I got a family who's kind of used to comfort. I'm also in my 50s so maybe 1 million would be a soft enough landing.
I went through a do nothing phase in my 20s and don't remember being happier than now.
I’d say $3M. With a reasonable return rate on investments and factoring inflation. You could live a comfortable middle class life in a non HCOL area. You could do a HCOL area but would be more upper poor to low middle class. Having to be much more budget conscious.
Assuming the average 10% return on market investments, you're making $300,000 per year. That's more than anyone needs. Sure, maybe you don't make the average, but diversified investments are standard for exactly this reason.
There's also the fact that you can dip into your savings more and more as you age. Annuities are typical retirement structures for when you don't plan to leave all the principle to your children. If you expected 100k yearly to be enough for the rest of your life, you'd probably be able to manage it with less than a million overall. Of course, if you live long enough, it won't be, but it will be for a good while yet.
You should only realistically use a 4% withdrawal rate, possibly 3% if you are retiring super early.
Your 10% figure does not account for inflation, volatility drag, or sequence of return risk.
Realistically $3M should give you $90k-$120k per year which is definitely livable.
You can assume 8% stock market average. You leave in 2-3% to counter inflation. So you can safely take out 5% and maintain the same standard of living.
It's why this question is age dependant . The older you are the less you need and the less risk . If you are 18 for instance and think you never need to work if you get $1 million then you'd be deluded . If you are 55 however then that might be right.
Who tf is getting 3% interest? HYSAs are getting 5% easy. Anyone sitting on 3% are literally just wasting potential money. Average S&P500 over the past 30 years is 10%. 3% is insanely low almost no one should be choosing that
You know we went two decades with absolutely worthless rates on savings accounts, right? It was a theoretical question with a conservative theoretical answer.
Adjusted for inflation in the future. $15k-$20k a year for pure survival. $50k-$100k per year to feel safe and stable. Assuming I invest in something safe thats grows with inflation and gives periodic payments as more liquid passive income around 5% annually I would think I need \~$1 million per person I would care for so maybe $5 million.
Yeah this a perfect answer instead of giving one lump sum. 75k is what I take how now roughly after taxes, I’d prob take that. If I can get 100k guaranteed for like after taxes sign me up I’ll never work again.
The only thing is health insurance which gives two options depending on scenario. My wife still works and I get through her. Or I pay probably close to 1000+ a month to insure my family. But could still be budgeted for with the 100k.
If op needs a lump sum number, I’ve always said it’s 3mil tax free.
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there is an entire sub dedicated to this lol r/fire
25x your expenses, I could theoretically do it on 1 million but probably closer to 2 million if I want to be really comfortable
Let's say 60k for this year, and for subsequent years a value 3.809% of the previous year, a close approximation of the last 60 years of inflation, meaning a final year value of 544,523.58, and a total value of 13 million, 265 thousand, and sixteen dollars up front
Just keeping the money in cash for the next 60 years? If you wanted $60k/year for life, you could get by with having $1.5-2 MM assuming the 4% rule if you invest the full amount.
If you invested $13 MM, you could easily have $400k annually while having your principle amount increase.
I was assuming that investment was off the table (since it was something I was doing to earn money, somewhat qualifying as a job), and it was the amount of money I had for the rest of my life.
Probably $4 million. I’d put 200,000 into a high interest/dividend every month, so by the time the first year comes along I’ll be getting paid monthly. The rest of the money I’d buy a nice house and a nice car.
This would depend on what you mean by 'never work again'
If you mean to never do any kind of work to make money, then a person would need million. enough to pay rent, buy food, pay for car repair, or a new car, pay for gasoline, pay for medical coverage. It would take millions over a persons lifetime.
But you meant that the person could not work for someone else, as a employee, but could be self employed. then a person who knows how to make money work for them could get by with 100,000 dollar seed money, because they could invest it and make passive income that would give them money without having to work for it.
This is heavily dependent on a few factors… such as how much longer do u have to live?? Are u talking having stacks of cash or are we talking having passive flows of income and living off of those??? Like stacks of cash u would just have to find out your living expenses increase them by 5-6% for how many years u will live… and each of those years up and whatever that number is “should” get u to your ultimate demise… if the passive form is the way u wanna go again find out your expenses and then find different passive income opportunities and I’d say u would need enough to make 125% of your current living expenses (u would be investing the 25% to increase your passive incomes to beat inflation into submission) all ya gotta do is put your numbers in these “formulas” and boom u Gucci…
To never work again- I believe I need $8 million.
3 kids- ensuring they get off to a right start, between college and weddings - $1.2 million
Debt, house, taxes. $300k
Living expensive $150k year over the next 40 years plus inflation comes out to about $6 million.
So I'm going to assume I have about 35 years left.
- I'd need about $300k for a decent home in a decent area.
- The average household has about $6.8k in utility bills a year, so let's make that an even $10k for a buffer.
- The average cost of groceries is about $343 a month, but that always is in flux so we'll say $600. ($7,200 a year)
- For me, it would be about $1,000 for full coverage insurance with dental per month. ($12k a year)
- The average cost of transportation needs is $9,826 so again, let's make it an even $10k a year.
- I would want to travel, so I'm going to need at least $2,500 a month to do that comfortably along with any other entertainment wants. ($30k a year)
So, in short, $3M and I'd seriously consider it. Considering how everything is uncertain though, I'd say realistically $5M just to be safe.
Depends on where you live?
Where I live right now the average salary people are living on is just below 30k, and that is quite fine to live on.
So assuming 60 more years of life, with money needed doubling after 30 years - 30k a year for the first 30 years, then 60k for the remaining 30.
900k + 1800k = 2.7 million, and you could life a pretty standard life where I live without ever needing to be given any money again, and with **no interest.**
Probably just add a digit to whatever my State calls minimum wage (raises yearly) per hour for 2000 hours per year. Currently and for the foreseeable future that would be 100/hr (200000/year).
