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"How much is enough? Just a little bit more?" It's often attributed to John D. Rockefeller.

But here's the thing: when you're barely scraping by, you don't even let yourself dream about things like a fancy vacation or a nicer car because you know you can't afford it. But let's say you suddenly have an extra 30k every month. Now, you can start picturing yourself living it up on a vacation or cruising around in that nicer car. The problem is, you can only do one at a time, and the number of things you could do with that extra cash grows way faster than you can keep up with. So, paradoxically, you might actually become more dissatisfied with life, even as you make more money.

But some people think that the solution is just to make even more money, but then even more possibilities open up, and you end up with even more dreams to chase. The way out of this endless cycle of "just a little bit more" is to stop chasing bigger and bigger dreams.

Personally, I think around 50 cr would be enough for me to do everything I want to do and live comfortably for the rest of my life. But the thing is, you don't necessarily need that much to be happy. Happiness isn't just about how much money you have or what you can buy with it.

For me, "enough" means having everything I need to meet my needs and some of my wants. And honestly, work can even be enjoyable sometimes, so I don't necessarily need to retire early or never work again or worry about raising health care costs.

This is the formula for being rich.

Total monthly nut < Passive income.

"Total monthly nut expenses" is a financial term that refers to the total amount of money needed to cover a person's basic living expenses each month. It includes all the necessary expenses that a person or household incurs on a regular basis, such as:

• Housing expenses (rent or mortgage payments, property taxes, utilities, maintenance, and repairs)
• Food expenses (groceries, dining out, and snacks)
• Transportation expenses (car payments, gas, insurance, maintenance, and public transportation)
• Healthcare expenses (insurance premiums, copays, prescriptions, and medical bills)

• Personal care expenses (toiletries, haircuts, and other grooming services)
• Clothing expenses (clothing purchases and dry cleaning)
• Entertainment expenses (movies, concerts, hobbies, and other leisure activities)
• Debts and other financial obligations (credit card payments, student loans, and other loans)

Passive income is income that is earned without requiring active involvement on a regular basis. In other words, it is income that is generated through investments, business ventures, or other sources that do not require ongoing effort or labor.

Passive income can come from a variety of sources, including:

• Rental income from real estate properties or other assets.
• Dividend income from stocks or other investments that pay regular dividends.
• Interest income from savings accounts, CDs, bonds, or other fixed-income securities.
• Royalties from intellectual property such as books, music, or patents.
• Capital gains from the sale of assets such as stocks, real estate, or businesses.
• Affiliate marketing or advertising revenue from websites or other online platforms.
• Network marketing or multi-level marketing (MLM) businesses that generate ongoing commissions from sales made by downline members.

Passive income is often considered desirable because it allows for greater financial freedom and independence. With passive income, an individual or business can generate revenue without having to actively work for it, which can provide greater flexibility and opportunities for other pursuits. However, it's important to note that passive income still requires some level of initial effort, investment, or risk to set up and maintain.

The definition of being rich can vary depending on individual perspectives and circumstances. However, in general, being rich is often associated with having significant financial wealth and assets that exceed one's basic needs and allow for a comfortable and luxurious lifestyle.

Here are some common ways that being rich may be defined:

High net worth: Being rich may mean having a high net worth, which is the total value of a person's assets minus their liabilities. The exact threshold for what is considered "high" may vary, but it generally involves having a significant amount of financial assets, such as cash, investments, real estate, or business ownership.

Lifestyle: Being rich may also be defined by a luxurious lifestyle that includes expensive homes, cars, vacations, and other indulgences that are beyond the reach of most people.

Freedom: Being rich may provide a sense of financial freedom that allows a person to pursue their passions and goals without worrying about financial constraints.

Generosity: Being rich may also be associated with a willingness and ability to give generously to charitable causes or help others in need.


IMHO, being can be summarised as

• When your monthly nut is less than your monthly passive income.
• When you have the choice/freedom to WORK when you want to, with whom (corporate vs business owner) you want to, and at the pace you want to.
• The passive income sources are diversified enough to provide stablility.
• One has sufficient financial knowledge optimize returns from the assets and make the right moves during turbulent market conditions.

Another point is most RICH have positive attitude/relationship with money. In India, most families have villainised money and many including myself had the aversion towards the rich and had a negative outlook towards money. This is not a good thing IMO, one should be grateful towards lakshmi/Money, she provides/facilitates for everything including food, childrens education, house and security, not to mention the TOYS (Cars and bikes). One thing I practise is say Arigato money, during any transaction (Google it) another is get myself educated on money management.

Here are 10 of the top books for creating wealth:

• "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill: This classic book outlines the steps for creating wealth through positive thinking, goal setting, and other success principles.
  
