[Swizec]

Rich is when you have a high income. Wealthy is when you have a high net worth.

I find people often confuse the two and it took me a long time to clear up in my mind.

You can be rich, but live paycheck to paycheck. Even be superbly in debt. Lots of upper middle class lives this way.

You can also be wealthy but poor. These are folks with cashflow problems and a lot of illiquid wealth (like a house you can’t sell)

Short term you wanna focus on being rich. High cashflow unlocks many options.

Long term you wanna focus on wealth. Wealth unlocks freedom and peace of mind.

[kgwgk]

> Rich is when you have a high income.

If you make up your own definitions, you should not be surprised to find people is “confused”.

[MuffinFlavored]

> You can be rich, but live paycheck to paycheck. Even be superbly in debt. Lots of upper middle class lives this way.

Are they actually upper middle class (by definition) if they have a low net worth?

[Swizec]

Imho middle class means you work for a living, upper class means you can live on wealth.

You might also be surprised to learn that a $166,000/year household income puts you in the top 5% of US households. Definitely upper middle class but still pretty easy to burn your whole paycheck every month.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_middle_class

[sys_64738]

> Imho middle class means you work for a living

I thought that's what working class meant.

[Swizec]

I thought that was blue collar?

Would you call a software engineer making $150,000/year working class? What about a lawyer somewhere in midwest scraping by on $50,000/year?

Now what about an independent plumber making $200,000/year? Working class or not?

[war1025]

I always viewed the working class a subset of the middle class, defined by the fact that they did some sort of physical labor for pay. I.e. as opposed to office work.