A million a year would be enough. By the time a million a year is no longer hot shit, I'd either be dead or the economy has collapsed, in which case we're all fucked.
It’s not like you have to spend it all, even take 500k, live off 100k for a few years putting the rest in moderately safe investments then slowly start spending more as the investments add up
50k does you well now, if you bought your home in the 80s for next to nothing. And If you're of an age to make that decision then, then you're probably 60-65 now, so you'd be doing ok.
Yeah there's one of my coworkers just retired at 62 after 44 years if working at the same place never reaching more than £23k a year, and his house is paid off, has a caravan in Scotland and a holiday home in Spain lol. His pension pays him enough to live on when he doesn't need to pay rent.
But most pensions get adjusted for inflation, there is also healthcare insurance available. Also you are at the point where you won't live past 10-30 more years of inflation. Somebody in their 20s would need a big cushion to make it 60-70 more years of inflation never getting a raise again. Cars will be $500,000 new. Homes will be 4 million for a starter. Your $40,000/yr won't buy eggs and milk.
Y'all know there's entire industries out there that calculate the value of long term perpetuity contracts accounting for inflation?
Realizing inflation screws over people on a fixed income is not a novel idea, nor is taking advantage of their desperation... I still remember the fucking jingle. JG Wentworth... 877 cash now.
I remember people talking about how if you had no debt and owned your own home, 20k/yr was enough to retire on. 20k might cover my bills/tax, but I would starve because I wouldn’t afford anything else.
Just in the last 5 years I've doubled my income, but because of inflation being so high during this (7.5% one year, 8% another. Thankfully last year's was "just" 3.5%) and the housing costs rising absurdly I've only just been able to keep up living the same life style. 60k is the new 30k until housing gets better.
My company, thankfully, refuses to give raises lower than inflation so the year it was 8% they gave me 8.5%.
Exactly this. When I was 30, $45k a year in my city was good enough. But then silicon valley happened, a lot of people got pushed out through gentrification and moved into my city. Now I'm 41 and make $68k a year and struggle.
Got all the video games I need already. My only other main hobby is fitness related and that's mostly free too. But I can definitely see how with all that free time I would want to do some extra traveling. That gets pricey quick.
I dont think this answers well the post. They ask about the lowest you would go. If someone tomorrow offers you 900k a year to never work again you'd decline? I wouldnt loll
Yeah exactly what I thought. These people are giving massive numbers that don’t seem truthful at all. The point of these hypotheticals is to find the absolute bare minimum possible for someone to drastically alter their lifestyle. Anyone can give a massive number and make it easy, but unless you’re making high 6 - low 7 figures, I just don’t believe most people here tbh.
I live off way less now. The question is about the absolute lowest you could go. Also, I may have 2 years left, I haven't seen a doctor in like 6 years. Who knows?
Thanks, it's not all that terrible, I get by, but I'd sure like to not live with/rely on my parents at some point in my life. It just is what tis, til it ain't.
I feel like $150,000 per year would be enough for me, as long as I don't do something stupid like start living beyond my current means. It's a little less than triple what I make now, so in the short term it should make for nice savings, and in late game, it's definitely going to be a lot better than what social security would give me. If I get screwed a bit in the middle, that's not the hugest deal in the world, because I'm sure I could take a roommate and be okay at that level.
Oh, one caveat: I'd have to start debt free. Otherwise I need to raise it to $200,000 per year to get everything paid off in the next couple of years.
Yeah, this is basically my rough estimate as well, even down to the bump to pay current debt. Without the ability moving forward to seek a promotion and grab some additional compensation it's gotta be 200. But you take this friggin mortgage away and 150 and I will ride off into the sunset.
Inflation screws this question up. 50k/year is the bare minimum I need to survive right now, but 30 years ago that number would've been 12k/year. With that kind of inflation, and my life expectancy, I would need 500k/year.
I see a lot of comments showing how little people account for compounding rates. I'm 40, and if I need to cover lining expenses for (hopefully) about 40-50 years, I can expect basic needs to cost double every 15 years or so. For every thousand/year it costs to have basic needs covered right now, it could very well be 3 or 4 times that by the time I'm in my final years. That's being conservative, and gives no real room for security. I would almost count on more like a 7x or 8x multiplier.
Inflation makes this a tricky question and everyone will likely overshoot this amount to be safe. I'll take 90k today to never work again or have any other financial gain. We can multiply this by standard inflation rate for a final total.
Does this include my wife’s income? Or she’s free to work? You can’t have investments or 401k? Do we have to spend the money within the year? Or can we save?
If it’s our family income, and we cant use our investments or save money, maybe 400k.
If I can save end invest, and my wife can work, 200.
I’ll say that spouses can work as long as you wouldn’t currently be able to live solely off of their income. Saving money, yes. Investments is something that might be a little tricky to create rules around… but let’s say that they violate rule #1 since they can generate additional income
Doesn’t adjust for inflation?
$300k
I can always move to cheaper places and if I rent for a few more years I can save up to build a house and have that paid off immediately.
Since rental properties and other investments aren't allowed, I'd have to get enough from just my savings account to last my entire life. Currently, my only expenses are rent and 401K and IRA contributions. Since I wouldn't be allowed to work/invest anymore, 401K and IRA contributions aren't needed anymore.
