New Definition of Rich in 2026
Level 2- Value Investor
Welcome Avatar! As you guys know, we’ve said as of 2026 that the vast majority will be happy with the following: Paid off home and $3-5M liquid invested. Assuming the standard and boring 4% rule that gets you $10,000 to $16,667 a month to spend. In addition to that, remember, this assumes you do nothing. If you’ve read us for more than a month, you know that we would wager practically everything on all of you working. Maybe you won’t work 60+ hours a week, but you’re going to do something (golf instructor, entrepreneur, passion project that pays $60,000 a year). So on and so forth.
Most people will read this and say “well $10,000 can’t afford a Ferrari”. That is true and actually proves our point. Who is richer. The guy who has to work 60 hours a week because he has a massive mortgage and a super car. Or. The guy who wakes up at any time on any day? Pretty easy to see where we’re going with this.
The Race to Being Time Rich
The aforementioned paid off home and $3-5M conceptually makes you time rich. If you hit this level of wealth, even if you’re earning less than your investment banker friends pulling in $800,000 a year… You won’t have a speck of jealousy.
You: Wake up go make a coffee. Hit the gym at 11am. Go back to the house. Go do your passion job/income stream for 4-5 hours. Go to sleep.
Banker: Wakes up well before market open. Commute. Checks to see all bills are paid. Puts on his “calendar”, one week vacation August 10-17.
Doesn’t take a lot of energy to figure out you’ll be happier and healthier in the first position. If you get bored of the time freedom, you can ramp up the work hours. If you get bored of the work as a banker… sorry, no one cares.
Time Rich Before Status Goods
Last week we suggested a simple way to increase your status good purchases (source). We do not care how you spend your money. Just be smart about the order of events.
Time > Status Goods
Until you are time rich, the other stuff will prevent you from becoming free.
Read that a few times if you have to. No one. Absolutely no one who makes it as an entrepreneur would trade in their time freedom. That’s exactly why they end up leaving the corporate grind in the first place.
What successful person enjoys being told what to do?
Defining 2026 Version of Getting Rich
While we gave you a numeric set up, here’s the way to think about it. Before you can say you’re rich (based on wealth), you need to answer yes to all of these questions
Entry Level Rich
Outside of rare events (significant meeting, doctor appointment etc.) you can wake up with no alarm clock
You can dedicate your best hours to what is most important to you. Someone else isn’t deciding when you work. You decide
Any time you need to take time off, you can do it without asking anyone
Any family friend event? You can decide if you want to go or not
You can say no to work without causing you an ounce of stress (if you don’t like the person, or the Company, rationale doesn’t matter)
You can decide where you live
Conceptually, if you have a high net worth but fail to answer yes to all of this… we don’t think you’re particularly rich. The exception to the rule is you absolutely love what you’re doing.
The nitpickers will point at these questions and say stuff like “what about a huge deal” “what about a huge contract for a month of work” “what about family emergencies”. These are all one time events. None of them are consistent. If you get an offer to do something you want to do and know that it will be a grind… well you decided to do it. Extremely different from “I have to take this deal or else I might lost the house”
Where Can You Go at 11am on a Tuesday? Coffee shop/Beach/Park = Entry level rich. Regular golfing/tennis club? = Mid level Rich. Country club? = Definitely rich.
No where in here is “Have a $5M house with massive mortgage and a leased Lambo”
2026 Version Hits a Lot of Nerves
If you explain that to people in retirement age, they will look at you like you’re insane. In their world it was all about how many people you managed and who you knew. It had nothing to do with being Sovereign. Being sovereign is the present and future.
High Income W-2: Intuitively they know this. If you talk to a person making good money in a W-2 (say $500,000, higher up middle aged), they will say they don’t feel rich. It’s because of the above mechanisms: 1) they are time poor - best hours of day go to the Company, 2) at that level you’re always on and expected to respond to messages, 3) you can’t choose where you live - location poor, 4) negative health impacts and 5) limited friends/family as a percent of your daily hours
In a nutshell? They are lifestyle poor.
