Agreed, but you said you weren’t sure that actuaries in lower COL were paid less. I was giving some data that they likely are. It may or may not be that way at your company. But when companies can afford to pay people less, they usually do.
i’m in the same boat. We’re not rich
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at my previous company we outsourced some routine spreadsheet tasks to a firm in the Philippines. I think it took us more time correcting all their errors than if we just updated the spreadsheets ourselves
It’s good to stick to your principals.
Teachers, not so much.
You’re going in together on a yacht with Ms twig?
Maybe some of us are rich, and some of us aren’t - but we sure as hell aren’t poor.
I grew up lower class (but still not poor) and middle class seemed like an absolute dream to me. And now it kind of is.
Yeah, I doubt anyone disagrees with that. Most actuaries will eventually achieve a top 10% income and some will break into the top 5% and a few will do even better than that.
I’ve seen “poor”. Many times in countries like Brazil & Romania.
I grew up wealthy, and you never see poverty like that in developed countries (like Norway & Canada).
The US is weird because there are pockets of the third world inside it (like Appalachia). Not a chance of fixing that kind of deprivation. It goes back many generations.
The UK has similar problems. My wife was shocked when she saw some areas of Cornwall, Wales, Essex, and Midlands. People from outside Europe think the UK is like London. Very idealised view. Lot of pockets of absolute deprivation in the UK (also going back many generations).
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I’ts perspective. Compared to how I grew up, I’m rich. I can afford a dog, we have a hottub, foods on the table, everyone’s got a car, nobody’s hungry. When I go back home, I probably look, if not rich, at least pretty well off. And the NYC folks on here are probably pretty wealthy compared to a lot of people in the slums of NYC.
Rich seems to be being measured against other people looking up financially instead of down. Look down, everyone here is rich.
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I’m late to the thread.
My company publishes (to employees at least) target salary ranges by job grade and geographic band. The geographic bands are calculated as a flat percentage from mean. NYC < 1.58×ATL
Regarding yachts … at least in terms of insurance product definitions, “yachts” are boats that can be written under ocean marine regs and conventions, while “boats” and “personal watercraft” are inland marine. The yacht rate tables start at the level of a disappointing bonus.
And regarding the definition of “rich” – on a quasi-social mailing list I’ve subscribed to for 26, 27 years now…there was a discussion on the definition of “rich”. The conclusion there was that “rich” was having enough assets to live in the manner of one’s choosing without work or worry about the ability to do so in the future.
If you’re at the stage where you’re comparing the length of your superacht like a peen with other rich ppl then you’re rich
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To me, if you don’t have to work and your passive income still puts you in the top 1% you’re rich.
By most measures I’m looking pretty good but I still need to work.
That’s how I define it as well. 
I agree with Twig.
You are so off base here, JSM
Wow, this thread is already well advanced.
I always had $10M as sort of a baseline for ‘wealthy’ in my head. At $10M you can generate post-tax passive income such that you never have to ask what anything costs, ever. Unless you go out of your way to spend extravagantly and blow your money, you should never run out of money.
That’s fine.
Like I said. Money you don’t spend before your die was never yours.
If you choose to live like a poor person even though you have money, you are not rich. And i will judge you like you’re poor. Like a person with no fashion sense.
Change my mind.
I grew up ‘American poor’. There were times where lunch consisted of $0.30 worth of supermarket corned beef in a sealed package. We qualified for food stamps but parents were too proud to apply.
Life has definitely improved. But I do have to work for a living, and I’d rather not 
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Totally disagree. Money I don’t spend but leave behind for my kids or others is certainly mine - to give to them.
That’s like saying the money I donate to causes now is not my money. That’s silly. Of course it is. Donating pre or post death is still donating my money.
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If you had 10M, I guarantee your spending will scale enough such that the passive income that sustains you now will no longer sustain that future lifestyle you’ll have.
Now I do think there’s a point where you actually do run out of things to spend your money on. 10M is not it sis.
I can not conceive of altering my spending to a level where I would burn >$1000 a day, on average, which is what would be needed to start burning through a $10M pool of assets.
I’ve spent $1000 in 24 hours before (for my wife and I, including hotel room), in NYC, and it was fun, but again, outside of going out of my way to blow money (e.g. yachts) there’s no way I could burn through that on a regular basis.