Wow, so 9.9mil would not change your life?
I consider those numbers so close they would be the same. It's only a 1% difference, and wealth can certainly change more than that in a day really easily.
I will give you example to support our number. My wife was laid off of her job, and at the time that amounted to around $200,000 annual income. I thought we would have to change our lifestyle a little and maybe let go the nanny and change investment allocation. In actuality, we changed nothing.
That's why I strongly agree with wazoodog, until $10,000,000 in cash or near-cash equivalents, my life isn't changing because excess cash is going to retirement, college saving for kiddo, with some reasonable lifestyle improvements and giving. After all, what can't most do at $4 million that could be done at $5 million? I believe once we exceed $10 million, I would feel more comfortable with greater lifestyle improvements. However, I would still work.
In terms of net worth, one isn't 1% until you are over $11 million anyway. While being a single-digit multimillionaire doesn't necessarily make you middle class, many realistically can face the same economic concerns as the middle class, just with more resources. Post money for me is about $10 million liquidated assets (including unrestricted equity).
My mentor used to say 20 years ago that a net worth between $1 million and $20 million is just getting comfortable. I mostly agree although I wonder if these numbers should be inflation adjusted.
