View from the Cheap Seats is kind of an extension of the newsroom. Whenever our three regular reporters, Calvin Daniels, Thom Barker and Randy Brenzen are in the building together, it is frequently a site of heated debate. This week: What would be the bare minimum it would take for you to feel rich?
It鈥檚 nuts
To put things in perspective, most of us in Canada are already rich, not only compared to most of the people currently on the planet, but compared to everyone who has ever lived.
Nevertheless, all things are relative and most of us aspire to be better off tomorrow than we are today.
For me, feeling truly rich starts with a very simple thing: not feeling guilty about throwing away the pistachios that aren鈥檛 open. Pistachios are one of my favourite things in the world, but they鈥檙e expensive so I always feel obligated to eat every last one even though they are very difficult to open.
Seriously, though, I came up with this list of things that would make me feel rich many years ago and it still applies.
Being able to take my clothes (or better, have them picked up) to be laundered.
Have a housekeeper come in once a week.
Choose vacations based on what I want to do, not what I can afford to do.
Alternatively, I could simply say, own my home outright, because if it was not for the mortgage, the other things would already be within reach.
鈥擳hom Barker
Back to the land
Ah the game so many of us like to indulge some fantasy time into; how much money would be enough to allow us to live the lifestyle we most desire?
In my case I know the target has shifted somewhat over the years.
Twenty years ago I would have wanted enough to go farming, a real working farm, cattle being its main focus. That would have taken significant capital, and a very large lottery win to make it happens.
Two decades later I鈥檒l admit age has me less inclined to a working farm. Money or not, a cattle farm is more work than this near 55-year-old now desires.
In that regard my desires are perhaps a tad more modest.
The first level of wealth would be to be able to make a simple call to the Yorkton This Week office.
鈥淕ood day Mr. Thom, I won鈥檛 be in.鈥�
鈥淵ou mean today?鈥� he asks.
鈥淓ver,鈥� I reply.
It鈥檚 not that I do not for the most part like by job as a journalist, but if we are talking wealth, well I could do without writing an agriculture column after 25 years (roughly 850,000 words) of doing so.
Next would be an acreage, a private 18-basket disc golf course, a few draft horses and cattle (or bison), a few laying hens, fruit trees, stocked trout pond, and a library packed with hundreds of books. I suppose that is a dream that you might pull off for a couple of million, but five would be better.
Yes, enough to build my version of Nirvana, and retire happily.
鈥� Calvin Daniels
Mega bucks
When it comes to how much money I would truly need to feel rich, the answer really is simple.
I would need far more money than I could honestly hope to spend in my lifetime.
I鈥檇 need millions upon millions of dollars Think one hundred... million... dollars (cue Doctor Evil voice).
And that鈥檚 because the only way to feel truly safe with yourself when it comes to money is to have more than you need.
Sure, some people are satisfied with having just enough money to make themselves feel good.
Others, meanwhile, will only feel safe if they had enough money where they could retire from their job and continue to live their lives the way they are currently doing so.
But for me, I鈥檇 need to be Vince McMahon or Donald Trump rich in order to make me feel truly wealthy.
I鈥檇 need to be able to just go out and buy a hockey team if I wanted to.
Or have the ability to just jump on a private jet and travel anywhere in the world.
Yes, people say money can鈥檛 buy happiness.
But you know what? I鈥檓 happy right now so I don鈥檛 need to buy it.
But what I do need is money.
Lots of it.
鈥擱andy Brenzen
