I’m not very sympathetic to the argument that $250,000 doesn’t make you rich if you live somewhere where cost of living expenses are high. Spending your large income on expensive shit doesn’t make you not rich, it makes you someone with the privilege to buy expensive shit and choosing to do so. Living in the most expensive places in the country isn’t some natural expense you’re burdened with like a disability or disease: it’s a choice about how to spend your money.

If someone making $250,000 doesn’t feel rich in Manhattan then they can just move to Queens and feel rich. In fact in most cities there are neighborhoods with really expensive homes less than a mile from neighborhoods with really cheap homes. It would be nonsense for someone living in a $2,000 a month condo they can barely afford and shopping at the expensive local grocery store to say they aren’t rich because their costs are high relative to their $70,000 a year income. They’re simply consuming an expensive neighborhood as an amenity to their home. Note this can be true at the county level as well.

Whether you’re rich or not isn’t a state of mind, nor is it what you spend your money on: it’s a summary statistic. If you make more than 95% of the population you’re rich, even if you don’t feel rich because you’ve spent it all on gold dust to sprinkle on every meal…. Oh, and saying you don’t feel rich when you make $250,000 a year doesn’t just not make you less rich, it also makes you kind of an asshole.

Pictured: £12,000 chocolate cake laced with gold, which is most expensive dessert in the world.