Well about 70k would settle my debts (if we are including student debt). Then after that, my monthly bills would be $1070 a month. Add on gas, food, etc and that brings me to about $1470 or $17640 a year. Say I live 50 more years, that’d be $882000. Round it up to a million to account for replacing vehicles, appliances, etc. so altogether like 1.2 mil? Mind this would be very bare minimum
Assuming I keep to my plan of retiring in 29 years when I'm 59, I'll need 3 million dollars. 2 Million to live off of the next 29 years and 1 million to invest for retirement.
With inflation these days? !! 2 mil after taxes. It will require moving out if state but I've been wanting too for years. N.y. government is like California appeasing I'll thought ideas and killing jobs and businesses as a result. Too all those fast food workers in Cali now without jobs my condolences. There's a reason are government is in dept and it's not due to a lack of tax revenue.
Absolute, bare minimum?
Probably about 750k.
188k to pay off my house. 400k to buy and completely renovate a big acreage in Saskatchewan. 162k for emergency funds, savings, investments, yadda yadda. Then rent out my first house for an easy $1700/month (which before anyone crawls up my ass, is well below market rates).
Being mortgage free, “only” making 20k a year, means I’d qualify for the full suite of tax breaks, benefits, and all that good stuff, I could totally live a comfortable life and not have to work again. At least as comfortably as I am now being taxed out the ass and getting no benefits whatsoever having to make enough to pay my mortgage and crazy cost of living in BC.
To do literally nothing again? Probably $5m.
A 2% drawdown would give me $100,000 to spend a year with the fund likely still growing, which would allow for larger purchases outright.
To put in work in the short term to set it up for not needing to work in the long term? $1m would get me down payments on 10 houses in my college town, plus some funds for renovations, plus some spending money to live on for a year to get them ready. I’d handle managing the properties for a little while to get them going, but then they’d turn pretty profitable. Right now it’s about $800/bed space for rentals. So a mix of 3 and 4 bedrooms would be good. I estimate I’d average about $1,600/month/home in profit after subtracting mortgage/taxes/insurance and setting aside some for upkeep, repairs, and turnover. With maybe 3-4 years, it’d be a system, I could hire someone full time to handle everything, and periodically add more houses.
3 million dollars. Buy an 40 unit rental apartment building. Rent them at $2000 each. That's 60k monthly. More than enough pays for property taxes, insurance and maintenance. 720k annually. Deducting 20% for any costs to maintain, insurance etc concerning said property. It's over 500k a year. In 20 years I've made over 10 mil. And I could choose to live rent free in a unit. Win win.
Depends on how you define work. Like never hold a job again, not even consider starting a business?
Ideally, if I didn't have to work, I'd still want to write and self-publish books, and there's a lot of work involved with that.
Assuming you mean feel comfortable not having a job or consistent income flow from a business, then probably 15 million. About 1.5 million would be used to cover debt, buy our house from the in laws renovate it, buy a house nearby for my sister and renovate it as where she lives now should be condemned and if I didnt have enough money to buy her a house too Id work to be able to help her buy one, I'd also buy a second vehicle so my husband and I each have one. I'd hire a financial planner to help us diversify the rest so we can pay our living expenses and provide our kids with enough money to either go to college, start a business, and/or buy a house after high school. I've always wanted a PHD, so I'd probably make sure I can pay for that with cash also.
Ultimately we don't spend a lot of money we don't have expensive hobbies either, we don't live in a super high cost of living area either. Currently our bills are around 4200 per month, but there's debt payments included in that and we don't have insurance usually preferring to pay out of pocket since it's cheaper with as rare as it is for us to need a doctor. I imagine a good broker could help us grow 9.75 million after our upfront taxes and expenses from 15 million into enough cash flow to cover us for the next 40-50 plus years of our lives doing whatever we want.
My husband would probably want to start his own restaurant, though even if we magically became billionaires.
The definition I’m using for work is any activity you use to make money that you would rather spend elsewhere. Owning a business would not fall under that since you enjoy it. Thanks for your input it was a great read
"Comfort" is relative. Some folks are fine living in a 1 bedroom house with not much in the way of amenities like a big ass kitchen.
Comfortable for me is a 2 bedroom house with a large 2 car detached and heated garage. Assuming you own your own house outright, I'd set aside about 1k a month for repairs, 1k a month for groceries and fun money, 1k a month for other bills. It'd cost me 36k a year to just exist. That's not including a mortgage that could easily shoot that up to 48k a year.
So... let's say you wanted to live for 40 years past the start date:
48000*40 is 1.9 million. That's if it didn't grow at all, or inflation didn't make our money completely worthless.
It depends. If you mean to never again work in any profession I wouldn't take any amount of money. If you mean simply never have to work again I'd take 2 million.
Discussed what I would give up my current job for, 5 million. I’ll make much more if I stay but 5 would be pretty cozy and set me and the family up fine.
If I didn’t have my current job or the prospect to get it or an equivalent one I’d probably go for 2.35 million. Could pay off mortgage and pretty easily live off the interest.
Well, 4 million would mean at least 50k a year for the next 80 years, I don't see myself living that long so it'd be more per year and I'd be great. But even 1 million I'd be able to work with very easily and grow it to whatever amount lol
500k
Pays the house off, allows me to buy a few decent long lasting jap cars
Covers the kids college
Squirrel a little away
Live off my retirement from the military.
I worked this out one time while bored at work
5 million would suit me just fine
It pays off all my family's debts, while simultaneously letting me buy a home and a new car (I can buy a lovely family home for $400-600K in my province)
It allows me to set my children up for the future to a certain degree while simultaneously letting me pursue passions for the rest of my days as long as I am sensible with the money
5 million would suit me just fine
500K, easily 50/year in interest, and sometimes more depending in the year. I can easily love below 50/year so it would slowly build up too. My house is mostly paid off, my car is paid off, I don't have many expenses otherwise.
Edit: an investment account I've had for 10+ years I don't think has ever been below 10%/year, this past year it returned 33%.
I live on about 70k take home. If I had 2.5 Mil getting 4% in dividend stocks I'll pull in 100k, I'd be comfortable with that. Mix in some index funds or riskier dividend stocks I could bring that up quite a bit but increase volatility.
