FWIW: Potter's Cash

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 161926

In a discussion at the Leaky Cauldron people were 
speculating how much money Harry actually has, so I did
some calculations and here is what I came up with.

This has been discussed here resently, so I thought
cross posting this would be acceptable.
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Just my opinion, but I've always gotten the impression 
that the Potters, and now Harry, are 'comfortably well 
off' but they don't quite make it into 'Rich'. Certainly, 
they were comfortably upper middle class or low end rich,
whereas the Malfoys are pleasantly rich, probably middle
to upper rich.

I just don't get the sense that the Potter were even in
the same class as the Malfoys. The Blacks, I think, were
probably in the range of the Potters. Note the Blacks 
have a presumably attached house in the city, Malfoy has
a country estate in Wiltshire. Not that London real 
estate is cheap, but there are rows and rows of houses 
like the Blacks, but I suspect much fewer 'manors' like
the Malfoys.

As a means of guessing Harry's wealth, we can take the 
scene in which Harry first enters his Vault and use that
as a model. Though I don't have access to Movie Galleon 
coins, I used an American quarter, and scaled it up 
slightly.

Nine Cubic Feet of coins (3ft x 3ft x 1ft) is 
approximately 198,288 coins using 5/64 inch as the 
thickness and 1 inch as the diameter. A single one 
Galleon coin is worth 5 British Pounds or about $7 or $8
American dollars (we'll use $8 in this example).

198,288 coins X $8.00 = US$1,586,304

198,288 coins X £5 = £991,440

Given that Harry has, what I believe to be, several piles
of Gold of roughly the sample dimensions, we have the 
following examples -

2 piles of gold = US$3,172,608

3 piles of gold = US$4,758,912

4 piles of gold = US$6,435,216

Harry is 17 years old about to turn 18 (we'll use age 18).
That means Harry can expect to live another 122 years. 
Take 3 piles of gold and that averages out to US$39,007 
per year for the rest of his life (unless I miscalculated).

Given inflation, Harry would start off with a managable 
income but over his life it would quickly deteriorate to
near poverty levels.

So, despite having millions of dollar in the bank, and 
given his life expectancy, he has just barely enough 
money to get by. So, in that sense, no, he is not rich.

However, at an interest rate of a mere 6% per year, 
US$4,758,912 would return US$285,537 per year. That would
certainly help and would prevent the deterioration of the
principle amount of capital. I think Harry could live 
quite comfortable off of $285,000 per year. Especially
since he already has a substantial house of his own;
that's one less expense to drain his resources.

So, in that sense, Harry is like his parents and 
grandparents; he is, as I said, 'comfortably well off'. 
Rich by working class standards, but merely comfortable by
upper middle class standards, but not really siginificant 
to the truly rich. All of which seems to fit the story.

As a side note: Keep in mind that all the coins in 
Harry's vault were not Gold Galleons.

To Draco Malfoy US$5,000,000 is near poverty, but to Harry,
who is very conservative, that is a comfortable amount of 
money, and consider that, assuming Harry lives, he will 
probably earn some income from some type of work. That 
sweetens the pot considerably.

As I've said before, I think Fred and George will consider
Harry as a partner in their business based in his initial
investment, and once Harry is ready, he will do quite well
helping run that business.

For what it's worth.

Steve/bboyminn

PS: If someone could give me more precise dimensions to 
work with, say using the movie Galleon coins, we could 
refine our estimate further.