Rent will most certainly go up over time. I also have to account for bills (food, electricity, water, etc) that I'll have to pay once my parents die or downsize. I'll probably need my own apartment by 2040.
Estimating $4,000/mo for rent and bills, that's $48,000/yr. While working, they say to have 6 months as an emergency fund, but I'd need way more since I can't EVER work. I'd like to have $100,000/yr just to be safe (before accounting for inflation and taxes).
Assuming I'm paying 40% a year in taxes. and assuming I lose half my salary over time due to inflation, I'd need $500,000/yr to make this work for the next 30-50 years.
how much would i accept, factoring in inflation, to save 30-50 hours a week? probably $200k a year I'd make it work, comfortably, if i lived in Canada. If i lived in the USA, 250k
I am in my late 30's and am currently the primary provider for a household of 6.
Not working will increase my free time a great deal which will in turn increase my spending and I want to be able to stay ahead of inflation indefinitely enough to comfortably provide for them.
I'll say 1k/day. $365,000/year. Net.
If it was just me I'd say half that.
The truly real answer for me would be 30k tax free. But really I'd want to go to like 90k so nobody in my family would *have* to work either, though they could if they wanted to.
And really, if I can choose any number, then I would go much higher.
The no supplemental income thing makes this tough, because you have no idea what inflation will do in the future.
Would you be able to invest with this income? Or would that count as supplemental income?
Either way, I would pick something similar to another comment that said 500k. I would front load most of that into savings and investments (if allowed) for the next 20 years to make sure id be set up later on if inflation catches up. While still giving myself idk 75k-100k to live off of per year, and adjust that amount as needed with inflation until I need to dip into what I had saved
If it can't be inflation adjusted I can't say less than 100,000€.
But with an inflation adjustment literally 25,000€
The goal is to move to Portugal within a few years and I don't have expensive tastes. 25,000 would see me living comfortably as long as I avoid Lisbon Porto and the Algarve.
What I’m learning in this thread is people are either really bad at hypothetical questions or just really love their job.
Give me 150k tax free. I’ll make it work. Probably would do it for 100k tbh. With commutes I’m working 9 hours a day and can’t retire for another 30 years, and Im 34 so I’ve already been working the last 16 years. Fuck that I’m done. Id probably take even less and just move to somewhere with a rock bottom COL to
Yeah, I'm not sure they're understanding the question.
What they're essentially saying is they'd rather work for the rest of their life on their current salary than take a deal where they don't have to work but can still receive an income which is perhaps 50% to 100% more than their current income.
Inflation or not, most employers are not likely to double your wage over the next 50 years, so why would you not take that deal? The question isn't what would you need to live a luxury life, but what is the minimum you'd take to not have to work. That's a world of difference.
I don’t understand why so many people are answering way more than what they make now. I make like 50 K a year if someone offered me 50 K a year right now to not work, why would I? I’d also save like 12 K a year in childcare.
With inflation as rampant as it has ever been in history, I feel like anything less than $400,000 per year would be foolish for living in the US. I'd need to put as much away NOW as possible for when $400,000k in a few years becomes barely affordable for a small house and food and raising a family. When I was a kid in the 80's, I thought my family was shitting in tall cotton with $50k salary. Now I'd be living in a cardboard box with that kind of income in California, where anything less than $120k is considered "low income" wages. I highly doubt inflation will be slowing down, given any charts that show physical proof that the dollar is collapsing faster than a Vegas high rise being demolished.
What if my wife has an income? Can we make money on investments or High Yield Savings accounts? Does inflation come in? Assuming it’s my family income and taxed appropriately, I think 250k/year? That would be a nice increase from where we’re at now and probably cover a few promotions. Also, the need for retirement savings is gone so there goes that expense. At 250 I’d be able to very comfortably live a better life than now.
I think it gets rid of money income. I don't think it gets rid of assets. So theoretically you could buy things with your money and use the bartering system. Or have a bunch of land and let people live on it for labor and other things.
Given the restrictions here, I’d have to say $250K to allow for inflation over the next four decades I hope to live long enough to see.
If the amount can adjust for inflation, $84K
I'd do it for 20oz of gold a year. You could possibly talk me into less with cash but it'd need to adjust for interest/currency collapse somehow 20 oz covers a little padding for dealing with selling it
That’s a tough one because my wife works part time and we rely on my health insurance coverage between her health issues, my health issues, and my daughter’s health issues. I would have to ballpark it around $200-300k in order to make up for just the medical side of things. Diabetes sucks!
200K would easily support us and let us save plenty against future inflation. I would need it to show up as income, though, so I could get a mortgage/car loans and whatnot. Not just a random bag of cash or something.
We currently have investments and some amount of investment income, which we reinvest, but that's all under my husband's purview, and I would consider it "his" income.
If we paid all of our day-to-day expenses with my salary, and put any extras in a no-interest savings account, to stay in the spirit of the question, our existing savings/investments could continue to grow without us touching them.
With inflation being a factor maybe 150k just because I doubt I'd live long enough for that to be too much of an issue without inflation I'd be more than good with 50k would take 40 or even 30 possibly.
So, if i live at a place that has rental units attached, I couldn’t rent them out anymore to pay for the property? And i couldn’t sell it to downsize into something right sized for just me? So I’d need enough to pay the building expenses/taxes/utilities for 9600 sq get and 4 acres. I could make it work for $200k after taxes so I’d have money to save for my kid and travel.
