Last year I saved up enough of a safety net that when my work went bankrupt last december, I haven’t had to work to survive for a short period.

So, basically exactly what I’ve been doing. Find 40 acres of woods somewhere in the US with river access. get power and water on it, build a metal roof and a concrete floor. Put in RV hookups while I build my house myself. Go into town twice a week to play DnD and twice a month for groceries. Mostly swim in the river, play with my dogs, drink wine smoke weed shoot guns etc. Have a treehouse and a tiki bar on the list but not in the budget.

I have about a month before I need to find a job and two months before I start getting nervous, so being rich would just buy peace of mind really. I’d still want a part time job to meet people but I’d have more resources to complete my own projects on my time.

Oh also I probably wouldn’t be eating chicken and rice for every meal

If I won the lottery I’d quit my job. The dream is to be rich enough to stop spending most of my life doing something I hate

I would love to be rich enough to afford to do my dream, which is to open a recording studio that has nothing but pre-1940s technology. RCA 77 and 44 mics, a mixing console that’s just a few knobs and switches, and recorded straight to vinyl. No post-production whatsoever unless the people being recorded want to take that record to be mastered.

Would it succeed? I think a lot of musicians would be into the idea. Especially people doing things like roots music.

Born rich:

Much of my life would be extremely different. I grew up impoverished, because my dad is a musician and my mom is an artist. Neither profession is likely to lead to obscene wealth, and neither of them is good at handling money when it comes in. Add to that the fact that they’re both hoarders to some degree, and… Well, my parents love me and they’re kind people, but a little money might have made some things easier.

Sadly, with their mentalities, I think it might also have caused a lot of damage.

So in this alternate universe, I’m imagining my dad actually hitting the big-time. Mentioned alongside the likes of Tom Petty or Peter Gabriel or something (his musical tastes are eclectic, so I could see alternate-Dad getting rich with a wide variety of musical styles).

What would that mean for me? I’d have good haircuts and clean clothes that fit well growing up. I’d wear glasses that weren’t taped together.

Presumably, I’d also have deeply problematic relationships with both of them. And I could see fame and fortune killing my dad early. (He’s alive and healthy in this timeline, and I prefer it that way.)

Winning the lottery:

Hoo boy. I think at first, I’d be hesitant to change anything. I’d take the lump sum payment and just… sit on it. Sock it away until I can make all the arrangements I need to make with it. And I’d tell no one except my wife. Not even my kids at first.

I’d keep working while making arrangements, too.

Those arrangements would be:

• Establish an interest-bearing fund with some of the money, with the idea of supplementing my income with it. Ultimately the goal here is to replace my income entirely, but not quickly. I want to ease into this and not make drastic lifestyle changes that would clue people in, or fuck me up in the head.
• Establish a fund to pay for my parents’ mortgage. Like I said, they’re not rich. I don’t want to just give them money - in fact, I’m pretty sure that would have awful repercussions - but I want to let them keep a little more of what they earn, and covering their mortgage would do it. I’d tell them I’ve come into a little extra from “work” and that I want to use it to make their lives easier.
• Slowly start upgrading my living situation. Find a larger - but still modest - house to move into, while keeping the existing one as a rental unit. Otherwise, don’t change the way I live very much.
• Figure out a way to ease my kids into the idea that we’re better off now, without ever using the word “rich” at first. I don’t want them to end up like the spoiled kids of other wealthy parents - hence the need to keep lifestyle upgrades modest. “Better off” should mean “Dad has enough money to retire young,” not “we’re moving to a 10,000 square-foot mansion on the French Riviera.”
• Finally, establish the Qu’est-ce que c’est Charity Foundation, dedicated to funding homeless shelters, feeding the hungry, protecting LGBTQ+ youth, and fighting climate change. Making our lives easier is meaningless unless there’s a good world to live them in.

Yeah. I think that’s about it.

Likely would have not met my wife or gone down my current career path.

I’d have a VR headset and maybe a 4090. Maybe not be a patient gamer. No I’d still wait for that part, since buggy releases wouldn’t make me happy spending money on broken products even if it was only the equivalent of a dollar to me.

As for what I define as rich? Having your own place you actually like while not having to work anymore, since you got a steady flow of passive income to maintain the lifestyle you want.

Like I’d consider someone who lives in a small apartment or cozy cabin but has a sustainable lifestyle more rich than someone living in a huge home with multiple cars, but would lose it all if they lost their job less wealthy. Rich to me is being free of the rat race, and being able to keep up the standard of living that makes you happy and comfortable.

I’d dump a shitload of money into KDEConnect to get it on par with Apple’s ecosystem of continuity.

Fund development of Stepmania (DDR) with modern Apple/Fitbit connectivity and UI

Literally travel everywhere. I’d just go experience the world. I’d love to travel the world on horseback.

Hire a personal chef for me and the family.

On my downtime in the winter I’d love to have a horse farm to teach horsemanship to children and adults.

