How much money, is "a lot" of money to you?

[TooNice]

Thought about it, but conclude that I can't answer it without context. I'd like to think that is why I so frequently see people complain about how expensive i-Products are. It's not so much that £600-800 is really beyond most people's disposable income, it's just a lot either relative to competing products, or what they expect the product is worth.

[TeePee]

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.

Context is very much king! But then so is the perception of value, and of the value of different things. Cash alone is valueless. It's value is based around the things that it buys.

I'm on my way back to the UK for my twice yearly visit to my family. In the past, I have traveled on a ticket that cost $500, and one which cost $18,000 on a First Class itinerary. Personally, I wish I could say the $18K was better value. It was certainly more enjoyable, however if I were paying for it today, I'd swim. My family would have to budget their entire year for a $500 ticket, and then would likely struggle. But I'd be willing to bet that my idea of 'A lot' is smaller than theirs.

Cash is really nothing but the value to you of the things you can buy with it. Which makes it impossible to re-frame the question around the wealth of the respondents, as wealth itself is not a good metric of value perception. That makes the question very hard to answer, and along the lines of questioning the length of string.

[flearider]

well 250k would put me in a part time job ..allow me to buy a house and I could live the rest of my life really happy .. but that would be 20 yrs at the most i'm 50 .. and my dad was the longest living male in 5 generations he was 70 ... most died at 50-57

[realnikb]

well 250k would put me in a part time job ..allow me to buy a house and I could live the rest of my life really happy .. but that would be 20 yrs at the most i'm 50 .. and my dad was the longest living male in 5 generations he was 70 ... most died at 50-57

See I really don't think I could live off £250k for the rest of my life.

Might be that I'm 20 years younger than you mind... but still. Sure it would buy a house but after that it's basically gone.

[virtuo]

In my head, before I saw the options, I was thinking "If someone game me a grand for nothing, that's a lot of money". Because it is. But I'm at a stage in my life where I'm making a decent living, crushing a mortgage and considering a pretty expensive new (2015!) car in the next couple of months. For anything to really make me think "Well, that's changed things", it'd have to be 5 figures. So I went for the £10k option.

I'm glad that seems to be the average answer

[spolsh]

Went for the lowest figure, which is still a LOT of money. It's strange, but as I'm getting older, I'm learning the value of money a lot more. I used to think nothing (or at least very little) when spending large chunks of cash, now I'm like "Oh, that's too much for what it is".

[TheAnimus]

It really depends what you mean by a lot, if this is just for you, for a wider context.

For example if you run a company, £500k can be a "little" it depends on how many employees you have. You truly realise how little that money is when brexit gives you slightly worse than predicted cash flow. That money doesn't last long with fixed costs and payroll to be considered.

So it will depend a lot on your context, what your current expenses are.

[Dashers]

Isn't everything a lot of money? I squirm when I get charged £1 for a coke. That's a LOT of money, for a can of mostly water.

I voted the lowest, £2,500. If I had to spend that on something, I wouldn't enjoy it. But I do, I have often spent many multiple times that - and perhaps I'm just tight, but I never enjoy it!

Perhaps another way you could measure this was, if push-came-to-shove, and your loved one got some terminal illness that could be treated if you paid privately for an experimental drug from America, how much money could you raise? That's a *lot*.

I like the point above about companies. If it's less than £50K it's not worth debating when it comes to company money. But the things I'd do if I had £50K of my own money to spare! (Alas, due to being boring, those things would almost inevitably be contributing towards the mortgage).

[wazzickle]

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.

What sort of implications are we to draw from this?

[Ttaskmaster]

I went for the lowest, since that'd buy me two cars and cover all the tax, insurance, etc.

The chorleywood method has a lot to answer for

Misread that as the Chorleywood Methodist... of which there was only one, last time I was there!!

It's not so much that £600-800 is really beyond most people's disposable income

Depends what they consider disposable and whether they know whatit really means, or if it's just what they're chucking on the credit card.
For me, that £800 is about half a year's worth of "disposable income". Some friends of mine would (and do) drop that on a graphics card every few months, without even blinking.

[bsodmike]

Those who've followed my posts will know that I have no trouble 'justifying' £30-40k upwards on wrist watches, but honestly, I'd be annoyed if I 'lost' 100 quid.

Why? Well, I had to work to make that 100 quid in the first place.
Generally, I'd suppose anything over £5-10k is a "a lot" but that's too relative, as such I like to 'scale' things for reference.

- A nice holiday costs anywhere from £5-10k.
- Over £20k is what I consider 'watch money', so I'm pretty careful from that point on wards.

I've inherited 'estates' worth over £800k, but that's still my outlook. I wouldn't call myself particularly thrifty, but I'm cautious and always do my research before spending.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Actually I said 50P earlier,I think it was 20P in the past. Having to pay 20P at train stations for a piddle kind of annoyed me.

Bloody inflation!!

[TooNice]

Depends what they consider disposable and whether they know whatit really means, or if it's just what they're chucking on the credit card.
For me, that £800 is about half a year's worth of "disposable income". Some friends of mine would (and do) drop that on a graphics card every few months, without even blinking.

Well, I consider debt to be.. debt. Definitely not disposable. Perhaps, if I have to base it on absolutely nothing, I will go for >a years of disposable income is a lot. But even that can vary quite a lot from year to year, and will be further affected if I get a mortgage or start a family.. both of which is still quite far away given that I've yet to decide where to settle down.

[wazzickle]

One metric might be about the length of research you need to do before making a purchase at £X. My X, for example, is about £50-100 - I won't buy anything above that without due diligence, below that, I may consider one-off purchases without being overly concerned about other peoples' reviews.

[MisterJace]

It depends what item I'm buying, £1 for a Snickers Bar? WUT!

[Ttaskmaster]

One metric might be about the length of research you need to do before making a purchase at £X.

Jeez, that's me down at a tenner - Spent ages researching different MOLLE pouches, even though the most expensive was only £15!!