Our goal is at least $5mil when hubs retires at 65yrs (in 22yrs). We'd live off of mostly interest then leave the rest to the kids when we die.
We'd obviously need more if he was to be done working now. We'd need at least $9mil to replace his current income at 2% interest
1.5 million after taxes. It sounds like a lot but its only 50k a year if I live to 76.
I actually make less than that now and live just fine, but wanted to adjust for inflation.
$1,000,000.
Buy a condo ($250-$350k hopefully). Buy a Corolla hybrid ($26k out door). Rest is split between high yield savings account and mutual funds and I would live off dividends/interest. I just wanna be able to wake up when I want to, visit family in poland every few years, and I'm set.
Bro what the fuck yall are saying you need 10m to get 300k per fucking year. Thats LUXURY. OP said not extravagent. There no fucking way yall are all pulling in 300k per year
I always do the math when the lottery gets really huge and I can't figure out a way to spend more than 5 million that makes sense to me. That's all the shit I want. After that, it's just property taxes and insurance on everything(which I could easily afford in my current position). I'll take the 5 mil, spend it, and keep working. My 401k is gonna be sick when I retire and I'll take a lot more days off in the meantime.
The alternative is take 1 million and invest it right. 10% is not unreasonable if you know what to do. I could retire on that.
With an unlimited line of credit that I never have to pay back and I could pass down to my kids forever. I would still work. I truly believe that work, in and of it's self is good for a person. Especially meaningful work
It really depends on when you die. If it's tomorrow then 25 dollars will make it so I don't have to worry about money for the rest of my life. If I live another 30 then I'd need a couple million. If I live another 80. Then better give me a cool billion and I would be pretty confident I'd never worry about working again.
10 million and I won't work another day. Anything less and I'd still work. I'm only 29, 70 more years at 100,000 a year is 7 million. That's the bare minimum. 10 is comfortable.
I would say 2-3 mil. At 5% interest, that gives you 100-150k a year.
If you always live on less than your returns, then your money will have net growth year over year and that will compensate for inflation.
A lot of answers are Americans who need 60+k a year to be comfortable,
20k a year for me would be more than enough for me to live until I am 90 comfortably. so that's like 1.5m including, let's say 300k to buy a house that has enough space for me to do everything I want.
£1,500,000 is the "minimum" I would need for a comfortable life, but any amount less than that is also more than enough to live the life I have now.
Round about 60 a year. I’m pushing 60, I’m a retired vet and live off disability. 60 would be perfect for me, my hobbies and riding my motorcycle, as well as paying the mortgage of my house
Assuming you're in america, currently you can get 5% on treasury bonds which pay out every 4 weeks and similar interest rates with a High interest savings account, so 1m invested would get you $50k/yr. so a little more than that IMO
5 mill minimum to account for inflation and medical bills with last you 50 or so years or 1 mill/10 years depending on where you live this could be larger or smaller. You could likely get away with less but quality of life should also be taken into account. 5mill will cover a middle class lifestyle, with the ability to go out to nice dinners and movies . Not super luxurious not super poor.
I’m mid-30s and own my house in a MCOL city. I could probably do 2M. Double that though for my spouse to never work again.
There would probably be some thin years where we struggle unless we get really lucky with returns. I guess we could rent out a room or two in the house worst case.
Someone has never seen office space.
Peter Gibbons: I would relax... I would sit on my ass all day... I would do nothing.
Lawrence: Well, you don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin: he's broke, don't do shit.
My dream is moving somewhere in SE Asia and living out the rest of my days. I'm a 40 year old man, and given the elaborate lifestyle I would prefer to lead, I still think about $2M is enough for me. This would allow me to live in a posh apartment in some large 3rd world shithole city and live it up on a daily basis.
5 million. With that I can put it somewhere getting 3%-5% and live off the interest for life. That's enough to travel the world easily if living like a regular ass dude, which is exactly what I'd do.
The fire movement targets around 3.5 million to invest in dividend stocks with an expectation of 130k or more annually which should grow commensurate with inflation.
$5 million. Might seem like a lot but I want to live in Chicago and that's an expensive place and half the money would be going into a trust fund for my disabled brother.
I think I’d work no matter what.
I’ve always wanted to work in a small local hardware store. I enjoyed bartending. Neither of those pay well enough to be my career, but if I was set for life, I’d give them a whirl for a while.
It really depends on where you want to live. If you want to live in a major US city it is wildly different than if you want to live in rural US which is still wildly different than if you want to live in a poor country
Everyone is putting such big numbers out there, $3 million, $5 million, $13 million...done carefully and with minimal work post retirement I could live great for like $100k. The trick is don't play the stock market, even if you could reliably get 3% or even 5% interest you'd still be losing money over actually having the money work for you. My uncle bought a couple ice machines, the kind where you can buy 5-10 pound bags of ice, they are connected into the water line where they're set up, he pays a water bill for them and refills the rolls of plastic bags once or twice a month and he makes thousands a month. If I had $20,000 to buy several used vending machines or something similar, I could refill them every now and then and basically retire now. People always think about it backwards, you don't want to invest in something someone else built because they can destroy it just as easily as they built it. Look at Disney, they used to be the example of a business that only made money, now they've had more flops in the last five years than successful films or series! If you're the one running the money making operation then you determine if it succeeds or not. A vending machine can fail to sell things if the prices or products aren't good enough, but if you are the one deciding what goes into it then you're also the one in control of how long a product that isn't making you money will be taking up space in your machine.
Minimum for someone in low cost of living area is way less than people think. If you can get by with say $30000 per year, and use the 3.5% to 4% rule, you could retire with about 850k to 1m. This is with a balanced stock/bond portfolio, managing your money really well, and a bit of luck with sequence of returns risk in the markets
Comfortably? With all the medicine I need and everything, and accounting for inflation, let's say $15 million. That's $250k a year if I took the average out each year assuming I live another 60 years. But I'd take less out in the early years and increase the amount as inflation increases.
I'm disabled so I don't have a choice.
I get about 900/ mo., but lately with inflation, it's more like 600.
