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I asked our audience one simple question: How much money would you need to feel rich?
What I didn’t expect was a tidal wave of answers that weren’t just about income—they were about identity, survival, trauma, and the deep psychology of money. In this episode, I’m digging into the thousands of responses we received—from those saying $70K makes them feel secure, to others needing $750K+ just to feel safe in their high-cost-of-living cities. But beneath those numbers lies something even more fascinating: how we define wealth, comfort, and enoughness, especially as women navigating a world that tells us we should be grateful for scraps.
This episode isn’t about hitting a random salary milestone—it’s about unraveling the emotional and psychological layers behind why we want more money and what it represents. From societal expectations to location-based cost pressures, from generational trauma to shifting lifestyle goals, I break down what your “rich number” might actually say about you—and challenge you to claim even more. Because financial safety isn’t just a number.
What you need to know:
1. The definition of “rich” is deeply personal and psychological.
When Tori asked her audience what salary would make them feel rich, answers varied wildly—from $20K to millions per year. But most people instinctively separated comfortable from rich, with comfort defined as “being okay” and rich meaning true freedom and financial peace. This split revealed the internalized pressure to downplay our desires and justify wanting more money.
2. Geography and government support massively influence what people feel they need.
Living in cities like New York, San Francisco, or Sydney dramatically increases someone’s “rich number” compared to those in lower cost-of-living areas. Respondents from countries with universal healthcare or robust social safety nets (like Europe or Canada) reported needing far less income to feel secure—proving that context and system support matter just as much as mindset.
3. Women are taught to minimize their financial dreams.
Many women responded with heartbreakingly low numbers—like $40K per year—as their “rich” number, even in today’s economy. Tori emphasizes this isn’t just about income; it reflects how financial trauma and societal conditioning have pushed women to equate survival with success, rather than aiming for thriving and abundance.
4. Money is not about the dollar amount—it’s about what it lets you do.
The responses showed that women want more money not to hoard it or flex, but to live fuller lives: travel without fear, pay off debt, care for their families, and never stress about emergencies. That means more money equals more agency, not just more stuff.
5. Your “rich number” will evolve—and that’s normal.
Life stages, inflation, career growth, caregiving responsibilities, and personal boundaries all influence how much money it takes to feel safe. But while the number might shift, the work of understanding your values, healing financial trauma, and developing strong money habits must remain constant.
6. Comparison can inspire or derail—depending on how you use it.
Seeing what others shared triggered insecurity for some—but inspiration for others. Tori invites listeners to use this moment of transparency as motivation to dream bigger, not shrink smaller.
Notable quotes
“If you’re a woman out here saying that you are a hundred percent happy on 40K a year—that breaks my heart.”
“You are deserving of money. Not just to get by—but to make choices where money is never the reason you can’t do something.”
“Wealth is both a financial and an emotional state of mind. Both matter when you’re trying to build a life that you love.”
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Transcript:
Tori Dunlap:
I asked women how much they need to be making a year in order to feel rich, and the numbers me off, and yeah, honestly, I’m probably about to call you out.
Hi, I’m Tori. I’m a multimillionaire. I’m a money expert, and I have helped over 5 million women get better with money, and we had an Instagram post that absolutely blew up where I post the question, how much does your yearly salary need to be in order for you to feel rich? I didn’t expect to do a podcast episode about this. I didn’t expect to do another video about this, but the answers were so interesting. The reason I asked in general is I have this general curiosity of how people define wealth, how people define what feeling rich looks like, but also our whole thing at Her First $100K is to try to get people to talk openly about money, and there’s nothing more open than specific numbers and exactly what you might need in order to actually live the life you want.
So I’m going to go through all of the data here, including the average amount that people said in the comments, but also some really illuminating things that poke more at the psychology of money about what we generally feel about money and the people who have it and the amount of money we actually truly need versus the amount we think we need.
Okay, so let’s talk about the numbers first. We got a range of responses. We got some people who were saying, “I need $20,000 a year in order to feel rich,” and we had some people who were saying, “I need five to $10 million in order to feel rich.” And again, this is your yearly salary, and I assumed in just asking this question that it was a one person salary. It was just your personal salary, not a dual income household, but maybe some people were saying dual income at that five to 10 million amount.
