If I include the market price of the house I currently live in (minus the remaining mortgage), I am about 1⁄4 there. I am saying it because people often only think about how much money they have in the bank.
There is a little voice inside me screaming that it is unfair—that the house is simply a place I am living in (with my family), just the cost of everyday functioning, and the “real wealth” is only what you have above that: the money you could freely spend without ruining your life.
But that fact is that I do own the house, thus I am in a very realistic sense richer than people who don’t (and thus have to spend money every month paying rent), and that once my kids grow up, I could actually sell the house and buy something at half of the price, thus converting its price into actual money that I could actually spend (while still having a roof above my head).
Then again, I am probably older (in my 40s) than the average LW reader, I think. It took a few decades to accumulate even that much wealth.
If I include the market price of the house I currently live in (minus the remaining mortgage), I am about 1⁄4 there. I am saying it because people often only think about how much money they have in the bank.
There is a little voice inside me screaming that it is unfair—that the house is simply a place I am living in (with my family), just the cost of everyday functioning, and the “real wealth” is only what you have above that: the money you could freely spend without ruining your life.
But that fact is that I do own the house, thus I am in a very realistic sense richer than people who don’t (and thus have to spend money every month paying rent), and that once my kids grow up, I could actually sell the house and buy something at half of the price, thus converting its price into actual money that I could actually spend (while still having a roof above my head).
Then again, I am probably older (in my 40s) than the average LW reader, I think. It took a few decades to accumulate even that much wealth.