Throughout the world, people desire to be wealthy. People want to be at the top of the wealth game. But what defines wealth? Is it movie stars, sports stars, *ahem* bloggers?
Many people look to the rich and famous to define wealth and riches. A bigger mistake couldn’t be made. While it is true that some of the rich and famous are indeed wealthy, many of them will end their careers in worse financial positions than you or I.
What should define wealth? What qualifiers do you use for wealth? Many use net worth. To some, a net worth of more than a certain number qualifies as wealthy. But what number? Many use the $1,000,000 mark. A lofty goal for many.
I define wealth differently. Wealth to me does include my net worth, but it’s a fluid mark. For me to consider myself wealthy, I merely wish to live comfortably now and into retirement. I am still quite a way off from that mark and still have to work diligently on my finances to make strides in that direction. Currently, if my wife and I were to make somewhere between 60,000 and 70,000 combined gross per year, we could live quite comfortably. So for now, that’s the mark.
The beauty of it being fluid is that as our debts and bills decrease so does the mark. Say all my debts were to go away tomorrow. The mark would decrease significantly. Perhaps down to the level of income that we make now.
These numbers do include some planning for future, but that is what it would take to live comfortably for now. And it would leave some for retirement investing. Enough to keep that level of funds for many years into our retirement.
How do you define wealth? Do you have a set goal for your net worth that would indicate to you that you are wealthy?
[tags]wealth, wealthy, net worth, retirement, salary, worth, rich[/tags]
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I think that wealth, for me, would be enough to live comfortably without worrying about my finances – the knowledge that even if an unexpected expense crops up, we’ll be able to handle it without stress and fear. Once I get my debt paid off and accumulate larger savings, the amount I make now will be fine.