The common benchmark though, a 100K popped up a lot. This was the first threshold for what people felt like they needed to be making in order to feel rich, especially people who had never made six figures before. Now, there’s a reason that 100K number feels pretty significant. It’s part of the reason why Her First $100K is named Her First $100K. There’s a common phrase or a quote out there that says, saving your first a 100K is the hardest, and it might be adapted in this situation to be, making your first a 100K as the hardest.
I think that for somebody who has never made six figures, if they’re at $50,000 a year or even less, if they’re at 60 or 70, getting up and jumping to that a 100K mark can feel absolutely liberating. It can feel like you can finally breathe a little easier. You have a little bit more of a wiggle room, you can maybe afford some nicer things or to travel more, but just I think the security of that jump from let’s say 70K to a 100K feels significant.
For a lot of people in the US who responded, 250 to 300K was more common. This is the number that a lot of people cited, and I would assume that these kind of folks have already experienced what making a 100K feels like, but also what being in a high cost of living area feels like. If you’re making a hundred thousand dollars in New York, that does not go nearly as far as making a hundred thousand dollars in Omaha, Nebraska. So that 250 to 300K number came up a lot for people in those bigger cities where rent or a mortgage is going to cost multiple thousand dollars a month, where the price of eggs is really expensive, where gas is really expensive. So I can understand why that number increased pretty substantially from a hundred to 250 or 300 when you start considering the higher cost of living areas. Then we got in to the other common number, which was 500K.
Now, I know if you’re listening to this episode and you’re like, “I have not broken that a 100K number, I don’t make over a 100K a year. That 500K feels crazy. It feels insane.” But for people who live in a high cost of living area, who maybe have dependents, who have children, who have ailing family members, and who also want a certain lifestyle where they are traveling and going out to restaurants occasionally, 500K with inflation, with how expensive everything is, is a number that a lot of people are saying they need, not just to get by, but to feel rich. I want to remind you, this is not the number you need to get by. This is the number that you feel you need to be making in order to feel rich.
Let’s talk about some other extreme ends of the number scale. We had some people saying that 50 to 70K was enough in their country. I didn’t see a lot of US respondents saying this. I saw a lot of people in internationally and countries with universal healthcare, with a lot of social services support, with a lot of government support, allowing them to make less money knowing as well that their company policies, maternity leave, PTO might also be able to support that lower salary. There were other people on the end of the spectrum who said that a million dollars a year was the only level that allowed true freedom. Which brings me to part two.
Something really interesting happened in the comments. Now, I use the word rich on purpose. I said, what is the amount of money you need to be making in your yearly salary in order to feel rich? I didn’t really put anything else in the caption. I didn’t define what rich meant or what certain milestones you needed to hit. I didn’t say rich meant flying first class or maxing out your 401k every year or never having to be on a budget. Rich was interpreted by everybody in the comments. So something really interesting happened. A lot of people gave their rich number, but they also gave their comfortable number. They made a distinction between what it would be like or what number they would need to be making in order to feel comfortable. Meaning, it was covering bills, they were saving, they took an occasional vacation, and what it would feel like to be rich, which we can assume is freedom from financial stress, these kind of big luxuries, money is no longer a thought.
The common comfortable range was a hundred to 250K a year, depending on household size, depending on location. That kind of makes sense, right? Again, especially if you are in one of these bigger cities, you have a child or two, you want a certain flexible lifestyle, a 100 to 250K is a comfortable number. But when we’re talking about rich, that number changes. Rich often started at double or triple that number, or to the point where you don’t even have to work. You could quit your job if you wanted to. You’re making enough money, I guess, passively that you don’t even have to think about putting work in to make a salary. This touches on something psychologically that is so interesting for me, comfortable versus rich. Comfortable, and the fact that we have to define that there is a difference between comfortable and rich showcases so many of the mental barriers and the hoops that we have to go through, especially as women, to define how much money we want, how much money we need, and how we have to couch any requests for money that feels audacious.