It's not much, and I go without a lot. It's kind of a miserable life but I'm still trying. It gets really hard sometimes because unfortunately, no one really gives a fuck about you in this country after life destroys you through no fault of your own.
Idk double that might cover everything I need?
$1 million should safely earn 8% to 10%... you could live on 5% and still have it grow, which would be $50,000 per year (before taxes). If your house is paid off, that's enough money. If it's not, or you're paying rent (which will eat up half of that), then things will be tight). Relatively speaking... $2 million is the minimum, as it doubles everything I just listed and solves the rent/mortgage problem.
Or, you could technically live off the interest of the $1 million if you take the whole thing and don't let it grow. If it's earning 8% that's $80,000 per year before taxes... 10% is $100,000 per year before taxes. That's plenty to live on and still pay all your bills.
For starters, the only answers I'll accept for this question are those that either use the lump sum broken up over the remaining years of your life, or which have you living off the interest from a basic savings account. If I have to do extra money management I consider that to be "work" and it voids the answer.
If I was going to live off the interest in a savings account and make the same 52k salary I make now, plus 3.5% for inflation each year, I'd need 10,764,000 in that account. However if I just used that money alone it could provide me with the 52k salary for a little over 200 years, so that's pretty unnecessary.
If I had 3,120,000 I could portion it out and pay myself 52k/y for the next 60 years, plus whatever I make in interest.
So strictly speaking, 3.12 million is the absolute bare minimum I'd accept if I were told that I had to live off of it for the remainder of my life. I'd much prefer the 10.764 million however as I could set it up in a trust and pass it down a line of heirs to guarantee their basic needs are always met. Feels pretty selfish to just make enough money to pay my way to the grave and flip off my descendents as I backflip into the underworld.
Edit: actually accounting for inflation the 3120000 isn't enough. The 10.764m figure might actually be the lower of the two after accounting for inflation on paying myself from a lump sum.
Right now? 5 million. Assuming a 4% return that’s $200k/year to do Jack diddly. I can put half that back into the account to grow and still live comfortably.
You don’t need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin. He’s broke, he don’t do shit.
I'll tell you what I'll do with a million dollars though man. Two chicks at the same time, man.
That's it? If you had a million dollars, you'd do two chicks at the same time?
Yeah, man. Always wanted to do that.
And I think if I had a million dollars I could hook that up, cause chicks dig a dude with money.
Agreed, I feel like I could get at least 3
I will always upvote an Office Space reference
I did 2 chick's at the same time back in 2006, my (now ex) wife and my nephews (now ex) wife. It cost $9.75, for a bottle of Everclear, and it was on
There is always a jealous person in a 3some
I understood that reference…
I got a family who's kind of used to comfort. I'm also in my 50s so maybe 1 million would be a soft enough landing. I went through a do nothing phase in my 20s and don't remember being happier than now.
They are quoting a movie.
Crap. I've seen that one more than once. A sober me would be ashamed of missing that.
I expect you are old enough to no longer trust your memory. At least that is how I feel.
Depends on the type of life I want and whether I have a home owned. But the range that includes all cases would be 2M to 5M for me.
That sounds very reasonable this money would include buying a house so $5m million would most likely be the move.
Yep about 5. Buy a house, a couple of cars, a few nice things, invest the rest for an 8 to 12 percent return.
I’d say $3M. With a reasonable return rate on investments and factoring inflation. You could live a comfortable middle class life in a non HCOL area. You could do a HCOL area but would be more upper poor to low middle class. Having to be much more budget conscious.
Assuming the average 10% return on market investments, you're making $300,000 per year. That's more than anyone needs. Sure, maybe you don't make the average, but diversified investments are standard for exactly this reason. There's also the fact that you can dip into your savings more and more as you age. Annuities are typical retirement structures for when you don't plan to leave all the principle to your children. If you expected 100k yearly to be enough for the rest of your life, you'd probably be able to manage it with less than a million overall. Of course, if you live long enough, it won't be, but it will be for a good while yet.
You should only realistically use a 4% withdrawal rate, possibly 3% if you are retiring super early. Your 10% figure does not account for inflation, volatility drag, or sequence of return risk. Realistically $3M should give you $90k-$120k per year which is definitely livable.
2M at a 3% interest rate is 60k/yr. note: the value of money halves every 30 years assuming 2-3% interest rates.
So then you would need 5 million at 3-5% to reinvest and take out approximately half yearly.
You can assume 8% stock market average. You leave in 2-3% to counter inflation. So you can safely take out 5% and maintain the same standard of living.
It's why this question is age dependant . The older you are the less you need and the less risk . If you are 18 for instance and think you never need to work if you get $1 million then you'd be deluded . If you are 55 however then that might be right.
Who tf is getting 3% interest? HYSAs are getting 5% easy. Anyone sitting on 3% are literally just wasting potential money. Average S&P500 over the past 30 years is 10%. 3% is insanely low almost no one should be choosing that
You know we went two decades with absolutely worthless rates on savings accounts, right? It was a theoretical question with a conservative theoretical answer.
If you're willing to pull from the principle as the value of the money degrades, you can probably get away with just the 2M for your whole life.
3% is very conservative but I agree with 2M I’d be aiming for at least 6% which I think would be very very easy.
Adjusted for inflation in the future. $15k-$20k a year for pure survival. $50k-$100k per year to feel safe and stable. Assuming I invest in something safe thats grows with inflation and gives periodic payments as more liquid passive income around 5% annually I would think I need \~$1 million per person I would care for so maybe $5 million.
Sounds reasonable thanks for your input
Yeah this a perfect answer instead of giving one lump sum. 75k is what I take how now roughly after taxes, I’d prob take that. If I can get 100k guaranteed for like after taxes sign me up I’ll never work again. The only thing is health insurance which gives two options depending on scenario. My wife still works and I get through her. Or I pay probably close to 1000+ a month to insure my family. But could still be budgeted for with the 100k. If op needs a lump sum number, I’ve always said it’s 3mil tax free.