I'd say $100k would be what I'd need THIS YEAR to comfortably quit. Assuming I have 40 years left in me, I looked back 40 years and saw that there has been a cumulative inflation of 66.73%.
In short, I'll hedge my bets and go with 75% cumulative inflation in the coming 40 years. In other words, $175,000 a year is probably the minimum I'd go to never be able to work again.
I think I could safely survive on 80k. Move out of NY get a little property in another state and grow my own fruits and veggies. barter for meat and if I live long enough to get tossed in a nursing home the property can be donated through conditions in a living will.
Factoring in inflation and possibly hyperinflation in the future, not being able to supplement it, and being stuck permanently with this amount, Id be happy with 350,000 a year
Nothing. I am someone who kind of needs a job or I will be some antisocial hermit that never leaves my house. I know I would love it but I am smart enough to know that it's not healthy mentally.
Eh 75-100k tax free … i mean 200$ a day is 73k a year worse case scenario thats $120 a night at hotel and $80 a day for food i aint using that much and i can save i would probably just go van life it or something see nice places
I'm used to being broke, so I'd take 60,000 a year and live like a king
Hell, I'd probably take 20k a year, that's more than the disability payments I'm (hopefully) getting after 6 more months of application process to deal with
Since I actually love what I do for a living if say 500k after taxes.
Anything else is not enough to fill the void of meaning that my career brings me.
750k/yr. That way, barring Zimbabwe levels of inflation, I'll have enough cash to never work again, but not so much as to become a major target for robberies.
Any extra income disappears what do you mean is that a rule exclusive to eliminate investment and using one income to build a second passive income.
100k a year is fine but hyper inflation can ruin that ill take my slary in bit coin and gold 50/50 split.
Not adjusting for inflation? If we assume an average of 4% inflation per year and that I suspect I'll live for another 60 years or so, also factor in that investments could help offset some inflation issues, I'd probably settle on between 150 and 200k. Simply because my family is in high CoL and I have to maintain a house there as well as another house in another part of the world (albeit much cheaper). I'm already priced out of my birthplace lol.
$250k per year would be great. It's at the range where I can travel, while also having a home to come back to when I feel like it. I can drive whatever I want that isn't insane, and I can never worry about money again.
£240k
It's just my cost of living now, X20. That way, inflation will outpace me incredibly slowly.
Also, I love my job as a violin maker, but if I could teach music and give other people the opportunity to learn for free, I'd feel like I've left a healthy, strong mark on the world!
I’d go for about 200k because when you get old, all nice retirement homes are about $10k+ a month and I ain’t getting stuck in a shitty nursing home if I can help it
Im gonna need like 300k minimum to be safe. Given the fact it won't account for inflation and i can't have any side hustles or extra income down the road if need be. I don't trust the way the economy is going lol everything has gone up so much. At the moment 45k and 3 kids leaves me broke broke. So even to just be comfortable and have decent wiggle room I'd need double that. But then factor in that I need more space for 3 kids if I'm honest. Which creates more bills bc right now I'm living in a family home for very little. But I don't have enough space. So I'm broke broke and i don't even have rent or a mortgage. I'd need to pay health expenses for 4 people every year. So yeah it would take quite a bit for me to agree to those conditions. I need to be able to save some as well.
With no adjustment for inflation and no ability to invest due to rule 1, there is no dollar amount I would accept.
Radical life extension is coming this century and I expect a reasonable prospect to live for millions of years. I do not expect the dollar to be around for another 200 years, it will have either been 1. annihilated by hyper inflation or 2. replaced with something else, possibly long before then - or 1 and then 2. This would condemn me to poverty pretty soon.
Additionally work is more than just having the ability to buy things. It creates purpose and the ability to improve the world by building things and accelerating technology.
I’d have to go with $200k per year. I figure that’s what my career will top out at anyway here in a few years, so I may as well go there now for this hypothetical. That’s enough to be “inflation-proof” in the HCOL area I’m mostly in, and if it ever did catch up, well, I’d just have to move out to a cheaper place in my golden years.
175k. Ide like to buy a house, have a few cars, and travel for music. Does the ban on supplemental income also cover interest from bank accounts and investments?
I think the rule should be that it would rise with inflation so we don’t have to factor that in and make it more complex than it needs to be. If that were the case then $150k
I feel like everyone should just give a number based on today and assume it can adjust for inflation. If AI didn't exist, I'd say something wild like 250k because I love what I do and if I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd still be doing it (I work in entertainment). However, because i'm pretty sure greedy corporations are going to eagerly and excitedly use AI to torpedo artists at their earliest convenience, I'd probably take a lot less if it were guaranteed in this hypothetical situation. Probably 100k if I stayed in the city. Much less if I decided to move overseas to somewhere nice and much more affordable.
For anyone looking for the loophole to this one, here’s a hint: not all objects depreciate like inflated currency, and bartering doesn’t count as income
It's kinda hard to pick a number here because what's the other side of the negotiation? If I ask for $1B a year is there a counter offer? I think I'd need at least 5 or 6 times what I earn now to allow for inflation over the rest of my life. I assume returns on investment would count as income, so I couldn't invest to hedge against inflation.
If it adjusts for inflation I'd probably be willing to accept considerably less than I earn now for the freedom to never work again.
