Re: How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jim
It's a tricky one, this.
The way I looked at it is what could land in my account and I'd think, "whoa, that changes a few things". But it's surprising how little that would need to be.
And in another way, surprising how high it is. It's like when I was a kid, and if a grandparent gave me a £50 note it was unbelievable - I could go buy a new videogame, or it put me 30% of the way towards a new console. These days, if I got the same, it would be almost meaningless - before I know it, it's in my account and I've used it as part-payment for the month's gas bill.
I agree with the first bit especially. The poll doesn't go low enough for me - not especially due to any personal circumstances, but just that in the grand scheme of things, all of those options are a lot of money! I mean, just think how much food even the lowest option can provide - even in our cushy expensive shops that's a huge amount of food - you could easily live off it for a year. Think about that - a whole year's worth of not going hungry! To me, that's amazing, even if it wouldn't make a dint in the price of a house.
Maybe beer's your thing? Then that's a HUGE amount of beer.
Or toothpaste - wonderful stuff that's literally keeping us alive in later years - 2,000 tubes of the best toothpaste!!! That is LOTS!
All the regular stuff - living expensive, bills, fuel.. that's all stuff I've got to spend anyway. Anything above and beyond that is a wonder to me. But then I get excited when I get a free lunch voucher for doing some extra-cirricular work :p
Re: How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?
Given the fact that I've been unemployed for the past five months, £2,500 is a lot of money to me.
Re: How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?
It depends on how much emphasis you put on 'a lot'. In lower case it would probably be £50,000. Enough to cause some smiling and a few treats, but not enough to cause the rest of my life to unfold differently.
But as you asked in upper case I went for the amount that would set my life moving in a different direction. The options up there aren't large enough that I could spend money for the rest of my life to fund the things that interested me (although I'm interested in space, so that would have to be the GDP of a medium-sized country). 5 Million would give me an income of £100,000 for the next 50 years though, which would be sufficient for personal freedom and a small measure of support for the things I'm interested in.
Of course those would just be my thoughts on doing the initial figuring, if may be that one or two million can provide that in practice but 5 million would be approaching the point where my first thought stops being 'I'd better invest this wisely' and turns into 'I wonder if I should buy a warm coat here or in Nepal'
Re: How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?
The problem here is the lack of context - which I suspect was deliberate. :)
I consider £10 a lot of money.....for a bottle of water.
However to me, a lot of money would be an amount that makes a noticeable/memorable difference to my life over the next year. That figure is £34,719.47
I voted £50k.
Re: How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?
5k might currently cover my funeral costs (though I'd prefer to be left on the hill for the Ravens, Buzzards, foxes, etc. to scrap over) and my debts, so I'm ticking 10k.
Re: How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?
£500
No really. I honestly feel physically ill when I see my mortgage payment on the statement (a bit more than £500, mind). I am your typical tight git miser. I generally haven't had a lot of spare cash historically, so when I do have some I don't like spending it, or if I do then it feels like I'm being naughty
Re: How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?
I was gonna say 10k. We're thinking about moving house, and all the fees, deposits, 'n' stuff are forcing us to wait until we have some savings. (I reckon we need somewhere between 10 and 20k in the bank to do the move)
But...
10k would be at the low end of what we absolutely need, and we'd still struggle to sell the place without spending additional money doing the place up - replace the dying carpets, the knackered doors, the dodgy bathroom kit, etc etc etc.
Realistically, 50k would make us *set*. Sure, we'd still have a new mortgage to worry about and all that jazz, but 50k would be life changing in that we could look at moving house *today*, and 10k would simply make the planned move in 2018 easier.
Re: How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?
2500 is a lot to me. 1000 is a lot to me.
But I also churn credit cards, and often have 10k or so on me, so that leaves me pretty twisted.
A 'life changing' amount of money would be 1.25M, as thats the net worth that would leave me financially independent. I'm a few years away from that...
Re: How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?