• "The Richest Man in Babylon" by George S. Clason: This book provides timeless advice on personal finance and wealth creation through simple yet effective strategies.
  
• "The Millionaire Next Door" by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko: This book provides insights into the habits and behaviors of wealthy individuals and offers practical advice for building wealth.
  
• "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki: This book challenges traditional thinking about money and encourages readers to adopt a mindset of wealth creation through smart investing and entrepreneurship.
  
• "The Science of Getting Rich" by Wallace D. Wattles: This book provides a practical, step-by-step approach to creating wealth through the power of positive thinking and action.
  
• "The Automatic Millionaire" by David Bach: This book provides a simple yet effective system for achieving financial independence through automated saving and investing.
  
• "The Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey: This book provides a step-by-step plan for getting out of debt, building an emergency fund, and achieving financial independence through smart budgeting, investing, and planning.
  
• "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith: This classic book is a foundational work in the field of economics and provides insights into the workings of markets, trade, and wealth creation.
  
• "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham: This classic book is widely regarded as the definitive guide to value investing, providing a comprehensive framework for analyzing stocks and other investments.
  
• "The Simple Path to Wealth" by JL Collins: This book offers a straightforward approach to building wealth through low-cost index funds and a disciplined savings and investing strategy.

I have 2-part answer to this:

First one is my perspective:

This is derived from this quote I read somewhere . Probably this holds good for a Rolls-Royse/Bentley too.

Basically, if your money earns enough money to take care of your needs, you are rich. But this point has been covered well by a lot of participants here.

Second Answer:

I wanted to get a perspective of someone in the age group who is not well represented here, so I took my dad's view on this topic.

A bit about my dad:

He is in late 70's, lives a simple life in a B town.
Owns a house big enough to host 3 visiting families at a time, does not have any loans or liabilities.
Does not own a car, he takes autorickshaw or bus for most of his commute and hires taxi if he has to travel far. If it is evenings and if he is not going beyond 2 KMs prefers to walk.
Earns enough from his fixed income investments to pay income tax of few thousand rupees.

I began by asking him what is my parents monthly expenditure, his response was about 15,000 Rs on an average.
Most of his money earned from interest goes as donation to temples and social organizations which does good work in our area.

Here I asked him the question about who as per him is rich, and his response was " You can call me rich"

I guess he is right.

===============================================

:OT

I see a lot of numbers thrown around here. Some numbers look unreal to achieve if one depends on salary income.
It could be an interesting follow up thread to discuss how people are planning to achieve these goals, because a goal with no plan is just a fantasy.

That's ~65LPA actually. :D

Welcome to the most boring answer of this thread. Why? Because this is Science!!

A few years ago I had accidentally stumbled on this post from Quora that says "I am rich, fit, and I have mastered almost everything I wanted to master. Why am I still not happy and still not satisfied?" & had casually browsed the reply & moved on. Coincidentally {or rather RAS <Reticular Activating System> as I would call} kicks in & happened to read few books on working of Brain, Human brain in particular, fascinated me to go back to that thread to have a second look & that was one of the revelation {the Aha moment} moments in life.

So this is the thread in Quora, which is quite interesting & encourage all members to read this. For members who prefer a more succinct approach, this is what it says in a nutshell:

• Dopamine
• Endorphin
• Oxytocin
• Serotonin

are termed as 4 happy chemicals that are released in body in response to our external world that makes us happy. Right examples would perhaps be like:
Dopamine: The feeling on the number of likes we see in FB post {Friends, networking, hobbies etc}
Endorphin: The feeling of observing sweat after an intense workout {Exercising}
Oxytocin: The feeling when we hug our loved ones {Family}
Serotonin: The feeling that we get after helping someone {Helping/Giving back to society}

To live a RICH life, one has to keep all these in moderation. How?
Excessive indulging with friends, acquaintances, colleagues etc has its own perils, but in moderation can have a great networking benefits. Needless to stress the importance of exercise & keeping oneself fit which is a great return in long term. Family is a question beyond doubt. The last hormone is something that can be produced when one does something good that benefits others, which is why many rich folks establish a Philanthropical trust.

Even if you look at many of the motivational speakers, family counsellors, wellness experts & even some doctors prescribe to have a happy mind & healthy body; former for Dopamine & Oxytocin and latter for Endorphin & Serotonin.

So how does this connect with being rich? Financially wealthy requires to sweat out off a$$ which perhaps satisfies Dopamine (if that's your thing), but at the cost of other 3; Body builders? Perhaps sacrifice their taste buds? Even excessive indulging in family love & affection has adverse effects in making a good income or having too much attachment with Daughter/Son has its own adverse effects in either unable to provide basic needs or losing away everything. When everything is kept in moderation, that's when one becomes Rich - Rich in Life!!