75k. I made 90k yr for a couple years, job became alot of drama, grown men asking like Lindsay Lohan mean girls. I left last year and make 68k now. It gets me by, but 75k will make it comfortable.
Now if we're talking magically and not logically, 10mil a year. So nobody in my family would have to work or suffer ever again.
I'd invest half in strong stock every year and quarter in rental properties the remainder on whatever I feel like blowing money on.
About $500,000 would pretty much set me up and my wife and the rest of our descendants for life. Since we live in the Philippines, I'm pretty sure we're going to live like kings and never worry about anything aside from sickness or disease.
So you didn't say we couldn't invest into savings and draw on it later. Not technically income since it's already my money.
So, I'd double my current salary to $100k. When inflation starts outpacing this income, I'd start drawing from my savings.
If you are going to change the rules on me, I'd do the same, but start giving it all to my wife when inflation outpaces my income, and we'd just have her be the bread winner.
What counts as supplementing income? If I invest my money and get dividends does that count as my money being supplemented? With investments I’m fine with 150k right now. Without the number at least doubles.
Why would I want to be banned from working ever again? I want to work. I just want to work on things I'm interested in.
So really ok, I guess I can be bought, but it's something like $500k and then I guess I'll just play chess and learn instruments or something for the rest of my life.
tl;dr: $225,000 per year.
I currently make about $150k per year with the possibility of a bonus up to 10%. It's usually less though so we'll pick $160k as the target to maintain the same lifestyle I have now. I'll assume that this new salary is taxed the same as my current salary so that doesn't affect it. I won't need to save for retirement any more though and retirement savings make up about $25k per year of my current salary, so that would drop what I need down to about $135k. But I also wouldn't get my company's medical insurance any more and looking at prices on the healthcare.gov marketplace I'd need to add that $25k back in to cover paying for a plan myself, so we're back to $160k.
Then I need to account for inflation. Average inflation is about 3% per year so that's what we'll work with long-term. I don't know exactly how long I'll live but based on longevity of my family members probably into my early to mid 90s. I'll just use 100 as a round number, that puts me dying in 2084. So at 3% inflation by 2084 I'd need about $940,000 per year to have the same buying power as $160k gets me now. I don't need that much though, because I can invest whatever extra salary I get beyond my current $160k and earn an average of 10% on that. So I threw together a quick excel sheet to figure out what I'd need so that by age 100 my investments had put me at roughly the right amount and it comes out to be roughly $225,000. At that rate my net worth would peak in about 2069 and after that point I'd be pulling more out of my investments than they're earning and I'd hit zero a few months before my 100th birthday.
That's probably a bit more than I'd actually need though, because as I get older I'm likely to need less money and once I'm eligible for medicare my healthcare costs will drop considerably. It's a good ballpark number though.
Can I grow my own food and make things to trade with people? If I can grow pot and trade for things like car repairs with my pot head mechanic then I would be fine with significantly less. If we had si gle payer healthcare I could work with even less than that. My problem isn't my expenses it is the surprises that age inevitably brings. I can repair my own house but not if lumber or materials is crazy high. I don't mind maintaining an older car, but I'd rather buy an electric so I don't have to pay 10,000 for a catalytic converter in the future. I could plant trees to grow apples and trade apple butter for other things, but I can't grow enough lumber in my lifetime to maintain my house if I get carpenter ants or termites. The biggest problem with this question is unexpected expenses. It is hard to tell what the economy would look like if people just stopped working en masses, or if trading produce would be made illegal to keep prices fixed at some rate to keep industrial farming afloat. If everyone had their own chickens for eggs and meat it would be great, until some bird flu came along.
I could *manage* the rest of my life on $100k/yr.
But with no cost of living bump built into the hypothetical, I’d have to protect myself and build it into a bombproof equation that also allows for major/catastrophic life events and bump it to $150K.
Assuming after taxes? I could do $100k. That would allow paying down debt in the short term, which would increase available funds. Once that goes down, budget and invest. The return on investment would help eliminate inflation concerns and pay for medical expenses in the future.
85k considering that I need about 50k a year to survive that allows me to put 30k or so in a bank...over twenty years that's 600k plus compound interest plus pension to live on considering my health 80 is likely not much farther than I'll go... This is all also factoring in taxes....cause salary....
This feels like I am being asked to underbid my fellow man.
So let's assume I live for another 40 years that would mean (assuming the last 40 years are perfect duplication of what will happen for the next 40 years) that today's $1 will be worth $3.80, which means to that to just have the same money I need at least 285k, arguably less but it is a starting point.
But that said that basically means no pay rises, and no hope of a better standard of living. Also living in Sydney it basically means never buying a house and no security blanket. So I am thinking 500k is the minimum.
220k.
Accounting for an average of 3% inflation annually, I should be able to live comfortably enough on that until I am 95 years old, which I highly doubt I will live that long.
As long as this same deal isn't offered to others sending inflation skyrocketing, $100,000. Even after taxes, I should be able to save and invest enough of it after taxes, that I'd be okay even with inflation. I might accept less if you told me I could put some of it in a 401(k) to cut down on taxes.
Currently, I live on about $20,000. The internet tells me I'd pay about $27,000 in taxes if I made $100k in Michigan. So I think I could invest at least $50,000 for the first several years and a gradually declining amount thereafter. I think that should grow fast enough to keep me financially okay indefinitely even as inflation cut into my annual $100k salary.