The fact that we have to say, this is our comfortable number. This is what would be comfortable versus this is what it would feel like to feel rich. This tells me that people have three numbers in their head when it comes to salary. They have the amount they’re making now, they have the amount it would take to feel comfortable, and again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? Comfort is defined the way this person wants to define it, and rich, which is again defined by this person. Comfortable versus rich, shows me that there is an interesting level of psychological hoops to jump through where we can’t just say the number we want or the number that would make our lives beautiful. We have to say the number that would be okay, comfortable, being like, life is good. Life is not completely stress-free or flexible when it comes to money. It’s okay.
This was also on a public forum. That’s the other thing you have to think about is that you are posting this publicly in the comments of an Instagram post, so other people are responding to you. Other people are giving feedback.
When we’re talking about the numbers that we saw, and this is part three, we were seeing that comfortable versus rich distinction. We were seeing numbers that were as high as a million, but we were seeing numbers that were also for me, painfully low. Now, I have done so much research for this podcast. I have done so much research and talking with our millions and millions of people who engage in our community, who I’ve taught to be better with money. I did so much research for my book, Financial Feminist. I understand what it feels like to not make a lot of money and even make $5,000 more or $10,000 more. It feels like your entire life immediately gets better.
That’s why we’re doing the work that we do at Her First $100K. That’s why I host this show is that if I can help you be better with money, if I can help you get more money and learn how to manage it better, your entire life changes. So I acknowledge that. I know it. We have both the data and the thousands of interviews to prove it. However, if you are a woman out here saying that you are a hundred percent happy on 40K a year, which is a real comment I saw, that breaks my heart because you are deserving of money. You are deserving of having enough money where you’re not just getting by, you’re not just able to pay your bills or you’re not just comfortable. You get to make the choices that you want to make, and money is never the reason you cannot do something.
There was a handful of comments where I wanted to respond in all caps and say, “Play larger than this,” but I also understand that so much of this is psychological and financial trauma and our relationship to money and feeling like I can’t want money, I can’t want more than just having a nice thing once a year. It’s okay to want money because money means options. Money means choices. And as long as you are not exploiting people or pushing other people over in order to get that money, money can be your freedom and your ticket out of situations that do not respect you and can be your ticket into the situations that do.
So my third point here with these numbers is that we had people dreaming big. I love that. Some people were doing the comfortable versus rich distinction, which again makes sense, and there were others who are so seeped in their financial trauma, and so just in the scarcity mode of day to day that they can’t see anything bigger, they can’t dream or understand that there might be a potential and a possibility to not just get by, but to absolutely thrive.
When we come back, we’re talking more about the things that are affecting women’s views of their comfort numbers, including considerations like location and how sometimes we need to think about more than just money when we answer this question. See you back here soon.
All right, part four, location, location, location. High cost of living cities, New York, LA, San Francisco, Sydney, London. These numbers skewed way higher. This makes sense. This makes total sense. Some people were saying, “I need 750K a year just to feel safe.” That’s a way higher number than again, somebody in the Midwest, United States. In these lower cost areas or these even lower cost countries, these were much lower thresholds. We’re talking that 50 to 80 or even a 100K, that was cited as rich.
We also have some regional tax differences, which I thought was really interesting in how people chose to distinguish these. We were seeing Canada’s higher rates of taxes impact the number people felt like they needed. European social benefits, I kind of talked about this before, but if you have a lot of support, if you are getting flexible paid time off, and a lot of it, not just two days, if you’re getting family leave, if you are getting universal healthcare, these things are going to allow you to have a smaller salary number that you’re citing in order to feel rich because you’re not spending as much money on these things. So it makes sense that the cost of taxes, social benefits, these shift people’s comfort numbers, but also that location piece.
If you live in Hawaii or New York, this is a really, really expensive place to live. Everything’s more expensive. Rent or your mortgage, again, the price of eggs or groceries, insurance, Ubers, everything’s more expensive. Daycare. Daycare is so much more expensive. So the increase in that number when we’re getting into the 200, 300 plus thousand dollars range, often it’s because somebody is in that higher cost of living area.
Part number five, this is not just about the money. And again, people were the first to cite this. Some people were brave and just said, “I need this amount of money,” and you know what? I applaud those people. No couching, no explanation, just, “this is the amount of money I need.” But some people wanted to cite all of the things they wanted to do or all of the ways their life would change if they made that amount of money.
