
xvi I
Preface
high-society lifestyle.
He
believes he can afford it.
Why
not? It's his
money.
When
he retires, he's socked away $4 million too. But will
he feel rich on $160,000 a year?
No-it's
a mere 27 percent of what
he used to make. Four million makes some feel rich, others poverty-
stricken. "Rich" is
relative-truly
in the eyes of the portfolio holder.
What
can we know about being rich? Well, generally wealth
must last longer than it used to because people live longer.
Our
surgeon may be 60 with a 45-year-old trophy wife. He may live
20 more years and she may live another
55-until
she's 100.
Their
$4 million must cover
her
life. A few excess inflation hiccups along
her
55 years and that $4 million may make her feel a lot more
pinched and very unrich.
It
used to be a millionaire was considered rich. That's pretty
much never true now. Financial planners will tell you to withdraw
no more than about 4 percent per year from your assets, depend-
ing on circumstances.
For
some, much less. But a millionaire taking
4 percent with 30 years to live would be getting below median
income where I live, near pricey San Francisco.
Not
poverty-but
not
rich. So it still comes back to you deciding what's rich for you.
Feeling rich is being rich.
Yet if you think of these roads correctly, it's possible to simply
forget all that because you can create so much more wealth that
issues of what is or isn't enough can simply fade
away.
As you read, ...