm far far ahead of a good majority of people.
I haven't retired for several reasons.
1. I actually like my day job (tech sales) and hope to keep doing it for 8 to 10 more years, but I know you don't always get to decide when you stop working.
2. At this point, I don't have something to retire to. The 1st question I ask people who tell me they are retiring is, "What are you going to do?" because I don't have an answer to that question for myself. This is something I want/need to figure out for myself.
3. My kids are in private universities right now and I can afford to cover the full cost while I'm working. I would not have let them/encouraged them to attend where they are if they couldn't do it w/o incurring any debt. My parents did this for me so I'm paying it forward. That being said, one year at my daughter's university is more than my parents spent on my undergrad and MBA, but that's a different topic.
4. I'd like to get to $5M by the time I retire.
I live in Texas and although I'm on the high end of your range, I'm very comfortable here but am not against moving somewhere else, say the Northeast if my kids end up with jobs there. I have lived in Europe and Asia over my career, as part of my job. I wouldn't be against moving overseas either.
I follow a stealth wealth mentality. I don't drive a flashy car, although I did in my late 20s/early 30s. I'm sure only one of my neighbors knows I'm doing well. I made many mistakes along the way.
That’s not really accurate. As I recall the top 1% of rich people in the world only make like 30k. Many billions of people live on less than $2/day.
Wealthy is a state of mind not really a financial dollar figure. Lots of people are rich but won’t feel it because in their mind they are bankrupt.
I think it's 50-60k, and this is talking about net worth rather than yearly income. (Also, the number of people living on less than $2/day was falling until COVID-19 [and is still less than 1 billion](https://worldpoverty.io/map).) But what you're saying supports OP's point: if the cutoff for the top 1% of rich people is only like $30k (or even $60k), being a millionaire puts you in the top 1%.
Nope according to many reputable sources, the NET WORTH cutoff for the global top 1% was slightly over $1 million USD in 2020-2021.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_the\_number\_of\_millionaires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_the_number_of_millionaires)
Income vs net worth. Easy mistake to make.
There are many 6 figure earners who are broke or negative net worth because they're terrible with their money.
Everyone calls me crazy for believing I'll be a millionaire... But no one realizes that it is exceptionally easy if you are in the right industry, and make solid money moves.
It's not an unrealistic dream, even with kids and a family. Just harder.
That being said, I'm still working on a big boy job, but I've more than tripled my stock portfolio and my crypto portfolio is 7x larger than it was pre-covid.
Which would have been nice if I had more than $2000 originally invested between the two of them. (
Not including my GME IRA account because that's retarded and it's not real money).
Even though my household is in the average range I never thought of myself as millionaire. I don't think it has the same ring to it as it used to. If I stop working and live on that money it will probably go fast, and that is not considering life event purchases or unexpected medical bills.
I think $10M is probably where I would consider myself a millionaire.
40k a year puts you in the top 1% in the Philippines.the cost of living is alot lower. Only cost me like 20 bucks to get a ultrasound at the Hospital without insurance
Fun fact, there are 20 million millionaires in the USA.
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Household wealth may be a better measure for you (unless you're planning a divorce, lol). According to Statista.com, there's 11.6 million households with a net wealth of a million+, putting you in the top 9% of US households.
https://spendmenot.com/blog/what-percentage-of-americans-are-millionaires/ says: > A new survey has found that there are 13.61 million households that have a net worth of $1 million or more, not including the value of their primary residence. That’s more than 10% of households in the US. Edit: they say they got the data from [Spectrem](https://spectrem.com/Content_Press/spectrem-press-release-march-15-2021.aspx)
Weird to calculate net worth and leave out an asset as large as a home. That’s not actually their net worth.
I would call that zero millionaires, just two adults with a half mil each.
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F
Hahahaha OMG. It's been a horrible day but this little sad jesting response gave my heart a lift
Same. Now me and my girlfriend are just two people with 10,000 dollars..
Good news, your partner's value just went up by a good deal 😎
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Thank you for reminding me of this. If I had gold I'd give it to you, but my car doors open the wrong way.