Talking "Rich" in terms of monetary, here's what I think

1. An active income that builds a passive income when there's time & energy
2. A passive income that yields 2-3 times of inflation when there's energy & money
3. Something like 20% return on investment when there's money & time

Last but not the least, a frugal life {or to live within one's means} that helps to save about 20% of what one makes

This might sound stupid to people here but according to me a person is rich if he has at least 3 friends who have always been there through his thick and thin, has blessings of his parents always, has a family to call his own, has no financial worries like debt/loan, he and his family are absolutely healthy according to their age, has an appetite to learn new things everyday and most importantly knows how to be happy with life.

Can't get richer than that in my books

It does sound stupid. But these are my exact thoughts :thumbs up

Found this on another forum:

You work 8 hours to live 4.
You work 6 days to enjoy 1.
You work 8 hours to eat in 15 minutes.
You work 8 hours to sleep 5.
You work all year just to take a week or two vacation.

You work all your life to retire in old age. And contemplate only your last breaths.

Eventually you realize that life is nothing but a parody of yourself practicing for your own oblivion.

We have become so accustomed to material and social slavery that we no longer see the chains.

Out of options given above I think the "Income of 5 lakhs per month AND assets of at least 5 crores" is best suited for our country.
Although after reading through philosophical replies given by our fellow members I feel rich already :Cheering:

And in India considering the taxes we pay both direct and indirect, it is fair to state that we work for the Government of India for 5 months of the year.
Indeed we are slaves in every way.

Very true and I don't think many people realize this. Also, since the government has a monopoly over counterfeiting i.e, printing money, the endless inflation is also an indirect tax that we do not consider.

This thread seems to be a case of philosophy graduate students mistakenly enrolled in a core subject of economics.

Please pardon my offtopic here

I used to believe in this theory, but after giving up almost all social media, I found this is totally flawed.
How?

• There're 365 days in a year (let's discount the leap year for now)
• Keeping aside the theory of mandated holidays, I think most of us have around 12 holidays in a year. Make that 10 please.
• Typically one can avail 15 sick/casual/privilege leaves in a year
• Let's say a non IT staff gets to work 6 days a week, which makes 52 Sundays
• So how many days one has to work? 365 - 10-15-52 = 288 days. So one has to work for 288 days; which is 6912 hours a year

• Let's say one is bound to work 8 hours a day, which makes 288X8=2304 hours a year!! leaving 6912-2304=4608 for personal use
• Let's say one uses 4 hours for commuting to work, showering, groceries, food & tending to nature's call etc, which consumes 288X4=1152 hours leaving us 4608-1152=3456 hours
• Let's say another 8 hours is spent for sleeping which is again 288X8=2304 hours & leaves us with 3456-2304=1152 hours, which is a good 48 days (1152/24)
• This is excluding the holidays of meagre 77 days {52+15+10} {let's make it a realistic of 77X12 hours=924 hours} totaling to 2076 {1152+924} hours = 2076/24=86.5 days
• Even if one discards 4 more hours to spend with family every single day, the personal time {86.5X4=346 hours} one gets to spend is 2076-346=1730 hours = 1730/24=72 days!!

Question is: Are we utilizing our gift of 1440 minutes every day, if not every single day? What one does with that 72 days/1730 hours?

I second this at 26. I want to own a Tiger 900, Himalayan, Aprilia Tuono 1100 factory, and a Aprilia SXR125, with a decently sized home loan free. Life had other plans :(. Its either you have the money but not the time, or you have the time but not the money. Himalayan materialiazed after 3.5 years of work after graduation, will take atleast 6 months more from now to even consider a 390 adventure to upgrade, forget a Tiger or Aprilia. Perhaps at 36 :)

Slightly off-topic, but that logic is a bit flawed.

1. Every country has taxes. Most developed European countries have higher tax rates, and more importantly, higher tax incidence.

2. Also, assuming the calculation of 5 months of taxes is accurate, we don't work for the Government. This money goes to things we do not pay directly - Roads, Police, Judiciary, Army, etc. Probably the tax money is not spent diligently, which I agree. But we are improving every year on that for the past 75 years.

3. I believe everyone in this forum is probably in the top few percentiles in terms of wealth. So we are probably in the exact opposite spectrum of slaves.

Lastly, no one likes to pay taxes. The only exception I read about is a guy by the name of Haraldur - who sold his company to twitter and opted to get the consideration as wages instead of lumpsum or a share swap. His logic was that he can contribute more to taxes by doing this!