I agree with option 2, but mostly because having a car, a house or any other specific asset doesn’t mean much. One can certainly have the means to buy a house or a car but simply choose to use their money in other ways (in particular, nobody around me has a car, and not for lack of money).
So I’m fine with defining it as a stable job and savings, but “savings” is a bit vague and could mean many things.
I think those two are very “place specific” as well. For example, if you live in a village, you’d probably need a car, even if it is the “1000 euros and it is just rolling along kind” and “success” is neither here or there about it. But if you live in a big city with great public transit, a car might actually be a needless luxury or ever a burden. 
It is still a major purchase for most people though and, in many cases, something people plan/aim their financials in order to acquire, so I think it was fair to be included early in the list (since a car costs way less than a house).
You are correct. I’ll edit and define it as “The money you’d need to survive for a year, if you lost your job/income”. Seems like a good benchmark for a “low yet successful” amount of savings.
Thank you for pointing this out 
I voted stable job + savings because that’s the closest to my thinking but my minimum would be a bit above. A car may be necessary but not always if you live in center city with good public transport. It is estimated that 50% of inhabitants in Paris don’t own a car, although housing in Paris is quite expensive.
About houses: it’s quite common to buy a house around 30 years old with a 20 or 25 year mortgage, so I don’t expect the loan to be fully reimbursed at 40 years old.
So financial success means having a stable job, a few savings, a car if necessary, having bought a house at least partially, and not worrying about money at the end of the month in general.
Fair enough, I just wanted to point out that having a car/house might not be correct assumptions under a “wider, more multinational view” 
Perhaps you could say “having a car, or the ability to buy one if desired” (but admittedly that gets a bit long).
The term “financial success” itself sounds like it’s some sort of competition, like with friends, family, the neighbours, coworkers and other peers. I don’t care much about such things. What matters to me is financial stability: not living paycheck to paycheck and not spending more money than you make, so you’re able to put some money aside for potential setbacks and your pension.
I think in this case it is mostly the same, since all the choices in the list are actually positive and the the “and savings” choice is the first one added after the “stable job”.
So the question is just a matter of “which degree of positive things is the minimum requirement to feel that you are on the right track/doing well” and I couldn’t find a better word than “success”, though you are making a good point that it is not exactly the most correct word. 
Sorry about that.
In that case, I suppose that for most providers having a stable job and savings is neccesary for financial stability. (I just voted for that)
If by “doing well” you mean having acquired some amount of wealth at middle age, you might as well ask about the total amount of assets (be it in real estate, savings, investments, pension, goods such as a car, furniture etc), instead of listing some things that are not very specific in how much wealth they represent.
I suppose age also matters, even when we’re limiting the question to middle-age. As @jlt said, when you own a house at 40 you probably still have a significant part of your mortgage to pay off, while at 55 you may have finished paying it all.
Here is some data on Dutch households’ savings (in saving accounts on banks) grouped by the age of the main provider:
So the average/median 60 yo is about twice as wealthy as the average/median 40 yo, and the average/median 40 yo is about twice as wealthy as the average/median 25 yo.
Also, between the ages of 45 and 65, the average household savings are similar to the average gross yearly salary for their main provider’s age. Younger people tend to have a smaller buffer relative to their salary (which makes sense, because they’ve had fewer years of accumulating savings).
Edit: Going by that savings table, my household seems to do very well compared to the average for my age, but I don’t consider ourselves rich. It’s not as if we could just buy a 2nd house out-of-pocket (not even close, houses here sell at half a million euros on average these days).
I defined it for myself in two tiers:
I call these financially stable though. Success has such a higher meaning that I see that as ‘never having to work again (to lead a regular lifestyle)’.
Do y’all non-native English speakers catch yourselves talking to y’all selves in English?
I understand I consume content in English every day all day but it’s weird.
I don’t know if I find it funny or annoying tbh
I’ve observed that I switch between languages, so if I speak a lot of english, then I also start to think in english (although not always, and then I speak worse).
In my day job (international company with coworkers from all over the world) I also communicate a lot in English, written as well as spoken. In many cases we even communicate in English when the other person speaks Dutch well (1st or 2nd language), because other people involved may not speak Dutch, or just a little bit (like a Catalan coworker who has been living in the Netherlands for some years).
And with our tester, who is a French woman married to a Dutchman, it’s even a mix of Dutch and English with some French.
I answered anyway because sometimes I’ll think in broken Japanese or French, but it’s pretty rare since I only know them for fun and never use them professionally or socially.
If you add a piece of bread on top on your toast then technically it’s a butter sandwich
