Everyone has money problems, yes, even the wealthy. Nobody likes to hear this though. For one, we get tired of the rich flaunting their wealth. Additionally, we think we’d be OK with some more problems if we could have more money. In general, there isn’t much sympathy for the problems of people with a lot of money.
The problems of the wealthy may not be the same type of problems that someone living paycheck to paycheck has. They don’t have to deal with a mountain of school loan debt. They can pretty much pay for healthcare costs out of pocket. But their problems exist nonetheless. Having more money doesn’t isolate a person from having more problems.
I don’t consider myself rich by any means. I’m not even sure how to accurately define whether someone is rich. What net worth number does a person have to reach before they are considered wealthy? $1 million? $5 million? $10 million plus?
I would consider someone with $10 million in net worth to be rich. If they had all that money in cash, they could retire and live off $200,000 a year for 50 years. That sounds rich to me.
I’ll never reach the $10 million dollar plateau. But my wife and I have come to the point in our financial lives where we are worrying less about money. While we don’t struggle with putting food on the table, I have noticed other problems creeping into our lives as our net worth has increased. It got me thinking about the money issues of the wealthy and what they might be dealing with on a personal level.
We haven’t experienced most of these. But I’ll admit a few of them shake me on a small scale.
This should not be surprising to anyone. The big priorities of life such as shelter, food, transportation, careers, education, healthcare and retirement all have money affixed to them as a central core element. Whenever a major life decision has to be made it almost always involves money.