How Rich ARE You?

by J. Money

I was forwarded this site from a good friend of mine (Mr. Coffee Cents himself) and it turns out I’m pretty RICH! The 49,322,169th richest person in the world to be exact ;) But what’s crazy about this is that I fall into the Top 1% of the world’s wealthiest people. THE WORLD’S.

That means 99 out of every 100 people living and breathing today are making less than $75,000 a year – the number I plugged into this Global Rich List. That’s insane man. And do you know what happened when I plugged in $50k? It barely moved. $50k is *still* in the Top 1% of the richest people in the world. In fact, I kept going lower and lower until I hit pretty much rock bottom – do you want to guess what that number is? Check it:

At a $40,000 salary: Top 3.17%
At a $20,000 salary: Top 7.16%
At a $5,000 salary: Top 14.39%
At a $2,000 salary: Top 17.62% (not even considered “poor” yet!)
At a $1,000 salary: Top 44.1%
At a $500 salary: Top 80% (now “poor” – but still beating 20% of the world)
At a $200 salary: Top 95.71%

And then it pretty much drops off. 60% of the world makes less than $1,000 a year! If you aren’t feeling thankful now, something’s wrong with you. No matter how much debt or financial crap is going on in your lives. We are very blessed to be living in the U.S.! Or Canada or England or wherever else you’re reading this right now :) We may not feel rich, but you better believe we are.

The only thing I don’t like about this calculator is that it bases all this wealth on salary. Which, as we all know (or *should* know), does NOT necessarily mean someone’s well off. Or even close to being well off. I mean, it’s still better than 99% of the world, of course, but not in the way you and I think about what being “rich” means. The true measure of financial success is the way you MANAGE it all – your spending and saving habits. There are plenty of people out there making 6 or 7 figures who are still struggling to get by! I know of one myself, actually, and to think I have a higher net worth than he does blows my mind.

But the point of all this is just to really think about how lucky we should feel for being in the positions we are. We all have shelter. We all have food and water. Most of us still have our health and our loved ones nearby. In the general scheme of things – we are ALL rich! And unfortunately it takes a silly calculator sometimes for us to realize it.