I would run my own buisness instead of working for somebody else.

Rich is being firmly out of subsistence struggle, social studies here in France have converged to a definition of rich being ~5times the minimum acceptable subsistence salary (locally speaking).

Maybe I wouldn’t be as happy as I am now. My wife and I started a small business 20 years ago which became moderately successful. We managed to save and invest enough to have a very comfortable retirement … I don’t know if it counts as “rich” but we certainly feel rich. And the best thing is we earned it and we we earned it together. And we had a lot of fun along the way.

I was born rich. If I hadn’t been born rich I’d probably be shivering right now as it’s cold outside.

The definition of being rich which I agree the most with is that you have invested your money so that it works for you sufficiently to cover your lifestyle’s expenses. It does not mean that you drive a fast car or have a penthouse but you don’t have to work to live.

For me it would mean being able to do whatever, learn to draw, play an instrument, travel, probably work on some software idea (my job), maybe try to create a company, but do whatever and be free to do so without any fear.

I was not born rich, but my parents are extremely hard workers who managed to move our family from lower to upper middle class.

My Dad graduated HS with a D average. And he only did that well because the California school system at the time flatly refused to fail any students. Ever.

At the time I was born he worked at a Levolor factory, making blinds. Later, he became an upholsterer at La-Z-Boy. For the time, he was making crazy good money - $14/hr! (And this is in 1980s dollars, equivalent to around $50/hr today!)

But… He didn’t much like it. Six years sfter swearing off school forever, Dad decided to go back to college. And not just to get his GE’s. Nope, Dad decided to become a friggen lawyer. (I guess he decided if he was going back to school, he was going to do All The School.)

For the next several years, he studied during the morning, slept all day, then worked graves overnight. I saw him for literal minutes a day, when he got home from school and when he left again for work.

I was four when he started and eleven when he graduated. Through that time, the sweet money he’d made before seemed like crazy wealth. More than once, our family ran out of food. And more than once, our neighbors (who themselves were only just making do on welfare) would “secretly” leave enough groceries on the doorstep for us to eat for another week.

Of course, there was no money for childcare. My mom took care of us, while doing what she could to earn money. She taught piano and guitar lessons, arranged an underground daycare for our neighbors, and whatever other odd jobs she could do from home.

I grew up in that struggle. We never went completely hungry, though I did skip a few lunches to make sure my younger sibs didn’t need to.

And eventually, Dad graduated and became an attorney. And suddenly… We had money.

We bought real milk, instead of powdered milk.

We could eat at McDonald’s - an amazing luxury.

We lived in a house with actual walls instead of painted cinderblock.

We started going to the dentist and doctor more often.

We didn’t buy a new car. My Dad had an 81 Toyota Tercel that he ultimately put 300K miles on before hitting a deer finally totaled it in Feb 2000.

A couple times, we even went to Disneyland.

…

So that’s what changed when my family suddenly became “rich”.

My life would probably be vastly different than it is now. I probably would’ve gotten an actual diagnosis for my autism, I used to be mute when I was very young, rode the short bus and attended speech therapy classes. My folks would’ve been able to afford a childhood behavioral psychologist, would also have afforded a private tutor when I struggled in school. I probably would’ve been better educated and I probably would’ve been better prepared for college as I ended up dropping out to try my hand at the workforce. My grandmother who lives in NYC was a nanny for a rich family, they sent their kids to an equestrian school and later in life their kids studied abroad. The family also has an away home in another state. My granddad inherited a sum of $200k from his dead mother who lived in the UK, but that money is probably long gone by now

Also, my parents probably wouldn’t have gotten divorced, they divorced primarily for financial reasons, my dad lost the house that his family helped him buy. Now my mom’s second marriage is coming apart for financial reasons as well as my stepdad wanted to take an equity on the house to pay down his cc debt and feed his gambling habit. I also would’ve accomplished some of my milestones a lot sooner. I financed my own car back in 2022 at the age of 24, it’s a 2015 Chevy Spark.

My idea of rich is enough money to not worry about bills, maintenance, groceries, and also having the disposal income to afford some modest luxuries. I think the sweet spot for some would be the point where money is secondary to time as a currency as you’re money rich and time rich.

If I’d won the lottery, I’d be able to achieve a lot of my goals much faster and with much less effort, one them being paying down my debt such as my car loan. I’d also be able to dream a lot bigger like trying my hand at starting a local business like a modern arcade or a gamer lounge. I’d also like to try living abroad, but these are some of my way out there dreams. Some of my lower goals are very much achievable without being rich like paying off my debt or buying a three set bookshelf, but it will take a bit longer. Some of my bigger goals will require more time, money, and effort.

If I was born rich I assume I would be feel like some of the kids in the YT documentary Born Rich (2003) by Jamie Johnson. Knowing you already have it all and that you family is fucked up beyond comprehension really has deleterious effects to the mind.

I know blue bloods, having money is awesome. Coming from wealth is hell. Most distance themselves from the hegemony.