http://www.channel4.com/programmes/how-rich-are-you

There have been discussions on this sort of thing here before, TJ said top 10% is rich elite IIRC.

Do the results seem right to you?

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHo2pXO_XAI[/video]

How broke would be more relevant to me I think.

How much month is left at the end of the money?

Well I have my answer but I’m not sharing first 🙂

I did this test the other night. I don’t think my wife and i are as flush as the survey would suggest.

Seems to me capital is ignored but relevant – those who have had a property for a few years are in a far stronger financial position than those without.

I was 6% out from where I expected to be but the figures don’t take into account any other monthly commitment apart from council tax.

I am nowhere near as well off as suggested

quiz doesn;t really work for me – I’m divorced with 3 kids who live with me 3x days a week.

If I say I have no kids living with me (as they live with their mum the majority of the tme) then I’m richy rich

If I say I have 3x kids living at home then I’m fairly poor

Well anyway it says 89% for me but I live somewhere else

46% are poorer than us, and 54% are richer.

That’s about what I’d guess.

So that’s it…. how much do you make, what your council tax is and how many in the house? Right.
Won’t be watching that then. There again if you need to look at a TV show web site to figure out how you’re doing then good luck.

About the same as Miketually

Pretty lame.

Puts me in the top 10%.

However, doesn’t account for the ridiculous mortgage I have to pay each month.

Due to having to move at just the wrong time and some bad property decisions, I have ended up with hardly any equity. I was better off 10 years ago.

It does seem to be a ridiculously simplistic calculation. Quite what you’re supposed to derive from the figures is beyond me.

However, it did confirm that I’m fabulously wealthy.

44% poorer 56 % richer. I only work PT Though but I thought I was roughly the middle

Interesting to see the wealthy struggling to accept the evidence and saying they dont feel wealthy

IMHO you have to remember that you may be skint* but you still need your income to have your lifestyle. ie I pay a massive mortgage = I bought a phenomenally expensive house I have expensive holidays nice car etc

As for where wealthy starts i would say 2 SD above the norm 😉

* not in the sense of benefits or £70 per week to love on including all bills and food skint is it.

I’m guessing it helps to live alone

So I guessed within 1%. But it’s an odd measure of “richness”. Seems more like %age of disposable income or similar. Rated quite high (and guessed high cos of the above explanation of what they’d calculate on) but currently sinking all my money into renovating a house, but a couple with no kids.

Not sure if the house makes me rich or poor, mostly I own a massive debt 🙂

83% poorer. Based on my wife’s new part time salary, but then I am exceptionally wealthy! This is a joke by the way, I know I am well paid but I also think the calculation was a little basic.

I guessed 65% less well off, 35% better off.
Actual results were 88% – 12% 😯
I certainly don’t consider myself ‘well off’ and don’t have a posh motor sat outside a 4 bed detached house.
There must be an awful lot of people out there on the minimum wage to make my income look that good.

I’m hoping the programme discusses why they’ve chosen this approach, ignoring property seems odd for sure – other assets might provide an income but property/no mortgage saves on outgoings.

Not sure how accurate that is.

Guessed 10% richer, 90% poorer. Stated 3% richer, 97% poorer.

I think there are a lot of factors that are not taken into consideration including retirement, inheritance, other monthly commitments etc.

It does seem to be a ridiculously simplistic calculation.

Its purpose is to get people talking about the programme online, so it needs to be simple…

doesn’t account for the ridiculous mortgage I have to pay each month

Mortgages are, generally, proportional to earnings. So, if you know earnings then, for a simple online quiz, you can ignore mortgage payments?

If you take an income and remove the basic costs of living then you have an assessment of wealth. Accommodation cost is area specific but generally you can always live cheaper.
Outgoings are related to income generally.
If you earn more you spend more.

However, doesn’t account for the ridiculous mortgage I have to pay each month.

The thing is though – you don’t have to pay it, you have the choice to have a mortgage, no matter how difficult it is for you to pay it and still do fun things. You are able to choose to, which is a choice someone who can’t afford your mortgage can’t make.

A person can’t say they’re not rich because they don’t have any money left after they’ve spent it all. Particularly in relation to property as buyers set the price of a property by being the one who offered the most money to buy it. You can make all sorts of choices that can can consider to be essential, but while they’re choices then they are just that.

Interesting to see the wealthy struggling to accept the evidence and saying they dont feel wealthy

We do have a significant distortion in public perception as to what and where wealth is, not just on an individual level but on a political and policy making level.

Micheal Blastland used to do a test where he’d ask MPs what the income a household would need to be earning to be in the top 10% of earners. It was a multiple choice answer but he didn’t make the right answer an option, so of course they all got it wrong. But they all got it equally wrong in that they answers were all over the place, split pretty much equally between the range options he’d given – they were just taking guesses at it.