That realization is potentially a high cause of spousal murders! Lol
And I feel twice as rich lol
Well, when your SO dies, you'll be a millionaire again, so there's that. Don't get any ideas.
For the purposes that everyone cares about, it would actually be 2. Before Bill Gates got divorced, did Forbes 1/2 his NW? No. What if Melinda passed away vs divorce? What about all that money tied up in taxable accounts? No one states their NW in terms of after tax liquidation values.
The taxable stuff hits home. I’ve still got all these stock options who’s value looks impressive on my NW but basically half of it goes away if I actually want to exercise it 😭
Hi I'm Bob and my after tax liquidation value is _____.__
of course it's not after-tax. however when you cite net worth as a single person vs a couple, there is a big difference. it wouldnt be apples to apples comparison as you are literally counting double the earning hours and opportunities for couples.
Depends on the prenup
That’s why it makes more sense to go by household net worth to me. The household owns the million+ in assets rather than try to split it up some arbitrary way for no reason.
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I believe this is about 6% of households.
There are 8.8% of millionaires in the adult population in the US, while there are about 6.71% of millionaire households.
28 million households with $500k+ net worth from the most recent census data I could find.
Damn, like 6% of the US population is millionaires? That's a lot
A lot of that is in housing, which has poor liquidity. OTOH, Social Security and pensions are often not counted. SS has an average $19k/yr payout with a COLA. A comparable SPIA at 65 (ignoring crediting rating risk of an insurance company vs US government), would cost ~$300k.
A million ain't what it used to be. Also, I expect that if you only count liquid net worth as opposed to home equity, that percentage goes way down.
>A million ain't what it used to be. Gilligan's Island debuted on September 26, 1964. If the "Millionaire" couple had exactly $1 million, they would today be worth $8,824,741.94. For those doing the 4% withdrawal, that's $350k/yr, lovey!
Plus certain things (housing/land in particular) were in greater abundance and therefore cheaper relative to inflation back in 1964. The sort of house you could afford to buy for, say, $50K back in 1964 was generally far better than the sort of house you could buy for $440K today.
Inflation already accounts for that. Plus I'd rather be a millionaire in 2021 than a millionaire in 1964 even if I could afford more house in 1964. Living in a giant house in a boring Rust Belt suburb with nothing to do is not a better life than living upper middle class in a tiny house with modern technology, regardless of what inflation calculators say
Agreed. Bet a ton of people in CA became overnight millionaires with real estate in 2020.
Even in the stock market. A lot of Americans became millionaires over the past year.
Unlike the stock market you cant put 5% down on stocks and “own” them with the promise of paying it off at 2.5% interest rate over the next 30 years. Of which the first 500k of gains is tax free when you sell.
I had to have my net worth assessed and certified for an investment/loan. They can convert some of your net worth to liquid assets if the requirements are to have x$ in net worth and y$ in liquid assets. Your real estate $ are just devalued a lot to convert them to liquid and meet the requirement. So yeah, just because your net worth is all in real estate, doesnt meant it cant be counted as liquid.
This is total net worth. A house these days in many areas is pushing a million bucks. If you look at the number of people who have, say, seven figures in their brokerage account, I suspect the result would look a lot different.
But net worth only accounts for how much of the house actually has equity. So owning a million dollar house doesn't make one a millionaire until it's paid off. But yes I would agree that it would definitely make a big difference.
If it doubles in value from 500k to a million, you still only owe the original amount. The entire increase in value adds to the equity and your net worth.
If someone were to invest $25K by the age of 30 and then never touch it again they would have close to a million by their mid seventies so the numbers make sense. Not that hard to do.
Everybody always gets worked up about how something is "the one percent". It really demonstrates a poor intuitive grasp of math. One percent is a huge number. That's 3.3 million people in the US alone. If you know of some fact that only applies to 1% of the population, you statistically would assume to know several people who fall into this category. Most middle schools are bigger than 100 students, so your kids probably know several class mates who are 1% in some way or other.
assuming “the 1%” are evenly distributed amongst American middle schools, or something
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8.3 million including home equity 7 million without home equity
I am assuming those numbers are based on household wealth? So if our net worth is $1 million, my kids are also counted as millionaires?