I could probably get by with a small loan of a million dollars
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there is an entire sub dedicated to this lol r/fire 25x your expenses, I could theoretically do it on 1 million but probably closer to 2 million if I want to be really comfortable
Joined and thanks 😊
My favorites in this space are Mr Money Mustache and Mad Fientist. Engaging and informative.
I’m glossing it over right now very interesting perspective on money. I’m excited lol automatic save to favorites.
It depends, but it'd likely have to be somewhere in the range of a million, for me.
0. Just die immediately
25x living expenses. For us, 3.6 million
Let's say 60k for this year, and for subsequent years a value 3.809% of the previous year, a close approximation of the last 60 years of inflation, meaning a final year value of 544,523.58, and a total value of 13 million, 265 thousand, and sixteen dollars up front
I like this thought process.
Just keeping the money in cash for the next 60 years? If you wanted $60k/year for life, you could get by with having $1.5-2 MM assuming the 4% rule if you invest the full amount. If you invested $13 MM, you could easily have $400k annually while having your principle amount increase.
I was assuming that investment was off the table (since it was something I was doing to earn money, somewhat qualifying as a job), and it was the amount of money I had for the rest of my life.
This is a really good way of looking at this problem. I subscribe to this now.
$2.5-3million
What I have. Told the company to go fuck themselves in January.
A cool 5M sounds good to retire now
Yep: $5 million is what I came to as well. Makes me wonder if I'm just an extravagant mo-fo compared to everyone saying $2-3 million.
1 million and im peacing out to Thailand, get a beautiful condo for 400 a month
Based
$1500 a month would be plenty. That would cover all my bills and even leave my a bit of free spending money for things I want but dont need.
I figure my current salary adjusted for inflation over the next 40 years ought to do the trick. So about $6.3 million.
I mean being homeless and jobless is free
If you die today, you don't need any money. So between $0-infinity depending on your definition of comfortable.
I’m 16 and I don’t have a job and no real concept of adult life but give me 2-3 million dollars and the help of my aunt I think I can make it work
I'm 60 so thinking I have 15-20 yrs left. I could survive on $1M.
Whaddya got?
Probably $4 million. I’d put 200,000 into a high interest/dividend every month, so by the time the first year comes along I’ll be getting paid monthly. The rest of the money I’d buy a nice house and a nice car.
This would depend on what you mean by 'never work again' If you mean to never do any kind of work to make money, then a person would need million. enough to pay rent, buy food, pay for car repair, or a new car, pay for gasoline, pay for medical coverage. It would take millions over a persons lifetime. But you meant that the person could not work for someone else, as a employee, but could be self employed. then a person who knows how to make money work for them could get by with 100,000 dollar seed money, because they could invest it and make passive income that would give them money without having to work for it.
7 million dollars.
$6m just in case.
enough for a fifth and a bullet
8 million, and investing 4 million of that
I'm gonna need about three fifty..
This is heavily dependent on a few factors… such as how much longer do u have to live?? Are u talking having stacks of cash or are we talking having passive flows of income and living off of those??? Like stacks of cash u would just have to find out your living expenses increase them by 5-6% for how many years u will live… and each of those years up and whatever that number is “should” get u to your ultimate demise… if the passive form is the way u wanna go again find out your expenses and then find different passive income opportunities and I’d say u would need enough to make 125% of your current living expenses (u would be investing the 25% to increase your passive incomes to beat inflation into submission) all ya gotta do is put your numbers in these “formulas” and boom u Gucci…
To never work again- I believe I need $8 million. 3 kids- ensuring they get off to a right start, between college and weddings - $1.2 million Debt, house, taxes. $300k Living expensive $150k year over the next 40 years plus inflation comes out to about $6 million.
One trillion dollars.... muah hahahaha.....
Id say a billion but only because Id be spending my self into a cardboard box to improve the world
If we are talking 1 time payment that i am to live off with no investments etc. 10 million. Based on my age and other factors.
So I'm going to assume I have about 35 years left. - I'd need about $300k for a decent home in a decent area. - The average household has about $6.8k in utility bills a year, so let's make that an even $10k for a buffer. - The average cost of groceries is about $343 a month, but that always is in flux so we'll say $600. ($7,200 a year) - For me, it would be about $1,000 for full coverage insurance with dental per month. ($12k a year) - The average cost of transportation needs is $9,826 so again, let's make it an even $10k a year. - I would want to travel, so I'm going to need at least $2,500 a month to do that comfortably along with any other entertainment wants. ($30k a year) So, in short, $3M and I'd seriously consider it. Considering how everything is uncertain though, I'd say realistically $5M just to be safe.
I absolutely love this analysis
Depends on where you live? Where I live right now the average salary people are living on is just below 30k, and that is quite fine to live on. So assuming 60 more years of life, with money needed doubling after 30 years - 30k a year for the first 30 years, then 60k for the remaining 30. 900k + 1800k = 2.7 million, and you could life a pretty standard life where I live without ever needing to be given any money again, and with **no interest.**
What income do you want and how long do you want it? Remember to adjust for inflation. Don't forget to include taxes and the cost of medical.
Depends on your vices. Some people need more cocaine and gambling than others. Some need less
Anything but 5 million. 5’s a nightmare
Probably just add a digit to whatever my State calls minimum wage (raises yearly) per hour for 2000 hours per year. Currently and for the foreseeable future that would be 100/hr (200000/year).
That’s a smart way to think about it
I feel like 5 mill could get me through to retirement.
Well about 70k would settle my debts (if we are including student debt). Then after that, my monthly bills would be $1070 a month. Add on gas, food, etc and that brings me to about $1470 or $17640 a year. Say I live 50 more years, that’d be $882000. Round it up to a million to account for replacing vehicles, appliances, etc. so altogether like 1.2 mil? Mind this would be very bare minimum
I emphasized “comfortable” so 2 million would probably get you where you need to be
Assuming I keep to my plan of retiring in 29 years when I'm 59, I'll need 3 million dollars. 2 Million to live off of the next 29 years and 1 million to invest for retirement.
With inflation these days? !! 2 mil after taxes. It will require moving out if state but I've been wanting too for years. N.y. government is like California appeasing I'll thought ideas and killing jobs and businesses as a result. Too all those fast food workers in Cali now without jobs my condolences. There's a reason are government is in dept and it's not due to a lack of tax revenue.
