Rich VS Wealthy

Wealthy: Old money inherited by someone raised in a wealthy family, or new money earned through years of work, saving, and investing. Money had by someone experienced with money, and which will probably grow over time.

Rich: Money gained suddenly by someone who previously had little, as in robbing a bank, getting an unexpected inheritance or insurance payout, or winning a lottery.

What do lottery winners yell? Probably not "I'm wealthy!" Probably "I'm rich!" Then it's off to the Ferrari dealer.

I get some onomatopoeia from the two words. The word "wealthy" sounds classier than "rich." I hear "wealthy" coming from the mouth of Thurston Howell, III, and "rich" coming from Danny DeVito in "Ruthless People."
 
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I continue to be quite entertained that so many find attempting to define the difference between "rich" and wealthy" to be so deserving of discussion. We might as well be discussing the difference between "well-heeled" and "penurious", or "loaded" and "disadvantaged". These are all terms without strict definitions. One man's destitute is another man's opulent, so to speak.

A discussion in purely quantitative terms would be much more substantial, I think. Conversations about the average savings rate in different groups of people, ranked according to their income, for instance, are classifications that are more easily understood. Terms like "rich" and "wealthy" though, are more nebulous. They mean different things to different people.

Which is probably why this thread continues in a state of apparent good health! :LOL:
 
Major Tom said:
A discussion in purely quantitative terms would be much more substantial, I think...
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Even when we talk dollar amounts, it's still relative as to what constitutes richness or poverty.

As for me, all I know is that I am living well enough with a WR of 1% or less to complement my wife's SS. That WR will be even lower when I start my own SS.

I don't want to tell y'all about my expenses, other than it's less than $100K despite generous gifting and charity donations. When a guy has no debts, cannot drink/eat more, and has no expensive habits, what does he spend money on?

I still like to make more money via investing though. It's a recreational activity for me, done at the same time as I tend to my veggie garden and my DIY solar+battery system.
 
marko said:
We call it "wealth rot". It used to be called something else but that’s now not a popular phrase.

Each generation produces more mouths to hit against the trust fund/core wealth until there's $X divided by 75 heirs. One of the reasons the wealthy have smaller families.

Then there's poor life choices along the way. Read the story of Horace Dodge Jr some time. Divorced X times and so drunk 24/7 that his valet had to push him around in a wheelchair whenever he went out to dinner.

Jim Kimberly (Kleenex heir) is another sad story. Too many divorces, too much free time.
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I can relate to this.

On DM's side I'm 4th generation inheritor, and on DD's side I'm 3rd generation inheritor. Just for fun I did a quickie calculation (ignoring that fact that some extended family members got bigger shares than others along the way), and I figure that I inherited 1.04% of my g-grandfather's fortune (on DM's side) and about 6% of my grandfather's fortune (on DF's side).

Darn it, if my g-grandfather (DM's side) didn't have so many kids (12), my shares on that side would have been more than a lousy 1.04%!
 
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luckydude said:
I can relate to this.

On DM's side I'm 4th generation inheritor, and on DD's side I'm 3rd generation inheritor. Just for fun I did a quickie calculation (ignoring that fact that some extended family members got bigger shares than others along the way), and I figure that I inherited 1.04% of my g-grandfather's fortune (on DM's side) and about 6% of my grandfather's fortune (on DF's side).

Darn it, if my g-grandfather (DM's side) didn't have so many kids (12), my shares on that side would have been more than a lousy 1.04%!
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Then there's the "per stirpes" designation or not for inheritance that can throw a wrench into generational passing down.

Back to original question, it's kind of two sides of the same coin to me. Although I agree rich is more like current money and wealthy is more like old money. Or how several have defined, wealth is money working for you, rich is you working for money.
 
My money works for me, and I also work to keep it growing. :)

Gerald Martin Loeb was a founding partner of E.F. Hutton & Co., a renowned Wall Street trader and brokerage firm. In his book, The Battle For Investment Survival, he said that investing is like gardening. You need to water and cultivate your plants and trees, and do some weeding.
 
luckydude said:
I can relate to this.

On DM's side I'm 4th generation inheritor, and on DD's side I'm 3rd generation inheritor. Just for fun I did a quickie calculation (ignoring that fact that some extended family members got bigger shares than others along the way), and I figure that I inherited 1.04% of my g-grandfather's fortune (on DM's side) and about 6% of my grandfather's fortune (on DF's side).

Darn it, if my g-grandfather (DM's side) didn't have so many kids (12), my shares on that side would have been more than a lousy 1.04%!
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1.04% of a large fortune can be a lot so it depends.
 
NW-Bound said:
Even when we talk dollar amounts, it's still relative as to what constitutes richness or poverty.

As for me, all I know is that I am living well enough with a WR of 1% or less to complement my wife's SS. That WR will be even lower when I start my own SS.

I don't want to tell y'all about my expenses, other than it's less than $100K despite generous gifting and charity donations. When a guy has no debts, cannot drink/eat more, and has no expensive habits, what does he spend money on?

I still like to make more money via investing though. It's a recreational activity for me, done at the same time as I tend to my veggie garden and my DIY solar+battery system.
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Agree 100%. We talk about how much you need to be happy, comfortable, and secure. If you like your spouse, enjoy time with him/her, and have similar goals, what more do you need? Health issues are a concern but what do you expect? To quote Cat Stevens:

"Look at me
I am old, but I'm happy...
But take your time, think a lot
Why, think of everything you've got
For you will still be here tomorrow
But your dreams may not"
 
easysurfer said:
I've considered that wealth has more prestigious connotation than rich.

Go to a bank and you don't see a "Rich Management Services" department but maybe a "Wealth Management Services"

But I guess it's just semantics. Janitor or Custodian. The same difference as they say :popcorn:.
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No..... no..... not semantics. You're confusing the noun "wealth" with the adjective "wealthy." You can be rich. You can be wealthy. But you can't be wealth.

A wealth management department at a bank provides services for the rich or the wealthy.
 
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luckydude said:
Thankfully even my 1.04% share turned out to be quite a bit of money so I shouldn't complain :)
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Ok, but here's the point.
Can you grow that inheritance, doubling it every eight years or so?
Or will you fritter it away to nothing by the time you pass?

This is the critical question that needs an answer...
 
TheWizard said:
Ok, but here's the point.
Can you grow that inheritance, doubling it every eight years or so?
Or will you fritter it away to nothing by the time you pass?

This is the critical question that needs an answer...
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DW and I are definitely on the path to creating a big pot of our own, partly funded by our own earnings/savings and partly funded by inheritance that we received.

Some of my cousins and second cousins on both sides of my family have done the same---taking their share and growing them successfully to create their own big pot---while a few others have absolutely pissed away the money, usually through ill-advised investments that they did not understand.

---It's curious how many people think that having money equates to having investment/business savvy. Several of my cousins are dumb as a sack of potatoes, but because they inherited a lot of money, the possession of money somehow gave them a false sense of security and competence regarding investments. So they invested in all sorts of stuff they did not understand, and lost tons of money.
 
TheWizard said:
Ok, but here's the point.
Can you grow that inheritance, doubling it every eight years or so?
Click to expand...

The only Inheritance moneys I ever received, was from my Dads Father. And my Stepmother threw a fit at Dad for giving my brother and I the money... $1000 each. I would be up to about $4000 by now... :dance:
 
Thankfully, I was never burdened with an inheritance and any expectations that might accompany it. Every dollar the young wife and I have, we earned by ourselves.
 
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