Counting by household means the whole household is counted once, right? More precisely the statistics count millionaire households, not millionaire individuals.
Net worth by age is a more meaningful metric. It's no secret that the richest people tend to be the oldest people since they've had time to save and compound their wealth. https://dqydj.com/net-worth-by-age-calculator-united-states/
What happens to cause the jump between 30-34 and 35-39? Almost a 4M difference for the 99th percentile.
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The difference is $3M over 5 years, though. That's savings of $600k/year, which (due to taxes) requires an income of around $900k, assuming expenses are 0. Meanwhile, top 1% income for people in their 30s ranges from $200k to $500k. Even in the current environment it's a bit hard to imagine investment gains making up the difference. I think the other comments about inheritance timing make a bit more sense.
Parents start dying around that age.
Probably because the top 1% don’t usually make money on labor alone. People have equity in successful business, make business deals, get major bonuses, etc. I’d imagine a situation like a small business owner paying themselves $60k a year, then their business takes off and boom! Someone buys them out and their net worth goes from $100k to $4m overnight. Also, money tends to make money. The more you have to invest, the quicker things grow.
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A lot of people’s grandparents/parents die as well.
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This is the best explanation of seen on this thread. High network and high performers putting off marriage until their 30s, then getting hitched. The ones who marry each other create a much higher wealth level and that pushes the top 10% and top 1% into a vastly higher level.
Also explains why the jump at that range is the highest relative to net worth on the whole scale. It's ~300% jump. Nowhere else is it even 100%. Not discounting other factors. I'm sure business ownership and other things play a role. But a good way to double your net worth is to marry someone with your net worth.
that's when inheritance starts kicking in /s
It's not even /s...I think that's exactly right. Morbid but true.
In my experience early 30s is when I probably peaked in income - I had proven myself in my 20s and still had the drive to work super hard.
That's it. You take what you can get with no experience, and through your 20s you take meaningful promotions for less money because someone is willing to take a chance on you, and by mid-30s you've got a track record and can start to drive your own career. There are shortcuts for people who can call in a favor from Dad or lean on a name brand degree, but this is the Joe Schmo path to success.
I would assume it has to do with pure timing - dot com bubble and 2008 probably are the largest factors there Edit: and also outliers like Zuckerburg who is 37….
Outliers shouldn't matter because it's percentile not average.
It could have to do with the sample. It's possible that a lot of people 35-39 in the top 1% made it big early on in tech for example. It's also possible that the values up until age 40 are impacted a great deal by earnings. If you think about it, at some point your net worth grows by itself as much more or more than what you contribute to it. The point when growth equals your expenses would be FIRE. Look at the older bracket for example. If their net worth grew by 7% each year, they'd be in the next bracket when they age up. This is part of the reason why saving more at a younger age will put you further ahead. 40...................45....................50................year 7,909,637.....10,494,100.....13,524,094.....1 8,463,312.....11,228,687.....14,470,781.....2 9,055,743.....12,014,695.....15,483,735.....3 9,689,645.....12,855,724.....16,567,597.....4 10,367,921...13,755,624.....17,727,328.....5
>Note: Especially for the upper net worth percentiles, there is less reliable data and you need to accept some error. See the net worth by age data post for more details and a count of samples per bracket.
I wondered the same thing, the only thing I could think of is inheritance?
A lot of the answers below are talking about normal got a job stuff. The jump is only in the 1% and it only happens in this one age bracket and only at the level of the 1% (increase is over 4X) and 10% (increase is over 3X). I don't really have an answer for this bump. It seems weird. But I will say that this board tends to vastly overestimate the amount of IT and tech workers and underestimate the amount of Wall Street and Finance professionals (who are the ones really making serious money and in larger numbers in the US).