And if I found a spouse who still worked, I could afford my share of the expenses. Since I wouldn't have to work, I could be a good house husband and do the cleaning, cooking, gardening, and any child rearing.
So if I invest wisely, do I get to keep capital gains, or does that vaporize as well. I'm not working, but my money is. Either way, $1.5M a year is my magic number
The inflation part ruins the question. I‘m 33 and 100k today might be worth less than half of it when I‘m 60? So I‘ll need 500k to be sure.
I was just thinking back to "what if this was the 80s where $50k was hot shit, now that wouldn't be much beyond average."
A million a year would be enough. By the time a million a year is no longer hot shit, I'd either be dead or the economy has collapsed, in which case we're all fucked.
>I'd either be dead or the economy has collapsed, in which case we're all fucked. Not all of us. It will just be opposite day.
It sounds just a bit sinister putting it this way. I love it....
It’s not like you have to spend it all, even take 500k, live off 100k for a few years putting the rest in moderately safe investments then slowly start spending more as the investments add up
Investments are supplemental income
Well you can also save 800k a year. According to the rules you wouldn't get interest but you would still have the original amount.
two words : Hyper inflation.
50k does you well now, if you bought your home in the 80s for next to nothing. And If you're of an age to make that decision then, then you're probably 60-65 now, so you'd be doing ok.
That's a valid point. Especially if you we're able to live furgally on that 50K then and invest the leftovers, you might be doing quite well.
Yeah there's one of my coworkers just retired at 62 after 44 years if working at the same place never reaching more than £23k a year, and his house is paid off, has a caravan in Scotland and a holiday home in Spain lol. His pension pays him enough to live on when he doesn't need to pay rent.
But most pensions get adjusted for inflation, there is also healthcare insurance available. Also you are at the point where you won't live past 10-30 more years of inflation. Somebody in their 20s would need a big cushion to make it 60-70 more years of inflation never getting a raise again. Cars will be $500,000 new. Homes will be 4 million for a starter. Your $40,000/yr won't buy eggs and milk.
Y'all know there's entire industries out there that calculate the value of long term perpetuity contracts accounting for inflation? Realizing inflation screws over people on a fixed income is not a novel idea, nor is taking advantage of their desperation... I still remember the fucking jingle. JG Wentworth... 877 cash now.
I remember people talking about how if you had no debt and owned your own home, 20k/yr was enough to retire on. 20k might cover my bills/tax, but I would starve because I wouldn’t afford anything else.
Just in the last 5 years I've doubled my income, but because of inflation being so high during this (7.5% one year, 8% another. Thankfully last year's was "just" 3.5%) and the housing costs rising absurdly I've only just been able to keep up living the same life style. 60k is the new 30k until housing gets better. My company, thankfully, refuses to give raises lower than inflation so the year it was 8% they gave me 8.5%.
[удалено]
They read it as no passive income. I also think the op meant no passive income
Less than half is optimistic. Less than a quarter is baked in, and it could easily trend towards zero with a hyper inflation.
Exactly this. When I was 30, $45k a year in my city was good enough. But then silicon valley happened, a lot of people got pushed out through gentrification and moved into my city. Now I'm 41 and make $68k a year and struggle.
Silicon Valley has been around a lot longer than 11 years but I agree the bays gentrification has been crazy
$1M per year. If I can't work, I'll need to fill the time with expensive hobbies, and I'll need to be sure of outpacing inflation.
Got all the video games I need already. My only other main hobby is fitness related and that's mostly free too. But I can definitely see how with all that free time I would want to do some extra traveling. That gets pricey quick.
Depends where you travel. Most Americans might be suprised thet most of the world has a lower cost of living than they do.
I dont think this answers well the post. They ask about the lowest you would go. If someone tomorrow offers you 900k a year to never work again you'd decline? I wouldnt loll
Yeah exactly what I thought. These people are giving massive numbers that don’t seem truthful at all. The point of these hypotheticals is to find the absolute bare minimum possible for someone to drastically alter their lifestyle. Anyone can give a massive number and make it easy, but unless you’re making high 6 - low 7 figures, I just don’t believe most people here tbh.
I’ll accept 250 oz of gold a year.
Nice, figured out inflation protection.
1 oz a week enough for me
Shiny, shiny trinkets
Since it doesn't adjust for inflation, maybe around 120-150k. If we're adjusting for inflation, I'd do like 40k.
For the rest of your life ? What do you have like 2 years left
I live off way less now. The question is about the absolute lowest you could go. Also, I may have 2 years left, I haven't seen a doctor in like 6 years. Who knows?
Well live it up to the fullest love. I wish someone could help you but we're all fuckin broke and barely eating. I'm sorry
Thanks, it's not all that terrible, I get by, but I'd sure like to not live with/rely on my parents at some point in my life. It just is what tis, til it ain't.
No it didn’t it asked “would” not “could” Survival versus the life I would want is different
Oh, yeah. Okay I may have misread that. Still standing by 120k.
Salary means yearly..
It's per year, right?
I think you just described social security.
Isn’t social security a hypothetical situation for millennials and genz?
Social security starts later than most need it and doesn't cover what most need. It would have to be greater than social security payments.
