Mar

29

what does being rich mean?

Filed Under retirement 

Some days, I look back and wonder what exactly I’m saving and investing for. I don’t have any great goals. I don’t have any (or any desire for any) children to put through college. I have the money already for my first house and if my circumstances didn’t alter, I’d never need to move. I enjoy travelling and have a list of places a mile long that I want to go and see, but I can afford to make a dent in that list right now because I like to travel cheaply. I enjoy my job, and its not something that I could do as well if I worked for myself. The plan for my estate (when I get round to making a will) is to leave money to charity, I don’t need to end up with a great big pile of money just to do that with if I can donate whilst I’m alive instead.

So I was thinking, would I like to work really hard now so that I could be rich in the future? My initial answer, because I’m lazy, is no, I do not want to work really hard so that I can sit on a great big pile of money. But then I though about what I mean by being rich, and I decided that I mean the ability to not work for a living.

It then dawned on me that not only do I want to be rich at some point, I’m actually working towards it already. And that’s because, I like everyone I know, do not plan to work until I drop dead. I don’t want to be too old and sick to work, but with no money. I want eventually, to stop working and live off the money I have. I want to be retired, and being retired is being rich, by my own definition.

I have to work hard now, and save and invest money, because there is no where else that the money will come from. But I also have to have fun now, because its forty years until my retirement, and I don’t want to put off all my fun until then. I’d better book another trip abroad.

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Comments

3 Responses to “what does being rich mean?”

  1. Adventures In Money Making on April 2nd, 2007 6:40 pm

    i agree.

    i hate working too and thats what i’m aspiring towards.
    for me being rich is the ability to live off my investments so i don’t have to go to work.
    i’ll worry about what to do with my time, when i get to that point!

  2. plonkee on April 3rd, 2007 8:18 am

    I don’t hate work, but I don’t want to do it forever. I’ve got some ideas of what I might do when I retire, but I’ve got a good 40 years to plan it properly.

  3. Bernard on April 4th, 2007 11:05 am

    You stand a very good chance to achieve your financial goal since you have a good 40 years to go. Being rich is just having the more choices on what you can do in life.

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