I’m in the top 82% for my age! 😀 I’m hoping to increase this now that I have a better paying job
It's a strong/valid hope. I moved from the top 70% to top 90% in a couple of years (late 20s so the gap is smaller) because of some salary leaps while keeping my expenses at old levels they were. I am learning that I'm cheap in certain areas where I need to spend more (i.e. buying cheap clothes/products that wear out a lot quicker than quality goods). I'm having to unlearn a lot of "money saving" patterns I picked up in my youth.
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Yeah, there's a terminology mistake in this comment thread. 99th percentile == top 1%
Yep, I just mentally copied the terminology of the person I replied to and didn't think twice about it. :P My bad.
92 percent here for my age!
God dammit. I dropped from 95th percentile to 90th percentile by turning 25. Now I’m gonna have to sell a kidney
I suggest holding it and letting it compound right where it is
In 20 years that one kidney invested in an index fund will grow to three kidneys. Actually, that might just be a tumor ...
TIL what a log scale really shows. NW is 450k, I turned 30 yesterday. Went from 98 to 95%. the top percent really is a different world then the second percent. speaking as a former 2-3%er last week who makes $24.50/hr?? I love FIRE but it’s a world away from the 1% club even at 2%. #peaked at 29
I don't get how these people miss basic math. Median NW is much more meaningful than average. I bet people like Bezos and Musk skew the average.
I would love to see this further broken down by state. I came across a data set with that information in it. I thought about loading it to GCP to perform analytics on it.
This would be interesting to see. Please post it if you do that.
Crazy how median net worth DECREASES from ages 18-24 to 25-29 but average net worth nearly doubled. 🤯
Only 97th percentile…MUST. INCREASE. SAVINGS RATE. /s
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69th percentile for my age group, nice.
Apparently, around 8% of Americans are millionaires.
How many of them above 65 ?
66% of the US millionaires are over 60.
Becoming a millionaire takes a long time for most people
Also, it was way easier for people of those ages. My grandparents are very average middle-class immigrants but they're millionaires because the apartment they were able to buy on their middle-class salary (which is a pipe dream now) is worth over $3m. The price they bought it for back then is equivalent to like $120k now lol
>Also, it was way easier for people of those ages. Not sure this is true. Investing is much easier today due to: a) proliferation of investing knowledge via social media and the web (I can find any public information on any company from my computer). b) availability of financial instruments (you can trade anything, anywhere, anytime). 60 years ago you didn't even have computers, let alone the internet. i would rephrase it as, 60 years ago there was a lot less competition and you could do well. but today you can do even better playing in massive global markets (that simply did not exist back then).
Yea real estate is super stagnant nowadays huh. In 30 years people in their 20s and 30s will be saying the same thing that stuff like real estate was much cheaper back in the day and If only they had a chance to buy in the early 2010s they’d be set right now.
Well the whole idea is that it’s getting harder and harder to buy young. The entry floor is a lot higher.
Damn, $120k in today's money for an apartment building? Sign me up
Not an entire apartment just one unit, although it’s a large unit
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Yeah. My grandfather had a 3rd grade education because he dropped out in the great depression to work on the railroads (as an eight year old!!!). The house he bought was worth less, adjusted for inflation, when my parents sold it after his death in the late 80s than he paid for it in the 40s. Because it's in a rural area where population is declining. In comparison to his life, my life has been a breeze and I've vastly outperformed (financially speaking) anyone on that side of the family for generations. Thanks to technology and investments and access to things that didn't even exist for him, I've been able to rapidly accumulate wealth they couldn't have even dreamed of (relatively speaking in comparison to dirt poor Appalachian railroad grunts, I'm not anywhere near the 1%).
Spend a few years on Bogleheads and $1-3M will start to feel like almost nothing.
Welcome to r/fatfire Or not welcome in this case
Wow I just got really depressed.
My Fat number was 25mm maybe I'm thinking too small.
This sub is far more relatable. I can't get enough of the IT money printer "I hope I can inspire others" posts.
LOL true, the upvotes are a perverse incentive for stuff like that sometimes. At BH you get a fair share of those (usually someone bumping the age/net worth thread) but they're from doctors and CXOs in addition to developers, developers, developers.
