I could live comfortably off a few million invested correctly where I live. My (middle class) in-laws sold their business while in their early 50s and live a very comfortable lifestyle off several million with the help of a financial advisor. I was brought up in a conservative (upper middle class) household and learned from a early age to save and invest wisely...
My dad's parents - who lived during the Depression - were ultra-conservative...only things they spent money on were real estate - in order to provide low-cost housing to the community - and one vacation per year. My grandfather did buy each of the grandkids our first cars, though, and they helped a little with college. When they passed, their two kids and the three grandkids all received a pretty significant amount of cash, and the kids got the land as well. My cousin immediately pumped a good chunk into a home improvement project and put the rest into his daughters' college funds and my sister applied hers toward her mortgage, which will save her tens of thousands in interest over the next 15 years. Meanwhile, even though I'm supposed to be the 'smart one', I haven't done anything with mine yet. lol It's just sitting in CDs, collecting like 1.5% interest. But because of that cash reserve, the bank is willing to let me get a loan for another house.
Meanwhile, my mom's mother and step-dad made WAY more money at their jobs than my other grandparents in their lifetime, yet died broke. It's a complicated story, but my mother and her sister didn't know how to take care of business, so the house their real father had bought for them ended up being taken by their step-dad's family. Thankfully my mom married into my dad's family.
Her sister, however, was not so lucky. She was married to a fool who lived off her until he died. And then some 20 years later, she married another fool, and they recently lost the overpriced show house he'd 'bought for her'
outside of Phoenix. When I met him and he tried to impress me with 'what he had', I knew it was all bullshit and sure enough, 3 years later, foreclosure. Fortunately, she'd kept her house this time, so they had someplace to go. Unreal.
