bluntmoney.com

As a kid, my concept of “rich people” were the people that I babysat for regularly. I met them by riding my bike to every house I could pedal to in the area and dropping off a card with my babysitting rates & phone number on it.

These people had several things in common: they were all willing to give me a shot, and they all gave their kids expensive items, lived in houses that were much, MUCH larger than ours, owned businesses, were gone a lot, and drove fancy cars.

Almost all of them also tended to overpay me, which was a nice plus.

But were they wealthy?

I’m not sure. Some of them probably were. Looking back though, it’s hard for me to say, because I never really thought about wealth until recently.

Which brings me to this question: What IS wealth anyway?

While technically wealth is having more than enough money or possessions, I think it’s something more than that too.

I think it’s also a matter of feeling like you have more than enough.

Do you feel wealthy? Would you answer a poll that said “Are you rich?” with a yes?

I did recently, and was surprised to see that most other people said no.

Of course I’m wealthy. I have a family that I love, enough food to eat, an air conditioned place to live, and a job to go to. I’m also not living paycheck to paycheck, and I can even take vacations!

But I don’t meet my childhood definition of rich. (The only part of that definition that I meet is that I own a business.)

Of course, I think my childhood definition of rich is probably flawed, but it’s interesting to see how our perspectives are formed.