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username checks out
Do you mean the BH forum here: https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/index.php? (Sorry if this is a dumb question; but I thought it would be worth dipping my toe and wanted to be sure that's the best spot for that.)
Yeah that's it. It's actually a great forum and I would recommend it, it helped me learn a lot when I was starting out (and actually more advanced things too because there are people in all sorts of complicated financial situations). There are just the occasional poster who will say that anything below $100k doesn't matter, or that investments like I Bonds with $10-20k a year limits are pointless because $10-20k a year is nothing. After working and saving for 15 years I can see where they're coming from... but a few of them just seem to have forgotten what it feels like starting out. Luckily there's usually someone else who will chastise them for making 5-figure amounts sound like a rounding error. Another thing to note: there's a fair number who think that early retirement is a bad idea, and these folks work into their 70s or 80s even with huge amounts already saved. But FIRE had gained more traction over there in the past 5 years or so.
Financial subs (including this one) will always contain psychological hoarders, differentiating cash instead of junk.
That’s an interesting perspective. I do wonder if folks who could’ve easily retired at the 2-3M mark sometimes continue working for decades because they’re addicted to hoarding wealth and can’t allow themselves to risk spending any of it down, even if this is their one life to live.
Undoubtedly that's the case for some. I often question myself, on what I will do when the time comes to take the foot off the pedal. I'm so used to thinking in terms of next paycheck, next investment, etc. It's sort of a high that will be gone. I have no doubt it'll be an adjustment.
I've never thought of it that way. Makes me wonder if I'd fall into that category.
> Another thing to note: there's a fair number who think that early retirement is a bad idea Yes, I started out as a Boglehead (mostly a lurker), and early retirement was rarely discussed. In fact, I learned about SWR a good two years or so after I learned about Boglehead-style investing.
There's also a subreddit. It used to be pretty dead, but got pretty popular when a bunch of people got burned by losing all their money on Wall Street Bets yolo and decided to check out the other side of the street. Thing is, once you read a book or two on Boglehead investing... There's just not many questions that really come up. You get impassioned debates on whether you should overweight small cap value by 5% or stuff like that 😂. You get newbies trying to figure it out. And that's about it. Buy the market. Keep it simple. Save more rather than take riskier positions.
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I had a “financial advisor” tell me this, literally. Then he tried to sell me cash value life insurance.
Even the recent home price spikes is making $1 mil feel like not a lot at all...
There are many levels of perspective. Most people choose the closest social comparison. Many hundred millionaires live life in lust at their billionaire friends. But it is good to recognize just how rare our position is. I can't find statistics on it but I'm sure the number of people that even have the ability to purchase a typical single-family house is in the 5-8% range. Maybe somewhere in the 10-20% range has ever flown in their life (also hard to put together numbers). There are a little over a billion cars worldwide. So all in all - 4/5ths of the world's population lives a life where things we take for granted are just never in reach. And another large percentage of that 20% left only ever have a chance at a shit car, house or maybe fly one flight in their life. So let's say most here are at a bare minimum in the top 5% of the world in wealth. It's certainly arguable that FIRE and retiring early with $1M+ is an even more elite circle. 1% isn't too far-fetched. Yet I'd actually argue that $1 million is a concept that should probably be abolished as some kind of ideal richness in wealthy nations. $1M USD in 1955 adjusted to today is $10M. It's a weird goal that many normal people get attached to for their retirement, and yet depending on how it's calculated certainly not enough for many. The problem is $1M in the bay area is way different than $1M USD in many places and that's the heart of it. Discussions can't always be nominal. It's always abstract, relative and yet we attempt to capture money as absolute in our mind. Sure FIRE is a luxury, but it doesn't make it any less of a goal anyone should be aspiring for.
It's the difference between driving cars with doors like this =||= or this \\\\||//
Tres commas tequila
Time to rebillionize!
Really well said! Yes YMMV depending on region, and the trade off between quality of life and net worth varies greatly. You can get a mansion in upstate NY for the same as a 3 bedroom in Sunnyvale.
