Wake up, will ya, pal? If you're not inside, you're outside, okay? And I'm not talking a $400,000 a year working Wall Street stiff flying first class and being comfortable, I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player, or nothing. Now, you had what it took to get into my office; the real question is whether you got what it takes to stay.

Of course you can be healthy, happy and rich but the hypothetical question is pick two out of three.

There's no nobility in poverty!

It's not that different, really. Financially, rich for most folks seems to be defined by being able to not have financial worries or the requirement for work. My wife and I still need to work for several years in order to cover college/house/retirement. Luckily we like our jobs, and would do them anyway. In that way we are "rich", and are on our way to being "rich" on our own financial terms.

go figure, on a forum where middle aged dudes spend thousands of dollars on equipment and lessons to suck just a little less at an obscure sport...we come up with estimates of "rich" significantly above the average estimate:).

Goes along with those silly bubbles we all live in. My closest friends and colleagues all pull in between 150K and 450K as a household (we live in a relatively low cost area for the northeast). Inadvertently, they all consider themselves "middle class"...hahaha. Maybe the 150K couple could somehow be still considered "middle" even at 3x the household income of the median for our ZIP code...but anyone even a buck over that is rich no matter how you slice the stats. Sure, they may not be able to stop working TOMORROW...but if they cared enough to do the math they could stop in less than 10 years.

Nobody at this level of income in our area needs to worry about money. Ever. Unless they're stupid.

As far as "rich" goes in terms of net worth. The 25x spending would be a good gauge in my opinion. Means you're done. Free. No longer have to work if you so choose.

Until I caught the part of your last post that referenced the NE I actually was starting to believe that you were one of my wife's former employees IRL. Seriously, your exposition on your life, jobs, finances and even your handle (he was a boat captain as a youth) pointed to XXX who is a fantastic triathlete and runnner and exactly the kind of guy that probably frequents ST.

As for the OP, I don't know what "rich" is. We do fine. Between us our household income is somewhat more than what you described, and we live in a very low cost area of the country. Primary residence is paid off, as is the boat and all of our crap other than the lake house where we still owe a relatively modest amount.

We've done the math (wife is a finance pro) and if we keep on keeping on at current or higher levels of income we will be what we consider well off and retired very comfortsbly in 10 years. Rich is a different animal..I have friends with parents that have a private jet. Those fuckers are "rich". We're never going to get there, but that's ok.

Edited to add: you are rich when you almost always fly private air. If you're really rich you have your own plane. If you're somewhat rich you at least travel via net jet or something similar.

Switch that around: IF you have your own plane, THEN you are really rich (in most cases, and maybe not for too much longer). I know way too many ridiculously rich people who just don't do the "private /charter plane" thing. They do just fine riding 1st class or (gasp!) economy class.

it's all relative.
i am fairly wealthy, but grew up poor. that formed my identity, so in effect i buy everything used, fly southwest, drive a honda, etc. wife is the same way - a total trust fund baby, but also grew up poor for most part, so she buys $5 wine at trader joes, flies coach and moved herself several times by renting a uhaul. it's a fucking curse in essence.
the only things we spend money on is our kids (whatever it takes), our dogs (same thing) and our sporting equipment (sometimes, the urge to go cheap is too strong here).

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

That's not how I see it. It can be a hassle, sure, but not really a curse. Consumption at the "rich" level...heck, consumption even at the trailer park level in the US is not globally sustainable. Think of being frugal as a way of contributing to the planet's overall well being. Saving it for your kids, or your kids' kids' kids. Anyway, that's how I justify working like a dog on a weekends when I could just pay a landscaper to do it for me...or fixing a 30 year old boat when I could buy a new one.

That's fair. The last part was a bit pinkish to begin with. Lamar Hunt was somewhat famous for flying coach when he was still alive. Bill Self makes about 5M a year coaching KU basketball and he sat two rows up from us on a recent SWA flight to Florida.

Grp or wooden boat?

I have a fiberglass sailboat (small-ish) 22 footer tub. Several other fiberglass rowboats and canoes, a plastic molded kayak, and most recently, a long and skinny glass reinforced okoume ply touring 'yak. Other than the molded plastic kayak I've had to work on all of the others a bit. The plastic kayak would survive hiroshima, though, so that's not going anywhere.

I do consider myself rich because I have everything I want:)

Depends where you live. 2.4 mil is not much in Vancouver but in Croatia, Albania or Montenegro could live well with quarter of that, even less.

Reading everyone's answers here it seems that rich is "a lot more than what whomever you ask currently has".