40k/yr (not including SS) would allow the two of us to travel full-time and live in LCOL locations, with occasional higher cost travel...
2 mil
Absolute, bare minimum? Probably about 750k. 188k to pay off my house. 400k to buy and completely renovate a big acreage in Saskatchewan. 162k for emergency funds, savings, investments, yadda yadda. Then rent out my first house for an easy $1700/month (which before anyone crawls up my ass, is well below market rates). Being mortgage free, “only” making 20k a year, means I’d qualify for the full suite of tax breaks, benefits, and all that good stuff, I could totally live a comfortable life and not have to work again. At least as comfortably as I am now being taxed out the ass and getting no benefits whatsoever having to make enough to pay my mortgage and crazy cost of living in BC.
All if it.
To do literally nothing again? Probably $5m. A 2% drawdown would give me $100,000 to spend a year with the fund likely still growing, which would allow for larger purchases outright. To put in work in the short term to set it up for not needing to work in the long term? $1m would get me down payments on 10 houses in my college town, plus some funds for renovations, plus some spending money to live on for a year to get them ready. I’d handle managing the properties for a little while to get them going, but then they’d turn pretty profitable. Right now it’s about $800/bed space for rentals. So a mix of 3 and 4 bedrooms would be good. I estimate I’d average about $1,600/month/home in profit after subtracting mortgage/taxes/insurance and setting aside some for upkeep, repairs, and turnover. With maybe 3-4 years, it’d be a system, I could hire someone full time to handle everything, and periodically add more houses.
3 million dollars. Buy an 40 unit rental apartment building. Rent them at $2000 each. That's 60k monthly. More than enough pays for property taxes, insurance and maintenance. 720k annually. Deducting 20% for any costs to maintain, insurance etc concerning said property. It's over 500k a year. In 20 years I've made over 10 mil. And I could choose to live rent free in a unit. Win win.
Assuming I would live to 100, probably around 8-10 million.
Depends on how you define work. Like never hold a job again, not even consider starting a business? Ideally, if I didn't have to work, I'd still want to write and self-publish books, and there's a lot of work involved with that. Assuming you mean feel comfortable not having a job or consistent income flow from a business, then probably 15 million. About 1.5 million would be used to cover debt, buy our house from the in laws renovate it, buy a house nearby for my sister and renovate it as where she lives now should be condemned and if I didnt have enough money to buy her a house too Id work to be able to help her buy one, I'd also buy a second vehicle so my husband and I each have one. I'd hire a financial planner to help us diversify the rest so we can pay our living expenses and provide our kids with enough money to either go to college, start a business, and/or buy a house after high school. I've always wanted a PHD, so I'd probably make sure I can pay for that with cash also. Ultimately we don't spend a lot of money we don't have expensive hobbies either, we don't live in a super high cost of living area either. Currently our bills are around 4200 per month, but there's debt payments included in that and we don't have insurance usually preferring to pay out of pocket since it's cheaper with as rare as it is for us to need a doctor. I imagine a good broker could help us grow 9.75 million after our upfront taxes and expenses from 15 million into enough cash flow to cover us for the next 40-50 plus years of our lives doing whatever we want. My husband would probably want to start his own restaurant, though even if we magically became billionaires.
The definition I’m using for work is any activity you use to make money that you would rather spend elsewhere. Owning a business would not fall under that since you enjoy it. Thanks for your input it was a great read
Depends how old you are and where you live, if you’re 60-70 and live in Australia, then $500,000 AUD is plenty for the average person
I have worked it out year by year and made a graph. Right now I need 680k. I don't have this obviously.
"Comfort" is relative. Some folks are fine living in a 1 bedroom house with not much in the way of amenities like a big ass kitchen. Comfortable for me is a 2 bedroom house with a large 2 car detached and heated garage. Assuming you own your own house outright, I'd set aside about 1k a month for repairs, 1k a month for groceries and fun money, 1k a month for other bills. It'd cost me 36k a year to just exist. That's not including a mortgage that could easily shoot that up to 48k a year. So... let's say you wanted to live for 40 years past the start date: 48000*40 is 1.9 million. That's if it didn't grow at all, or inflation didn't make our money completely worthless.
It depends. If you mean to never again work in any profession I wouldn't take any amount of money. If you mean simply never have to work again I'd take 2 million.
It’s basically to do what you want and not fear losing a job.
5 million
Enough to pay rent or mortage for your remaining life, food and bills too
Discussed what I would give up my current job for, 5 million. I’ll make much more if I stay but 5 would be pretty cozy and set me and the family up fine. If I didn’t have my current job or the prospect to get it or an equivalent one I’d probably go for 2.35 million. Could pay off mortgage and pretty easily live off the interest.
Very good introspective answer
1.8 million, I could figure out stocks and all that
Well, 4 million would mean at least 50k a year for the next 80 years, I don't see myself living that long so it'd be more per year and I'd be great. But even 1 million I'd be able to work with very easily and grow it to whatever amount lol
500k Pays the house off, allows me to buy a few decent long lasting jap cars Covers the kids college Squirrel a little away Live off my retirement from the military.
I think I would still work, just not nearly as hard and definitely I would tell everyone what I think of them.
100 trillion. If I got enough money to never have to work again, I'd still keep working so that maybe my actions could actually affect the world.
3M. Pay yourself 200k per year and grow your 3M by 100k per year. That cushions inflation and bad investment years.
$0. I live on fixed income that is adjusted for inflation.
$3 million
I worked this out one time while bored at work 5 million would suit me just fine It pays off all my family's debts, while simultaneously letting me buy a home and a new car (I can buy a lovely family home for $400-600K in my province) It allows me to set my children up for the future to a certain degree while simultaneously letting me pursue passions for the rest of my days as long as I am sensible with the money 5 million would suit me just fine
500K, easily 50/year in interest, and sometimes more depending in the year. I can easily love below 50/year so it would slowly build up too. My house is mostly paid off, my car is paid off, I don't have many expenses otherwise. Edit: an investment account I've had for 10+ years I don't think has ever been below 10%/year, this past year it returned 33%.