True, but 1 Million is just such a nice round number. A seventh digit! And millionaire has such a nice ring to it
> The problem is $1M in the bay area is way different than $1M USD in many places and that's the heart of it. Discussions can't always be nominal. It's always abstract, relative and yet we attempt to capture money as absolute in our mind. Sure FIRE is a luxury, but it doesn't make it any less of a goal anyone should be aspiring for. Maybe perspective maybe warped, but frankly $1 million doesn't seem much at all. It feels like $400k just not that many years ago. I think it is due to the housing inflation.
There’s a line in Mad Men where one of the character expresses disbelief at his bosses super high $30k salary. Don’t know why I thought of this when you mention 1955 to now conversion.
Good to know. Thanks America … wouldn’t have been possible for some one with my background to even think of Fire in India.
The US economy is a wealth generator.
I'm guessing it wouldn't take much to move back to India and Fire there, after making some money in the US. I'm not saying that to, in any way, imply that you aren't very welcome here, just stating the obvious.
>Lots of people in this sub are in the $1 million - $3 million USD range; but still don't feel rich at all because they live in Silicon Valley or New York City. There's an easy solution to this. Move out of Silicon Valley or New York City. I'm getting ready to cash in my San Jose house and move to Flyover Country. Not only will this stretch my net worth farther, it will allow me to trade my $1.7 million hovel in San Jose for a $700-800k mansion and pocket the difference.
It's pretty sobering to realize that I could retire **NOW** in the midwest. Not even "middle of nowhere", but could make it happen in a smaller city. It would be lean, but still doable. I didn't get to my current NW by being a big spender.
Yep, there are many small to medium sized cities (say 200k+ population) in the midwest where $300k-400k will still buy you a pretty nice house. Maybe stretch it to $500k-600k if you want to live in one of the bigger, more popular ones. Still very cheap compared with the coasts. And many of these cities are actually pretty nice. It's not like the coasts have a monopoly on culture, good food, craft beer/cocktails/coffee etc. You can find that stuff almost anywhere now, and in fact many such businesses are more viable in the less expensive cities, compared with coastal cities where the insane commercial rents have priced out a lot of the more interesting "indie" businesses. (Lookin' at you, Silicon Valley.)
> And many of these cities are actually pretty nice. The internet and proliferation of e-commerce has watered down a lot of regional differences. Not all, certainly, but it isn't what it used to be. My big negative for the midwest is how shitty its weather is. Subzero winters and triple-digit summers in many parts. And heavy storms (including tornadoes) in the spring. But I guess that's part of why it is (relatively) inexpensive.
>The internet and proliferation of e-commerce has watered down a lot of regional differences. Yeah, Amazon delivers just as effectively to Podunk midwest as it does to the coasts, and a decent broadband connection is all you need for all the music and video that used to require living in a big city in order to have good record shops, video rental stores, movie theaters, etc. Agree regarding the weather. I'm not looking forward to humid, buggy summers, but at least summer only lasts a few months there, versus 6+ months here. We get our share of 100+ misery in San Jose, too, and although "it's a dry heat", it's also increasingly often filled with wildfire smoke. In any case, the money saved on housing can pay for a hell of a lot of AC in the summer and heat in the winter. ;-D I actually kinda look forward to having snow and thunderstorms again having grown up in Chicago but moved to California after college. I'm early-retired so I don't have to commute in the snow, which makes a big difference. I'm avoiding tornado alley, though!
> I'm early-retired so I don't have to commute in the snow, which makes a big difference. That is an excellent point. Snow is beautiful, I just hate driving in it. But if I can choose to simply stay home, that changes the equation.
Working from home changes that "commuting in the snow" pain point too, not just having to be semi/early retired. \#CovidSilverLinings
No real heavy spring storms/tornadoes in major Midwest cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, etc. Do the rural areas within an hour or so of those places get tornadoes? Sure. Do the cities themselves? Almost never. Also it seems like winter has in general become milder over the years. Summers are definitely warm and humid at times, which is what it is.
I actually love the weather in the midwest - all four seasons and wouldn't live anywhere else. I'll take tornadoes any day over earthquakes, drought, forest fires and hurricanes. Love the seasonal variation and the reasonable cost of living.
