The Average Net Worth Of People Who Have A Personal Chef

A private chef plans and manages the grocery shopping, cooks according to the family's diet, plans mealtimes, and even manages kitchen staff if their client owns a large home. Their role differs from occasional catering; it is a full-time commitment where they learn and adapt to the client's dietary needs and other daily routines like managing visitors and accommodating their unique taste buds. To get a private chef, being rich is not enough. The employer would have to belong to a High-Net-Worth (HNW) household, which means they will generally have at least $1 million in cash and investments – and that makes sense. 

Once a person's investable cash, stocks, or property exceed a million dollars, or they cross the threshold to become a part of the 1%, a private chef is a calculated choice because, at this point, the estates are larger, the schedules busier, and so outsourcing domestic tasks also transitions from being optional to a logical decision. Hiring a chef becomes as strategic as hiring an accountant or lawyer as wealth status shifts from managing money to managing time. It makes sense for a person or family to bring in a private chef once their net worth reaches a point where the cost of that chef and services don't exceed the average percentage of income Americans spend on food.

In 2024, David Boyd, a top certified personal chef through the U.S. Personal Chef Association, told GoBankingRates that a full-time private chef earns $2,400 to $3,200 per month, but this depends on expertise, location and other responsibilities. In 2023, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that Americans spend about 11.2% of their income on food expenses. 

If a person pays a private chef $3,200 monthly, that's $38,400 per year, and if they spend 11.2% of their income on food, dividing $38,400 by 0.112 will place their total income at $342,857 per year. Now, people with this income typically have a net worth 5 to 10 times higher because of property, investments, and savings that are usually much greater than their annual income. Hence, to retain, consistently, a private chef, they would have a new worth between $1.7 million to $3.4 million. 

If they want to wake up to the aroma of fresh pastries because the chef lives right down the hall, live-in chefs typically command between $110,000 and $230,000 a year. To comfortably afford the lower end, they should have a take-home of about $980,000 annually and roughly $5 to 10 million in assets. A top-tier chef on a $230,000 salary means their client's income should hover near $2 million, with $10 to 20 million in net worth.

Private chefs work for families with significant wealth, often as part of the "family office." This is a private wealth management team that takes care of the financial and personal needs for ultra-wealthy families, those with $25 million to $100 million. These families manage a lot of assets, multiple properties, and have busy lives. To help keep things running, they hire staff like chefs to handle the daily tasks. These are the typical clients of private chefs. 

We also see this in the typical client of a luxury concierge, those who can get their clients everything from Michelin-star chefs (a common feature among private chefs) to other unique experiences. Companies such as Sienna Charles and Quintessentially cater to this demographic, and Sienna Charles reports that its clients have an average starting net worth of about $100 million, while Quintessentially's clients have an average net worth of $36 million. At these levels, spending $30,000 to $40,000 per year to hire or retain a private chef is not a problem. However, they are all estimated; the actual net worth will depend on factors like lifestyle, savings rate, debts, and investments.