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the wealth ladder by nick magguli

August 17th, 2025 at 06:41 am

I listened to Nick Maggiuli on Afford Anything with Paula Pant https://affordanything.com/629-nick-maggiulli-the-wealth-ladder-has-six-rungs-and-most-people-never-climb-past-four/

I read the book as well from the library.  It was very interesting.  The levels?

1 - $0-10k

2 - $10-100k

3 $100k - $1m

4 $1m-10M

5 $10m-$100m

6 $100m+ 

His point is most people never get beyond level 4.  And the advice changes as you go along.  The bottom 2 levels how much you make is the most important lever  you pull and work at to get there.  But the average person saving 40 years can get to level 3.  They can also get there by buying a home. Most home owners are level 3 or 4.  Then the 18% of people can get to level 4.  That's impressive considering the range.  

But the jump to level 5 is like 10% so less than 1 in 10.  Sounds right since it's only 1.68% of the population and 100M is 0.05%.  His point is that most people stop before $10m because they've won the game.  They are ready to get off.

I can tell just from this board, ER, Bogelheads most people never get to $10m not because they couldn't but they aren't willing to work and save.  They pull the ripcord long before then and are satisfied.  That's what he was talking about Paula Pant.  That having enough.

He said honestly getting to level 5 most people need to do more than work a high paying job. They usually need to take some sort of risk to get that outsized wealth.  And I needed to hear that.  I feel like DH and I have recently made gains in our net worth.  We've been seeing more gains than adding to the portfolio.  So it's hard to be motivated.  Honsestly I think I could hang it up and be done. DH waivers but I think he'd just want a less stressful job.

But this summer as i listened to the podcast I got it. I too would rather hang it up early and never get to rung 5 and i'd be satisfied.  And about 1% of people aren't.  But the 99% of us are.  And once you are there do you need more?  It's okay to coast. It's okay to spend a litle more because you are okay with where you are.  You can stop saving that amount.

Posted in Retirement, Savings | 3 Comments »

3 Responses to “the wealth ladder by nick magguli ”

  1. GoodLiving Says:
    August 18th, 2025 at 06:11 pm 1755537073
    1755537073

    Yeah, I'm at level 4 and I'm good. I'm just waiting until I can switch to part time work but it's always the health care that's the issue in the USA.

  2. rob62521 Says:
    August 18th, 2025 at 11:32 pm 1755556359
    1755556359

    I agree, making a good wage is good, but saving and investing will get most farther. It's interesting how it says most get to level 4 and don't go further.

  3. LivingAlmostLarge Says:
    August 19th, 2025 at 08:21 am 1755588091
    1755588091

    because Rob it's really hard to keep at it another 20 years to get to $10m. That's typically how long it takes. High wages for 40 years. It takes like 10 years to $1m, then it doubles every 7 years. So to get to $10m takes about 40 years. Imagine if you had $5m and were told you gotta work another 7-10 years...hmmm i can understand why so many check out.

    The point is that when you have enough it's okay to spend more instead of saving for what?

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