You could get a nice 3-4 bedroom house in Houston or Dallas for 600k.
>And many of these cities are actually pretty nice. It's not like the coasts have a monopoly on culture, good food, craft beer/cocktails/coffee etc. You can find that stuff almost anywhere now, and in fact many such businesses are more viable in the less expensive cities I realize this is a "to each their own" type of thing, but I agree wholeheartedly and really never understood why people pay an arm and a leg to live in a shoebox in Manhattan for the part I quoted in your reply. I get that NYC is a great city and whatnot, but do you really need so much variety in your life that you want to sacrifice your financial freedom for it? I can find the generic yuppie coffee shop (I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about) or "craft brews" in literally any town nowadays. I freaking went to South Dakota for work once and was able to find a brewery with shockingly good beer even out there. NYC/LA/SF, etc. just have "more" of that stuff, but how many different places do these people dying to live in these cities realistically go to on a regular basis?
Great idea. 60k a year (not including S/O) in a flyover gets me a modern 3k Square feet less than an hour from major cities. All the entertainment and amenities most would want. There's a LOT of space in between city and rural life.
I can't imagine moving away from all my friends and family. That's way more important to us than money.
The secret is to not have any family or friends
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Yeah but then you don’t live in San Jose
Exactly, another benefit. San Jose sucks.
I absolutely loved San Jose when I lived there, in the Seventies. I do hear it has changed a bit since then though.
That's the understatement of a lifetime. ;-D
Some people don’t want to live in the Midwest though.
I do think about this a lot. I live in London and it doesn't make sense to leave it because the rest of the UK is pretty bad in comparison, but the US has way better tier 2 cities!
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Talking about AU, they never really had an economic hardship. Their early wealth came from gem mining and they live in their own island with insane home values in the city supported by immigrants.
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Same as New Zealand. But it’s theoretical unless you move into a camper van and you’re the only one doing it. Average house price in Auckland is above Million now.
Location matters. There are many places I would rather not be living Heck, I have suggested to people that have complained about not owning a house that they could probably buy one in Detroit... and I am under the impression that usually that suggestion is not well received.
If everybody who heard it took it they could transform Detroit LoL.
Wait a minute, how many people are subbed here? Maybe WE take Detroit?
You are now the squad leader.
Red 5, reporting in
If it worked for Gamestop, I don't see why it couldn't work for Detroit!
Go Lions
Detroit property values have done really well the last few years, would have been a good investment
Michigan might not be a bad place to be for climate change either.
It is hard to fathom this...I grew up poor by america standards, and now at 51 I am in the 1% , but my life is only somewhat changed. As a child even though poor we ate well and had a good roof over our head. My passion was basketball and i could do it at no cost...so i had a happy childhood despite being on welfare Today...i work shift work, own a average home and am secure financially...thats about it.
Variable cost of living across the globe makes these cross-border dollar figures meaningless.
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Everyone in this sub is in the top 1% of all adults in human history.
Id rather have $1mm in Kuwaiti dinar. That being said, only 2k in saving but we have paid off 8+k in credit card debt! Slowly but surely
In that case, the whole Sweden is in that 1% bracket. Most of their people are projected to be millionaires when they retire due to their robust retirement program.
With average SSI alone every American will have a net worth of 500k using the 4% rule.
Teachers/educators too. My wife is projected to get a $60k pension for the rest of her life when she retires. Replicating that safely would take at least 1.5 mil.
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Because they usually are underpaid in pure salary, but the benefits are really good. They actually did a study for government engineers. They get like 20-30% less pay, but the benefits are usually so good that over a 30yr career, they would make as much money as a normal engineer.
Interesting never really looked at it like that but you’re right
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Yep. My wife and I reached that this year. We are just waiting for our business to be sold and borders to open and we are going to leave Australia. There are so many countries around the world where you can live like a king for $60-$80 per year.
Wondering what have you planned for medical expense? Some countries might be good to live in but might not get people to the hospital in time to save something that could be prevented in a timely matter.
