If you have a million dollar income but you borrow money from someone who makes less than you do, you’re poor.
I know it sounds offbeat and not quite right but think about it:
Who borrows? Those who don’t have any money.
And who doesn’t have any money? The ones who are poor.
Income has nothing to do with it, in my opinion. Being “poor” is not a standard definition, and neither is being “rich”.
You could make $30,000 a year and be rich just because your expenses are low, and you’ve saved a lot!
For all the blustering some people do with their uber high incomes, it may all be for show.
As I’ve always said, savings = wealth.
Without any savings, you don’t have wealth.
I’ve always equated ‘wealth’ to ‘options’. The more choices and opportunities that exist in your life, the wealthier you are.
It’s true that we tend to automatically equate higher income with “rich.” Expenses (trivial and otherwise) often inflate with your income. We pay less on our mortgage than we did on a two-bedroom apartment, but we also pay an average of $400 in utilities each month. And some expenses are self-imposed, like paying extra on our mortgage. It still means money that isn’t going toward savings. Granted, when we pay off the house in another 10 years it’ll mean a lot of savings so…