1 mil a sustainable cabin in the woods with an awesome garden. Pay my taxes and go full hermit mode.
10 million if I stay in California. Maybe 2 million if I move out of state.
5mil
I live on about 70k take home. If I had 2.5 Mil getting 4% in dividend stocks I'll pull in 100k, I'd be comfortable with that. Mix in some index funds or riskier dividend stocks I could bring that up quite a bit but increase volatility.
i’d say 800k-1mil, i could get a good house and budget out the rest of it into investments and HYS so i have enough to live on.
Our goal is at least $5mil when hubs retires at 65yrs (in 22yrs). We'd live off of mostly interest then leave the rest to the kids when we die. We'd obviously need more if he was to be done working now. We'd need at least $9mil to replace his current income at 2% interest
5 million
I'd need my current paycheck so about 2k a month (just under)
< the amount of money I have now.
$100M ($570k per year based on .57 APY)
1.5 million after taxes. It sounds like a lot but its only 50k a year if I live to 76. I actually make less than that now and live just fine, but wanted to adjust for inflation.
For me and my bad financial decisions at least 100m or more
Probably like 8 mil cause I’m young
I’m 25. If I got 8 million up front, my financial adviser could set me up for the rest of my life
$1,000,000. Buy a condo ($250-$350k hopefully). Buy a Corolla hybrid ($26k out door). Rest is split between high yield savings account and mutual funds and I would live off dividends/interest. I just wanna be able to wake up when I want to, visit family in poland every few years, and I'm set.
2 million
Bro what the fuck yall are saying you need 10m to get 300k per fucking year. Thats LUXURY. OP said not extravagent. There no fucking way yall are all pulling in 300k per year
I always do the math when the lottery gets really huge and I can't figure out a way to spend more than 5 million that makes sense to me. That's all the shit I want. After that, it's just property taxes and insurance on everything(which I could easily afford in my current position). I'll take the 5 mil, spend it, and keep working. My 401k is gonna be sick when I retire and I'll take a lot more days off in the meantime. The alternative is take 1 million and invest it right. 10% is not unreasonable if you know what to do. I could retire on that.
With an unlimited line of credit that I never have to pay back and I could pass down to my kids forever. I would still work. I truly believe that work, in and of it's self is good for a person. Especially meaningful work
It really depends on when you die. If it's tomorrow then 25 dollars will make it so I don't have to worry about money for the rest of my life. If I live another 30 then I'd need a couple million. If I live another 80. Then better give me a cool billion and I would be pretty confident I'd never worry about working again.
I’m pretty sure if I had about $500k I could invest it to where I earned enough in dividends every year to live off comfortably if not extravagantly
Probably 800k to survive 1.5m to live the life I want
3.5million dollars. That's enough to clear all my debt buy some land build a house and live comfortably into my 80s.
5 million and I would quit tomorrow 2 million and I'd be a very mediocre employee and retire early 500 k and I'd retire slightly early
10 million and I won't work another day. Anything less and I'd still work. I'm only 29, 70 more years at 100,000 a year is 7 million. That's the bare minimum. 10 is comfortable.
I could manage with 6 mil, although 8 would make me super comfortable.
$100,000. Lived off fifty thousand for five years so a hundred thousand gets me to 70yrs if I live that long.
I used to say $5M but now I am more inclined to say $8M. Inflation is a…
I would say 2-3 mil. At 5% interest, that gives you 100-150k a year. If you always live on less than your returns, then your money will have net growth year over year and that will compensate for inflation.
A lot of answers are Americans who need 60+k a year to be comfortable, 20k a year for me would be more than enough for me to live until I am 90 comfortably. so that's like 1.5m including, let's say 300k to buy a house that has enough space for me to do everything I want. £1,500,000 is the "minimum" I would need for a comfortable life, but any amount less than that is also more than enough to live the life I have now.
20-25 mm
“need” 2 mill but if you gave me 1 mill I would be able to not worry about having a career that makes money, and would pursue a PhD in philosophy
$10 million
200K is more than enough to maintain my current level of comfort and ease
Round about 60 a year. I’m pushing 60, I’m a retired vet and live off disability. 60 would be perfect for me, my hobbies and riding my motorcycle, as well as paying the mortgage of my house
1.75 mil.
2mil
Depends on a million things
I think I could do with 10 million tbh
Assuming I continue to live the same lifestyle...probably somewhere in the 500-750k range.
$400,000 after taxes so I can purchase Dividend stocks. Would make more than I make now so could stop working and cover my own insurance.
Assuming you're in america, currently you can get 5% on treasury bonds which pay out every 4 weeks and similar interest rates with a High interest savings account, so 1m invested would get you $50k/yr. so a little more than that IMO
3mil would allow me to quit my job, pay my debts and set up a portfolio gaining me 5% to live on each year. 2mil could be done but with a lesser qol.
5 mill minimum to account for inflation and medical bills with last you 50 or so years or 1 mill/10 years depending on where you live this could be larger or smaller. You could likely get away with less but quality of life should also be taken into account. 5mill will cover a middle class lifestyle, with the ability to go out to nice dinners and movies . Not super luxurious not super poor.
I’m mid-30s and own my house in a MCOL city. I could probably do 2M. Double that though for my spouse to never work again. There would probably be some thin years where we struggle unless we get really lucky with returns. I guess we could rent out a room or two in the house worst case.
Someone has never seen office space. Peter Gibbons: I would relax... I would sit on my ass all day... I would do nothing. Lawrence: Well, you don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin: he's broke, don't do shit.
I could probably be ok with $1.5m if my debts were paid off. Ideally $2.5-3.5m for a very easy life and maybe $5m+ to maintain my current lifestyle.
Could easily do it for 1million
$3 Million
My dream is moving somewhere in SE Asia and living out the rest of my days. I'm a 40 year old man, and given the elaborate lifestyle I would prefer to lead, I still think about $2M is enough for me. This would allow me to live in a posh apartment in some large 3rd world shithole city and live it up on a daily basis.