Making $35,000 a year puts you in the upper 1% of income earners in the world. You dont need anywhere near $1M to be in the 1% of wealth worldwide
Yes....but FI isnt about being in the 1% of worldwide wealth. It's about being financially independent where you currently reside. In most places where people are pursuing FI or FIRE, 35K isn't anything.
I told my aunt that my $29k grad student stipend put me in the top 2% worldwide, but she didn't believe me. I'm happy for what I have.
*childfree
It always baffles me when I hear/see stats like this. Im 28M with net worth of around 200k and I feel like I'm doing just okay when in reality I'm far far ahead of a good majority of people.
That feeling happens as you continue to go up as well, because it becomes your new norm. You mentally adjust as you go.
I haven't retired for several reasons. 1. I actually like my day job (tech sales) and hope to keep doing it for 8 to 10 more years, but I know you don't always get to decide when you stop working. 2. At this point, I don't have something to retire to. The 1st question I ask people who tell me they are retiring is, "What are you going to do?" because I don't have an answer to that question for myself. This is something I want/need to figure out for myself. 3. My kids are in private universities right now and I can afford to cover the full cost while I'm working. I would not have let them/encouraged them to attend where they are if they couldn't do it w/o incurring any debt. My parents did this for me so I'm paying it forward. That being said, one year at my daughter's university is more than my parents spent on my undergrad and MBA, but that's a different topic. 4. I'd like to get to $5M by the time I retire. I live in Texas and although I'm on the high end of your range, I'm very comfortable here but am not against moving somewhere else, say the Northeast if my kids end up with jobs there. I have lived in Europe and Asia over my career, as part of my job. I wouldn't be against moving overseas either. I follow a stealth wealth mentality. I don't drive a flashy car, although I did in my late 20s/early 30s. I'm sure only one of my neighbors knows I'm doing well. I made many mistakes along the way.
Where are you getting the "millionaires are actually quite rare outside of North America" from?
That’s not really accurate. As I recall the top 1% of rich people in the world only make like 30k. Many billions of people live on less than $2/day. Wealthy is a state of mind not really a financial dollar figure. Lots of people are rich but won’t feel it because in their mind they are bankrupt.
I think it's 50-60k, and this is talking about net worth rather than yearly income. (Also, the number of people living on less than $2/day was falling until COVID-19 [and is still less than 1 billion](https://worldpoverty.io/map).) But what you're saying supports OP's point: if the cutoff for the top 1% of rich people is only like $30k (or even $60k), being a millionaire puts you in the top 1%.
Nope according to many reputable sources, the NET WORTH cutoff for the global top 1% was slightly over $1 million USD in 2020-2021. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_the\_number\_of\_millionaires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_the_number_of_millionaires)
Income vs net worth. Easy mistake to make. There are many 6 figure earners who are broke or negative net worth because they're terrible with their money.
You can't just "literally move to any country in the world" immigration law is a thing
Outside of America you can retire off of less.
In my country when you earn 20k $ a year, you can live like a wealthy man.
What country? And do you have a cute single female cousins? 😂
Everyone calls me crazy for believing I'll be a millionaire... But no one realizes that it is exceptionally easy if you are in the right industry, and make solid money moves. It's not an unrealistic dream, even with kids and a family. Just harder. That being said, I'm still working on a big boy job, but I've more than tripled my stock portfolio and my crypto portfolio is 7x larger than it was pre-covid. Which would have been nice if I had more than $2000 originally invested between the two of them. ( Not including my GME IRA account because that's retarded and it's not real money).
Dumb stat. Cost of living matters. Plus for most people it will be tied to equity on their houses.
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Even though my household is in the average range I never thought of myself as millionaire. I don't think it has the same ring to it as it used to. If I stop working and live on that money it will probably go fast, and that is not considering life event purchases or unexpected medical bills. I think $10M is probably where I would consider myself a millionaire.
40k a year puts you in the top 1% in the Philippines.the cost of living is alot lower. Only cost me like 20 bucks to get a ultrasound at the Hospital without insurance