Our primary concern here, of course, is not wages or savings, but wealth - and its successful management. So let's be clear in our terms. Wealth is not what you make. It's what you own: stocks, bonds, cash, real estate, precious metals and other financial assets. Most decide who is "rich" with a particular number: $1 million... or $3 million... or $20 million. I can tell you that as a kid growing up in a middle-class household, I thought anyone worth a million dollars was unspeakably rich. While that is still not an inconsequential sum, it is no longer rare. Thanks to inflation and our society's increasing affluence, a million-dollar net worth - total assets minus total liabilities of a million dollars or more - is now pedestrian. Market researchers Spectrem Group counted 13.6 million millionaire households in the U.S in 2020. That's 1 in 9. (And given the strong real estate and stock markets of the past year, the 2021 number will be considerably larger.) Are the folks in these millionaire households satisfied? Do they feel like they have enough? Not necessarily. According to a report from Ameriprise Financial, only 13% of millionaire respondents considered themselves wealthy. No matter what some people have, they will consider it inadequate when they learn what others have. (Even the men and women on the Forbes 400 are acutely aware of who is ahead of or behind them.) How much you "need," of course, is very much tied to where you live, the size of your family, your monthly overhead, and how much you desire to travel or enjoy the finer things in life. "The finer things" are hardly necessities, of course. I grew up without them and could easily live without them again. Indeed, many of my most enjoyable years were spent as a largely impecunious bachelor in my 20s. (I learned that some women don't care what kind of car you drive if you can work small miracles on the grill.) Bottom line: When it comes to how much is enough, only your own definition matters. My view is, you're wealthy if you have the resources to live the way you want to live. Money unspent - capital - is power. It gives you the freedom to make choices, help others and enjoy what's most important to you. It's hard to argue with the words often attributed to Mae West: "I've been rich, and I've been poor - and believe me, rich is better." Good investing, Alex | 
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