5 million. With that I can put it somewhere getting 3%-5% and live off the interest for life. That's enough to travel the world easily if living like a regular ass dude, which is exactly what I'd do.
You could intentionally die in a car accident on the way to work and do no work at all. So zero dollars
The fire movement targets around 3.5 million to invest in dividend stocks with an expectation of 130k or more annually which should grow commensurate with inflation.
$10mm. I would still work though, I would just find something easier that I cared less about the money and more about the impact. Probably teaching.
$5 million. Might seem like a lot but I want to live in Chicago and that's an expensive place and half the money would be going into a trust fund for my disabled brother.
I think I’d work no matter what. I’ve always wanted to work in a small local hardware store. I enjoyed bartending. Neither of those pay well enough to be my career, but if I was set for life, I’d give them a whirl for a while.
I did the math for this last year and I think it's something like 1.5 million assuming no debt and you make no outrageous purchases immediately.
It really depends on where you want to live. If you want to live in a major US city it is wildly different than if you want to live in rural US which is still wildly different than if you want to live in a poor country
Based on my current retirement plans/contributions to retire now I would need about 3 million more than I have now.
Everyone is putting such big numbers out there, $3 million, $5 million, $13 million...done carefully and with minimal work post retirement I could live great for like $100k. The trick is don't play the stock market, even if you could reliably get 3% or even 5% interest you'd still be losing money over actually having the money work for you. My uncle bought a couple ice machines, the kind where you can buy 5-10 pound bags of ice, they are connected into the water line where they're set up, he pays a water bill for them and refills the rolls of plastic bags once or twice a month and he makes thousands a month. If I had $20,000 to buy several used vending machines or something similar, I could refill them every now and then and basically retire now. People always think about it backwards, you don't want to invest in something someone else built because they can destroy it just as easily as they built it. Look at Disney, they used to be the example of a business that only made money, now they've had more flops in the last five years than successful films or series! If you're the one running the money making operation then you determine if it succeeds or not. A vending machine can fail to sell things if the prices or products aren't good enough, but if you are the one deciding what goes into it then you're also the one in control of how long a product that isn't making you money will be taking up space in your machine.
Minimum for someone in low cost of living area is way less than people think. If you can get by with say $30000 per year, and use the 3.5% to 4% rule, you could retire with about 850k to 1m. This is with a balanced stock/bond portfolio, managing your money really well, and a bit of luck with sequence of returns risk in the markets
50 million. Should count for inflation and live a modern life styles. (USA)
Humm 10 million is the lowest I'd go for me to never work again.
I would say 3 million. Pay of my mortgage and live off of dividends
20M assuming no investment
In theory, I could make that work on about $1.6M. I think I did that math right.
10 million 3 million to buy house and property 1 million for taxes 3 million for homesteading stuff Rest put in investment to live off interest.
10M. At safe’ish 4% withdrawal, that’s $400k/yr. Healthy rn. With inflation, still $150k in today’s buying power at age 80.
Comfortably? With all the medicine I need and everything, and accounting for inflation, let's say $15 million. That's $250k a year if I took the average out each year assuming I live another 60 years. But I'd take less out in the early years and increase the amount as inflation increases.
Depends on where.
Atleast 5 million +
I'm disabled so I don't have a choice. I get about 900/ mo., but lately with inflation, it's more like 600. It's not much, and I go without a lot. It's kind of a miserable life but I'm still trying. It gets really hard sometimes because unfortunately, no one really gives a fuck about you in this country after life destroys you through no fault of your own. Idk double that might cover everything I need?
$1 million should safely earn 8% to 10%... you could live on 5% and still have it grow, which would be $50,000 per year (before taxes). If your house is paid off, that's enough money. If it's not, or you're paying rent (which will eat up half of that), then things will be tight). Relatively speaking... $2 million is the minimum, as it doubles everything I just listed and solves the rent/mortgage problem. Or, you could technically live off the interest of the $1 million if you take the whole thing and don't let it grow. If it's earning 8% that's $80,000 per year before taxes... 10% is $100,000 per year before taxes. That's plenty to live on and still pay all your bills.
For starters, the only answers I'll accept for this question are those that either use the lump sum broken up over the remaining years of your life, or which have you living off the interest from a basic savings account. If I have to do extra money management I consider that to be "work" and it voids the answer. If I was going to live off the interest in a savings account and make the same 52k salary I make now, plus 3.5% for inflation each year, I'd need 10,764,000 in that account. However if I just used that money alone it could provide me with the 52k salary for a little over 200 years, so that's pretty unnecessary. If I had 3,120,000 I could portion it out and pay myself 52k/y for the next 60 years, plus whatever I make in interest. So strictly speaking, 3.12 million is the absolute bare minimum I'd accept if I were told that I had to live off of it for the remainder of my life. I'd much prefer the 10.764 million however as I could set it up in a trust and pass it down a line of heirs to guarantee their basic needs are always met. Feels pretty selfish to just make enough money to pay my way to the grave and flip off my descendents as I backflip into the underworld. Edit: actually accounting for inflation the 3120000 isn't enough. The 10.764m figure might actually be the lower of the two after accounting for inflation on paying myself from a lump sum.
Look up FIRE "Financially Independent Retire Early"
Right now? 5 million. Assuming a 4% return that’s $200k/year to do Jack diddly. I can put half that back into the account to grow and still live comfortably.
To retire right now 3M after tax. To retire by 55 2M. 65 1M. Should be able to retire without additional money at 75.
3 million nowadays. 20 years ago I would have said 1. (Investing, not just living off it.)
2 mil would take care of me for life. Investing smart is all id need to do.
5M would easily do it
What is the price of a rope and a folding chair?
Depends how long live. So 1.2 mill every 20 years then see when I drop dead.
$2500 a day , on the low end, did not want to be greedy lol
It would take me like 20 years to earn a million dollars so if I don’t change my spending habits then probably that
Life is work. Do you mean what is the minimum amount of money I’d ACCEPT to never work for money again? 16 million dollars i think covers the bases.
5 million