So let’s talk about some of the lifestyle goals. With the salary they said they needed to feel rich, people were going to travel without checking their bank account balance and travel more frequently and travel in a more luxurious way. They were going to be debt-free, paying off student loans, paying off their mortgage, not worrying about that debt hanging over them. They also wanted to better help their family in terms of their finances, fund their children’s futures, whether college or otherwise, but also donate more liberally to causes they believed in. And the biggest thing we kept seeing was people wanting to never worry about an emergency, about a repair, about an unexpected cost coming up.
Now, what this tells me is what we’ve been talking about on this show since the first episode, money is emotional. It’s not really about the number in the bank. It’s not really about the salary number you need to be making. It’s not about the paycheck. It’s about what the paycheck offers you. Those choices, those opportunities, that flexibility. And just making the amount of money people said they need to be making in order to feel that sense of richness allowed them to do really great things. I didn’t see a comment that was like, “Ooh, when I get more money, I’m going to, the doctor evil and exploit people and be a shitty person.” But that’s what we believe getting more money might mean because we all know a shitty rich person. We see shitty billionaires all the time, so we often push away money because we believe it’ll make us a bad person, or we believe that the pursuit of money is wrong or gauche or gross. All of the things that women are citing in the comments that they would do if they had more money are beautiful things.
They would pay off their debt, they would fund their children’s futures. They would travel more and open themselves up to new experiences. They would be able to caregive for their children or their ailing family members without having to be concerned about the money. They’d be donating to causes they believed in. They would not have to worry about emergencies, and they could show up as the fullest best, baddest version of themselves. So what this tells me is that money can buy happiness. We’ve talked many times on this show that when you have money, every part of your life gets better. I would argue that’s happiness. And that nothing bad happens when women have more money. Nothing bad happens. Nobody in these comments was being like, “Wah, ha, ha, ha. I’m about to contribute to climate change and kick puppies.” Everybody was saying, “I’m going to make my life better, my family’s life better, my community better.” Everything gets better when women have money.
Part number six, our rich number changes over time. There is a number that past you thought she needed to be making in order to feel rich. There is a number present you feels like they need to be making in order to feel rich, and that number will probably change for future you as well. People’s numbers shift, that’s natural. Between career changes, moving cities, life milestones, home buying, children, again, caring for ailing family members, all of these things impact how much money you need to be making.
When I was living in a one bedroom apartment, I was living by myself. I was not making the amount of money I’m making now. Did I feel rich? No. Did I have enough money to get by? Yes. As my life started changing, I became more generous. I was able to afford nicer things. There were more responsibilities on me as an entrepreneur because I had a team of over a dozen women that I needed to make sure that our company could pay. My lifestyle shifted. That rich number shifted.
We’ve heard about lifestyle creep before. It’s this idea that as you earn more money, your definition of enough often moves upward, but also that it can very much sabotage you if you’re suddenly making a lot more money, but have no idea how to manage that. So we need to understand that it’s okay if that number shifts. That’s natural. Just like I was okay staying in hostels and sleeping in a room of 12 people when I was 20 years old. Fuck that shit. I’m not sleeping in a hostel anymore where the guy next to me has his underwear on the radiator, which is a real thing that happened to me in Killarney, Ireland. I’m not willing to do that anymore. I have back problems. I’m not willing to sleep on the floor and sleep next to Underwear Man. That makes sense. Your lifestyle when it comes to money is also going to change, but I need you to know how to manage that change.
And finally, there’s so many external factors to why our rich number changes over time. Inflation, rising housing costs, so many other things impact that number over time. When we come back, we’re wrapping up by talking about the emotional side of what we feel about being rich.
Finally, our last part. We’ve talked about this a little bit, but the emotional side of being rich. There is a gap between feeling rich and feeling rich financially. A lot of people make a lot of money but still feel broke or still feel like the other shoe is going to drop at any time because of the scarcity mindset. This is why I spend so much of my time talking about the emotions of money, the psychological trauma of money. It’s why the first chapter of my book, Financial Feminist, right behind me is about the emotions of money, because I can’t teach you how to manage your money and pay off debt and set a budget and what a Roth IRA is. I can’t teach you all of that until you understand your own emotions about money.