Don’t be the meme!
If you look at the meme closely, it’s missing an important piece. Money buys time. Time is money = old fashioned concept. If you understand that Money buys time, the entire goal is just getting “enough” as fast as humanly possible.
Both time and Energy are going to follow the same trajectory. You will get older. You won’t have as much energy at 20 vs. 80. No amount of peptides, HRT and biohacking will turn that clock back.
This Isn’t FIRE or Coupon Clippers
Don’t take the prior sections to the financial extreme. If you are going to live in a studio in Thailand for life, you’re missing the point.
The paid off home and $3-5M creates a baseline quality of life.
Simplistically, we have a hard time seeing a person spend $10,000-$16,000 a month + live in a RV clipping coupons.
The above post is a good enough explanation. Your quality of life is basically good. You are not flying private. You are not driving a super car. That said, no one will look at you and say “this guy is a cheap and depressing loser”. We gave out a rough range because some people want to live in slightly more expensive cities.
Oh and by the way, for the peanut gallery, it assumes you don’t work at all. Chances are basically zero percent that happens for any successful male. Therefore the add ons are all earned.
You’re not rich if no one wants your productivity/skills. You’re rich when they can’t offer you enough to come back.
By The Way, This Is Already Happening at Scale
The odd thing about this trend is that everyone “in the know” already sees it. The people who are not in the loop are blinded by the corporate veil. They see the person one level above them and get jealous. So and so makes 20-30% more (or whatever the number is). They spend the next 3-5 years chasing that jump.
In the interim, people who built a small business and sold it? They make a jump that is multiples of that in the same time frame.
People don’t see see the aftermath when a successful person leaves. If someone leaves the corporate grinder, they do not check back in on the company 3, 4, 5 years later. He’s just a artifact of the past “oh yeah that one guy who quit”.
People forget. Then the slow drift occurs. They get promoted once and by the time they check back on the guy who left, he’s already on his 3rd or 4th venture. The gap is too wide to send the “we should catch up” message.
Smart New Money is Sovereign: Being new money has a negative connotation to it. Mainly because a lot of people blow it. That’s true. However, the people who don’t blow it are valuing the right things. The trend is for maximum time freedom and only working on scalable high value items. If it can’t scale. It’s not even in the conversation. If it requires a commute… you can guess that the answer is no.
The smart New Money figured out a lot of the games in life.
They spend a lot more on once in a life time experiences in their 20s/30s because they know it’s a snapshot. The partying is definitely not the same in old age
They care a lot about how the money is made. The smart new money values $1 online at a premium to $1 in a brick and mortar. The location and time freedom is massive
The big picture difference is there is an acceptance of life stages. Assuming you will want to do the same things at 35 vs 55 is absurd. They build their life in anticipation of the next wave of interests
Higher acceptance of human psychology. New rich discuss correct trust fund set ups since they know tons of messed up rich kids who amounted to nothing (or worse, OD’d)
Recap Summary
If you’re envious of your boss or your co-worker it is time to leave that belief behind. Your W-2 is not the life map that leads to wealth. In fact, when you get that promotion, you’ll understand exactly why the guy you were envious of… didn’t love his life that much.
Instead you’re going to have to play a game of reverse engineering.
Write out your quality of life baseline. Toss out stuff you wouldn’t need to do if you were self employed (dry cleaning, commuting, “happy hour costs”, etc.)
When you find that number, your goal is to back track and figure out the fastest possible way to get there (statistically it’ll say sale of a small business or growth of a small business)
Then you throw away all your terrible $1B+ unicorn ideas. You’ll realize you don’t need anywhere near that
Just fixed your map in seconds! See you on the beach at 11am tomorrow.
Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind. These are *opinions* written by an anonymous group of Ex-Wall Street Tech Bankers and software engineers who moved into affiliate marketing and e-commerce.
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