Let’s agree right off the bat that $25 million is a lot of money. Sure, to paraphrase Chris Rock (NSFW), if Bill Gates woke up tomorrow with a net worth of $25 million, he’d jump out a window. But to the vast majority of us, it’s a huge sum, more than enough to make some dreams come true. If money can’t buy happiness, $25 million should at least be enough for a down payment on contentment — and to generate some envy on the part of us without eight figures in assets.
Well, get ready to get jealous, if only for a moment. The number of American households with a net worth of $25 million or more — excluding their home — reached a new record last year, according to a recent report by wealth management research provider Spectrem Group.
Yet the same survey found that those wealthy Americans still have plenty of financial concerns. Actually, they sound fairly miserable… and that’s in a survey taken well before the stock market took a recent tumble. They may travel more, go to ballgames or concerts, or buy nice jewelry, but 70 percent of those surveyed said they get more satisfaction out of saving and investing their money than from spending it. More than half said they worry about the next generation wasting the money they inherit. And almost a quarter (23 percent) said they worry “constantly” — constantly— about their financial situation.
More here – The Week
The only comment I would make is that worrying about leaving a legacy for your children and whether they will develop a work ethic is very different from worrying about the fact that you might come up short on the rent for the family home this week or that your child probably cannot participate in activities at school because food comes first. So I call bullshit simply on the magnitude of the problem and its impact upon your life and the lives of those around you should the worst thing happen to you. For the majority of the wealthy the worst thing that can happen is that you raise a dickhead and your pool renovation is not done on time (my problem actually) Qualitatively, these are very different problems to those faced by others less fortunate.
Overblown hype regarding first world problems.