There are so many people who are making a bunch of money but don’t feel rich. There’s a lot of people who make not a lot of money, but actually feel richer than somebody making four or 400K a year. It’s about not only your mindset, but about practically, how are you working to understand your financial trauma and therefore how are you managing money in response? There was also the role of comparison in that emotion. This was a public forum. You could see other people’s answers. I think it’s actually one of the most powerful things we can do is talk about money openly, and I think talking about scary or intimidating or nerve wracking things is easier when you’re talking about them with strangers. The role of comparison though was quick. It was fast. A lot of people cited their number and then you can see in the thread, a lot of different comments about how this number was infinitely more than they could have ever thought, or this number was infinitely less than they ever would’ve thought or asking people to justify or explain their number.
Now, if I assume positive intent, it’s ’cause people are curious, they’re trying to get to the bottom of things. But that rule of comparison of keeping up with the Joneses, of seeing other people’s numbers, some people immediately went, “Well, now I feel poor. I feel broke.” Even if they were doing fine before. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. I think that if we can see other people playing big, maybe it inspires us to play big too, but only if you use it as a source of inspiration and not as a source of making you feel like shit.
All right, what does this mean for you? I want to challenge you all to define your rich number. We have posted the Instagram down below in the description, the Instagram post. It’s always interesting for you to go see. Feel free to share it there. If you’re listening on Spotify or on YouTube, you can share it in the comments. But I want you to define what your rich number is based on your values, not just the cost of living, and also maybe cite that rich number and add 20% to it. That’s my challenge to you because you’re allowed to want money.
I want to ask you, what would change in your life if you hit that number tomorrow? Would you actually feel rich? How would your life change or how would you make changes in your life to support that number, but to also make decisions where that number is not going to waste? You’re not blowing it on things that you don’t actually like or mismanaging it because you don’t have the tools. We’ve said many times in the show that if you can manage $10,000, you can manage a million dollars, and I don’t say that just out of hyperbole. I mean it. It’s true. If you can manage a smaller amount of money, you can manage a larger amount of money. But where the problem happens is as people start to make more money, they have not done the work, the psychological trauma work, the practical steps and education to understand how to manage that money when it comes. And I want to remind you, wealth is both a financial and an emotional state of mind. Both matter when you’re trying to build a life that you love.
Thank you for being here at Financial Feminist, thank you for supporting our work. If you find this episode interesting or if you want to take your financial education more seriously, please subscribe to this show. It is the easiest way to support us. This is a free podcast. We spend a lot of money pouring so much time and energy into producing these episodes for you, and I would really appreciate your support. As always, thank you for being here. Thank you for supporting feminist media, and we’ll see you back here soon.
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist a Her First $100K podcast. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First $100K, our guests and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com. If you’re confused about your personal finances and you’re wondering where to start, go to herfirst100k.com/quiz for a free personalized money plan.
Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap. Produced by Kristen Fields and Tamisha Grant. Research by Sarah Sciortino. Audio and video engineering by Alyssa Midcalf. Marketing and Operations by Karina Patel and Amanda Leffew. Special thanks to our team at Her First 100K, Kailyn Sprinkle, Masha Bakhmetyeva, Sasha Bonar, Rae Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Daryl Ann Ingman, Shelby Duclos, Meghan Walker, and Jess Hawks. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolfe, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K community for supporting our show.
Tori Dunlap
Tori Dunlap is an internationally-recognized money and career expert. After saving $100,000 at age 25, Tori quit her corporate job in marketing and founded Her First $100K to fight financial inequality by giving women actionable resources to better their money. She has helped over five million women negotiate salaries, pay off debt, build savings, and invest.
Tori’s work has been featured on Good Morning America, the New York Times, BBC, TIME, PEOPLE, CNN, New York Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, BuzzFeed, and more.
With a dedicated following of over 2.1 million on Instagram and 2.4 million on TikTok —and multiple instances of her story going viral—Tori’s unique take on financial advice has made her the go-to voice for ambitious millennial women. CNBC called Tori “the voice of financial confidence for women.”
An honors graduate of the University of Portland, Tori currently lives in Seattle, where she enjoys eating fried chicken, going to barre classes, and attempting to naturally work John Mulaney bits into conversation.