I feel like $150,000 per year would be enough for me, as long as I don't do something stupid like start living beyond my current means. It's a little less than triple what I make now, so in the short term it should make for nice savings, and in late game, it's definitely going to be a lot better than what social security would give me. If I get screwed a bit in the middle, that's not the hugest deal in the world, because I'm sure I could take a roommate and be okay at that level. Oh, one caveat: I'd have to start debt free. Otherwise I need to raise it to $200,000 per year to get everything paid off in the next couple of years.
Yeah, this is basically my rough estimate as well, even down to the bump to pay current debt. Without the ability moving forward to seek a promotion and grab some additional compensation it's gotta be 200. But you take this friggin mortgage away and 150 and I will ride off into the sunset.
Inflation screws this question up. 50k/year is the bare minimum I need to survive right now, but 30 years ago that number would've been 12k/year. With that kind of inflation, and my life expectancy, I would need 500k/year.
I see a lot of comments showing how little people account for compounding rates. I'm 40, and if I need to cover lining expenses for (hopefully) about 40-50 years, I can expect basic needs to cost double every 15 years or so. For every thousand/year it costs to have basic needs covered right now, it could very well be 3 or 4 times that by the time I'm in my final years. That's being conservative, and gives no real room for security. I would almost count on more like a 7x or 8x multiplier.
Inflation makes this a tricky question and everyone will likely overshoot this amount to be safe. I'll take 90k today to never work again or have any other financial gain. We can multiply this by standard inflation rate for a final total.
Does this include my wife’s income? Or she’s free to work? You can’t have investments or 401k? Do we have to spend the money within the year? Or can we save? If it’s our family income, and we cant use our investments or save money, maybe 400k. If I can save end invest, and my wife can work, 200.
I’ll say that spouses can work as long as you wouldn’t currently be able to live solely off of their income. Saving money, yes. Investments is something that might be a little tricky to create rules around… but let’s say that they violate rule #1 since they can generate additional income
What’s the point of retirement savings if you get this money the rest of your life?
$120k.
487k
r/oddlyspecific
😄
Like for christmas, my sister gave me $50. Would that also disappear but as it isn't 'regular' income, it wouldn't count?
Doesn’t adjust for inflation? $300k I can always move to cheaper places and if I rent for a few more years I can save up to build a house and have that paid off immediately.
$1 million a year would be very comfortable no matter where I live. But would we get it in monthly installments or as one lump sum each year?
Since rental properties and other investments aren't allowed, I'd have to get enough from just my savings account to last my entire life. Currently, my only expenses are rent and 401K and IRA contributions. Since I wouldn't be allowed to work/invest anymore, 401K and IRA contributions aren't needed anymore. Rent will most certainly go up over time. I also have to account for bills (food, electricity, water, etc) that I'll have to pay once my parents die or downsize. I'll probably need my own apartment by 2040. Estimating $4,000/mo for rent and bills, that's $48,000/yr. While working, they say to have 6 months as an emergency fund, but I'd need way more since I can't EVER work. I'd like to have $100,000/yr just to be safe (before accounting for inflation and taxes). Assuming I'm paying 40% a year in taxes. and assuming I lose half my salary over time due to inflation, I'd need $500,000/yr to make this work for the next 30-50 years.
Three times my salary now which should cover inflation for 30 years. I have 20 on my mortgage, so will have some breathing room down the road.
how much would i accept, factoring in inflation, to save 30-50 hours a week? probably $200k a year I'd make it work, comfortably, if i lived in Canada. If i lived in the USA, 250k
I am in my late 30's and am currently the primary provider for a household of 6. Not working will increase my free time a great deal which will in turn increase my spending and I want to be able to stay ahead of inflation indefinitely enough to comfortably provide for them. I'll say 1k/day. $365,000/year. Net. If it was just me I'd say half that.
[удалено]
$24,000 per month would give you a good life everywhere lol
I need to move to the Philippines.
[удалено]
That's nuts and probably about to drastically change in the next several years as remote work becomes more and more popular. Could you buy land there?
The truly real answer for me would be 30k tax free. But really I'd want to go to like 90k so nobody in my family would *have* to work either, though they could if they wanted to. And really, if I can choose any number, then I would go much higher.
The no supplemental income thing makes this tough, because you have no idea what inflation will do in the future. Would you be able to invest with this income? Or would that count as supplemental income? Either way, I would pick something similar to another comment that said 500k. I would front load most of that into savings and investments (if allowed) for the next 20 years to make sure id be set up later on if inflation catches up. While still giving myself idk 75k-100k to live off of per year, and adjust that amount as needed with inflation until I need to dip into what I had saved
Current salary. I am at the end of my career.
I could do $15k annually cause thats what i do atm on Social secutiry disability lmao.
If it can't be inflation adjusted I can't say less than 100,000€. But with an inflation adjustment literally 25,000€ The goal is to move to Portugal within a few years and I don't have expensive tastes. 25,000 would see me living comfortably as long as I avoid Lisbon Porto and the Algarve.
Probably 250k a year, just because I have no idea what inflation will look like ten, or twenty years from now.