That doesn’t show MPs to be out of touch, it just shows that even the people who have the most reason to know don’t. Thats because its a conversation thats never had. People don’t even know where to start guessing where ‘well – off’ starts. You have clues like the the 40% tax threshold – perhaps that means thats where the bottom rung of rich is? People don’t realise you can be well into the top ranks of earners before you even start to worry that threshold.

Part of the reason views are so distorted is at an editorial level the media we consume is shaped by people who are themselves on 6 figure salaries. They actually forgot what ordinary was a long time ago, if they ever knew what it was and that seeps through everything we consume in terms of our culture, entertainment and politics. The media are very bad at reflecting ordinary life back to people in a way that they recognise themselves in, whether they are the ordinary rich or the ordinary poor.

ignoring property seems odd for sure

Why ? In order to have an outgoing you need to be able to afford it and the bigger the mortgage you can afford the richer you are.
Why is this confusing people?

This is what happened last thread folk just said I know I get 5 k per month but my mortgage is 4 k so I am not rich etc. However you need £5k to pay it etc

Is this a good time to mention – yet again – that we paid of our mortgage last week? 8)

Guessed 90% richer 10% poorer apparently 99% are richer and 1% are poorer based on my current (crap) income!

……you have to remember that you may be skint* ………

* not in the sense of benefits or £70 per week to love on including all bills and food skint is it.

A few years back the BBC was commissioning a series of documentaries about poverty and had an open submission as part of the Sheffield Doc Fest as the commissioning process. So you could go and sit in the audience and see the pitching and commissioning process. And what was so disheartening was with such a wide call and such a large number of pitches the commissioners shortlisted, invited pitches by, and ultimately commissioned documentaries by …….people who couldn’t tell the difference between being poor and being skint. Which means the commissioners themselves (Storyville and the Joseph Roundtree Foundation) couldn’t tell the difference either.

ignoring property seems odd for sure

Why ? In order to have an outgoing you need to be able to afford it and the bigger the mortgage you can afford the richer you are.[/quote]

Claiming that you’re not rich because you’re buying a massive house is like claiming you’re poor because you spend a fortune on your Faberge egg collection and fifteen holidays per year.

My wife volunteers for the local food bank: there are people currently sat in the dark in an unheated house, only turning on the electric for long enough to use the microwave for 3 minutes and then turning it off again. Most of STW don’t know they’re born.

ignoring property seems odd for sure

Why ? In order to have an outgoing you need to be able to afford it and the bigger the mortgage you can afford the richer you are.
Why is this confusing people?

It’s the other way around IMO. Some have nice houses and low mortgage (so own most of their house), they are better off than most who have the same income.

You can’t ignore the property side of things.

If person A has a mortgage and that mortgage leaves them £200 a month to live on and person B lives in rented (council provided or otherwise) and has £200 a month to live on – I fail to see a difference in their wealth.

Wealth and total value are very different things….

Well apparently there are only 6% of the country less well off than me. 🙂 luckily I have a good accountant and enjoy my life to the full. Oh and no kids helps with living on a low income.

ie I pay a massive mortgage = I bought a phenomenally expensive house

AKA ‘a house’ in the South. Unless you’re 45+ and got in before the explosion and have never moved.

Claiming that you’re not rich because you’re buying a massive house is like claiming you’re poor because you spend a fortune on your Faberge egg collection and fifteen holidays per year.

However buying or renting any sort of house round here would be a significant impact on your income. I honestly don’t know how people on ‘average’ incomes survive. Actually, I do, they both work and have to suck up a childcare bill too.

they are better off than most who have the same income.

They have a greater disposable income they are not better off as they still get the same amount of money.

If person A has a mortgage and that mortgage leaves them £200 a month to live on and person B lives in rented (council provided or otherwise) and has £200 a month to live on – I fail to see a difference in their wealth.

So if person A earns 5 k and is buying a £300k 4 bed detached house house etc and person B earns £500 and pays £300 rent on a one bed bedsit and you cannot tell them apart in terms of wealth and you think they are equally well of 😕 😯

All this debate is is well off folk trying to explain why they are not well off. Again the fact you pay all your money in a very expensive house. coke hookers whatever does not make you poor. Having no money to do that in the first place makes you poor, not what you do with the money.

Calc isn’t working for me, but seems dumb and far too simplistic. I imagine I’ll be told I’m super rich and wealthy. I’ll pat myself on the back, then at the end of the day get into my 13yr old 206 which doesn’t lock or have a radio and drive back to my small 2 bed terrace in a roughish part of town….doing okay yes, wealthy – no.

Property ownership / mortgages are of massive significance.

I guessed at 40% poorer, when apparently 63% are. I assume it helps that both me and the Mrs work and have no kids.

And I agree with what the majority are saying, mortgage makes no difference to how well paid you are, which at the end of the day is what this is getting at.

If you’ve got a massive mortgage surely that’s your choice, if you don’t like it move to a cheaper house!