Interesting question, Zak, in that it's really seeking to establish how different people define "a lot" when not given a context.
One way I would look at that is that if's all about context, so is like "How long is a piece of string?".
The other is what my immediate, gut reaction is, which is, for me, the amount that would make a significant difference in my lifestyle in that it enabled me to do things I really want to do, but currently can't.
And for me that, currently, means enough to :-
a) indulge in a bit of consumerist excess when I feel like it without having to even consider if I can afford it. So, be it new camera or new car, I can just do it And ...
b) Invest a sufficient amount that I am set for the remainder of my life with a) being true. That is, income from investment has to msintsin real value, plus give sufficient regilar income to allow a).
How much?
I truly don't know, but I doubt even the £1m would be enough, so it'd be somewhere north of that.
Don't get me wrong, any sum on that list would be nice to receive as a present or lottery win, etc, but if you really want a "wow, that's really a lot" then it'd take millions to get get that reaction from me.
Re: How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?
context is king...
but context is personal
if I FOUND a £50 note in the middle of a field.. thats a LOT Of money and I'd look for people walking in the field to subtle question them AND leave a note on a fence.. because £50 in a LOT of money
but £50 is NOT a lot of money if you need a new house to get to your new job... in central london!
Context is a Personal King
Re: How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?
I went for £10k. It would be the minimum amount at the crossing point of what would open the most opportunities.
Re: How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zak33
context is king...
but context is personal
if I FOUND a £50 note in the middle of a field.. thats a LOT Of money and I'd look for people walking in the field to subtle question them AND leave a note on a fence.. because £50 in a LOT of money
but £50 is NOT a lot of money if you need a new house to get to your new job... in central london!
Context is a Personal King
Context is king indeed, but not only in relation to your needs, but to your existing situation.
Two people walking across a field, and each find a £50 note. The first is walking across the field because it's the way to the ramshackle, disused toolshed he's sleeping in, since he's homeless. Is £50 a lot? Yup.
The other is walking across the field because he fancied a few fresh strawberries, and having eaten his fill, he's on his way back to where the chauffeur is waiting with the Rolls Royce quietly burbling. He also owns the field, and a large number of others around it. Is £50 a lot to him?
Or, two people sitting in a pub. What would each do to earn £50? One fills supermarket shelves for minimum wage and £50 is most of a days wages. The other is a top barrister and charges £3000 a day. If my mental arithmatic is correct, £50 is about 8 minutes earning for her.
You could also consider which country the field is in, and the nationality and residence of the two people living in it. The immigration debate made clear that one immigration issue is that average earnings and prices vary hugely, even between nationals of EU member states. So, given average prices, £50 can mean very different things to each person if one lives in an expensive UK and the other lives in a country where each pound buys 6 times what it does in the UK. To one, £1 buys a loaf of bread, and to the other it buys 6 loaves of the same bread.
Re: How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?
Right, the question is relating to your personal context right now.
My personal context is that I have a six figure inheritance due once this house sells, I'm paying ~£6k/year for an OU degree, about to buy my first ever car for ~£3k, have just bought a new laptop for £800 (lenovo yoga 710 14" - my first ever i7! user review incoming in a few days), and am still working. The amount of money that would make a noticeable difference to my life would be £500k - that would enable me to buy a house outright rather than rent. I'm kinda treating anything short of that as not making any significant difference.
Re: How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?
Difficult question, but I think I'd put me at around the £100,000
It's at that point where I'd start to think that would be life changing for me. Possibly putting money towards a house and a new car whilst paying off a few debts.
Re: How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?
I've been watching Victorian Bakers on Iplayer (its not a recent series it was on a while ago)
In Victorian Britain, a loaf of bread cost 1/3 of a working mans daily wage.
Now, even someone working minimum wage would never ever ever have to pay 1/3 of their daily wage.. for a loaf of bread.
We're not talking about a full basket of shopping... we're talking about one load of bread.
Re: How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?
The chorleywood method has a lot to answer for ;)