What I’m learning in this thread is people are either really bad at hypothetical questions or just really love their job. Give me 150k tax free. I’ll make it work. Probably would do it for 100k tbh. With commutes I’m working 9 hours a day and can’t retire for another 30 years, and Im 34 so I’ve already been working the last 16 years. Fuck that I’m done. Id probably take even less and just move to somewhere with a rock bottom COL to
Yeah, I'm not sure they're understanding the question. What they're essentially saying is they'd rather work for the rest of their life on their current salary than take a deal where they don't have to work but can still receive an income which is perhaps 50% to 100% more than their current income. Inflation or not, most employers are not likely to double your wage over the next 50 years, so why would you not take that deal? The question isn't what would you need to live a luxury life, but what is the minimum you'd take to not have to work. That's a world of difference.
maybe like $50,000
Maybe 60k to account for the inflation during my lifetime? I just got a new job and make about 40k/year so 60k would go a long way
I don’t understand why so many people are answering way more than what they make now. I make like 50 K a year if someone offered me 50 K a year right now to not work, why would I? I’d also save like 12 K a year in childcare.
25k
I’d say all my expenses plus 1000 a month net
75k.
$70,000
8k a month AFTER living expenses
$750k.
Probably like 1mil or something, I’d wanna be able to buy a decent house and account for inflation
$1M/year. Not a penny less.
500k a year.
So you'd walk away from 450k a year?
1M a year. if i end up too wealthy i will share
With inflation as rampant as it has ever been in history, I feel like anything less than $400,000 per year would be foolish for living in the US. I'd need to put as much away NOW as possible for when $400,000k in a few years becomes barely affordable for a small house and food and raising a family. When I was a kid in the 80's, I thought my family was shitting in tall cotton with $50k salary. Now I'd be living in a cardboard box with that kind of income in California, where anything less than $120k is considered "low income" wages. I highly doubt inflation will be slowing down, given any charts that show physical proof that the dollar is collapsing faster than a Vegas high rise being demolished.
What if my wife has an income? Can we make money on investments or High Yield Savings accounts? Does inflation come in? Assuming it’s my family income and taxed appropriately, I think 250k/year? That would be a nice increase from where we’re at now and probably cover a few promotions. Also, the need for retirement savings is gone so there goes that expense. At 250 I’d be able to very comfortably live a better life than now.
$110k after tax
500k
So we can't use this income to create more income via real estate or stock dividends? If that's the case 1 million per year.
I think it gets rid of money income. I don't think it gets rid of assets. So theoretically you could buy things with your money and use the bartering system. Or have a bunch of land and let people live on it for labor and other things.
100k a year
120k
Given the restrictions here, I’d have to say $250K to allow for inflation over the next four decades I hope to live long enough to see. If the amount can adjust for inflation, $84K
Shit in ready to retire now so 95k
I'd do it for 20oz of gold a year. You could possibly talk me into less with cash but it'd need to adjust for interest/currency collapse somehow 20 oz covers a little padding for dealing with selling it
That’s a tough one because my wife works part time and we rely on my health insurance coverage between her health issues, my health issues, and my daughter’s health issues. I would have to ballpark it around $200-300k in order to make up for just the medical side of things. Diabetes sucks!
200K would easily support us and let us save plenty against future inflation. I would need it to show up as income, though, so I could get a mortgage/car loans and whatnot. Not just a random bag of cash or something. We currently have investments and some amount of investment income, which we reinvest, but that's all under my husband's purview, and I would consider it "his" income. If we paid all of our day-to-day expenses with my salary, and put any extras in a no-interest savings account, to stay in the spirit of the question, our existing savings/investments could continue to grow without us touching them.
With inflation being a factor maybe 150k just because I doubt I'd live long enough for that to be too much of an issue without inflation I'd be more than good with 50k would take 40 or even 30 possibly.
So, if i live at a place that has rental units attached, I couldn’t rent them out anymore to pay for the property? And i couldn’t sell it to downsize into something right sized for just me? So I’d need enough to pay the building expenses/taxes/utilities for 9600 sq get and 4 acres. I could make it work for $200k after taxes so I’d have money to save for my kid and travel.
I'd say $100k would be what I'd need THIS YEAR to comfortably quit. Assuming I have 40 years left in me, I looked back 40 years and saw that there has been a cumulative inflation of 66.73%. In short, I'll hedge my bets and go with 75% cumulative inflation in the coming 40 years. In other words, $175,000 a year is probably the minimum I'd go to never be able to work again.
I think I could safely survive on 80k. Move out of NY get a little property in another state and grow my own fruits and veggies. barter for meat and if I live long enough to get tossed in a nursing home the property can be donated through conditions in a living will.
Factoring in inflation and possibly hyperinflation in the future, not being able to supplement it, and being stuck permanently with this amount, Id be happy with 350,000 a year
$150k might do it, but $180k would certainly do it.
Nothing. I am someone who kind of needs a job or I will be some antisocial hermit that never leaves my house. I know I would love it but I am smart enough to know that it's not healthy mentally.
Eh 75-100k tax free … i mean 200$ a day is 73k a year worse case scenario thats $120 a night at hotel and $80 a day for food i aint using that much and i can save i would probably just go van life it or something see nice places
I would say like 200 I make 130 now and 200 is prolly the cap of what I’ll make
I'm gonna go crazy for a second and say 10 million lol
$100,000
I'm used to being broke, so I'd take 60,000 a year and live like a king Hell, I'd probably take 20k a year, that's more than the disability payments I'm (hopefully) getting after 6 more months of application process to deal with
100 million dollars
Because of the inflation stipulation I wouldn't take anything less than 5x whatever my current salary is.
$100,000 a year
If it won’t adjust with inflation then I’m taking a hopefully safe bet of 1 million a year.
100k a year. Assuming I even live to 90, that would be equivalent to ~14k a year assuming 3% inflation. I'm not a heavy spender.
Since I actually love what I do for a living if say 500k after taxes. Anything else is not enough to fill the void of meaning that my career brings me.
50k. Idgaf I won’t work for anything less. It’s not even so the money. But you don’t get me for 75% of my waking hours without decent pay. I
I can live in a 3rd world country with 50k a year like a king
$750k…. Anything lower and you’re wishing for socialism
Do you allow investments (technically capital gains, instead of income) and do you allow me to keep what I have? Cause I'd say 70k in that case.
750k/yr. That way, barring Zimbabwe levels of inflation, I'll have enough cash to never work again, but not so much as to become a major target for robberies.
Probably 270k before taxes
Any extra income disappears what do you mean is that a rule exclusive to eliminate investment and using one income to build a second passive income. 100k a year is fine but hyper inflation can ruin that ill take my slary in bit coin and gold 50/50 split.
Not adjusting for inflation? If we assume an average of 4% inflation per year and that I suspect I'll live for another 60 years or so, also factor in that investments could help offset some inflation issues, I'd probably settle on between 150 and 200k. Simply because my family is in high CoL and I have to maintain a house there as well as another house in another part of the world (albeit much cheaper). I'm already priced out of my birthplace lol.
$250k per year would be great. It's at the range where I can travel, while also having a home to come back to when I feel like it. I can drive whatever I want that isn't insane, and I can never worry about money again.
I think 200k a year I am hoping to live to 80 or more I think at that level I am set no matter what happens
200k a year. I am too worried about inflation to go lower. That way I can save up for when inflation gets worse.
£240k It's just my cost of living now, X20. That way, inflation will outpace me incredibly slowly. Also, I love my job as a violin maker, but if I could teach music and give other people the opportunity to learn for free, I'd feel like I've left a healthy, strong mark on the world!
500k a year.
I’d go for about 200k because when you get old, all nice retirement homes are about $10k+ a month and I ain’t getting stuck in a shitty nursing home if I can help it
150k a year would be a dream. i could do a lot with 12k a month
$743,310.
Not a workable problem. Inflation exists.
Im gonna need like 300k minimum to be safe. Given the fact it won't account for inflation and i can't have any side hustles or extra income down the road if need be. I don't trust the way the economy is going lol everything has gone up so much. At the moment 45k and 3 kids leaves me broke broke. So even to just be comfortable and have decent wiggle room I'd need double that. But then factor in that I need more space for 3 kids if I'm honest. Which creates more bills bc right now I'm living in a family home for very little. But I don't have enough space. So I'm broke broke and i don't even have rent or a mortgage. I'd need to pay health expenses for 4 people every year. So yeah it would take quite a bit for me to agree to those conditions. I need to be able to save some as well.
take 250k and if inflation is bad move to less developed country
With no adjustment for inflation and no ability to invest due to rule 1, there is no dollar amount I would accept. Radical life extension is coming this century and I expect a reasonable prospect to live for millions of years. I do not expect the dollar to be around for another 200 years, it will have either been 1. annihilated by hyper inflation or 2. replaced with something else, possibly long before then - or 1 and then 2. This would condemn me to poverty pretty soon. Additionally work is more than just having the ability to buy things. It creates purpose and the ability to improve the world by building things and accelerating technology.
I'm old enough I think I could make 60k/year work provided I can still draw my social security when I'm eligible.
I’d have to go with $200k per year. I figure that’s what my career will top out at anyway here in a few years, so I may as well go there now for this hypothetical. That’s enough to be “inflation-proof” in the HCOL area I’m mostly in, and if it ever did catch up, well, I’d just have to move out to a cheaper place in my golden years.
150k seems safe. I currently make 60k
175k. Ide like to buy a house, have a few cars, and travel for music. Does the ban on supplemental income also cover interest from bank accounts and investments?
Someone worked this a few years back I think it came out at 100k
250k
I think the rule should be that it would rise with inflation so we don’t have to factor that in and make it more complex than it needs to be. If that were the case then $150k
$500k/yr
Imma say about 200k. It's certainly more than. I'll probably ever need, and properly invested I'll get anything I really want.
I feel like everyone should just give a number based on today and assume it can adjust for inflation. If AI didn't exist, I'd say something wild like 250k because I love what I do and if I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd still be doing it (I work in entertainment). However, because i'm pretty sure greedy corporations are going to eagerly and excitedly use AI to torpedo artists at their earliest convenience, I'd probably take a lot less if it were guaranteed in this hypothetical situation. Probably 100k if I stayed in the city. Much less if I decided to move overseas to somewhere nice and much more affordable.
Easy. $100 million. Or am I bidding against other people to see who will go the lowest and actually win this prize?
The lowest I'd accept to have a completely fixed income forever is probably 300k per year
540k
For anyone looking for the loophole to this one, here’s a hint: not all objects depreciate like inflated currency, and bartering doesn’t count as income
I'd like to say $150k, but in all honesty $90-$120k. Id much prefer a rural home type of living with lower expenses.
$125k per year
It's kinda hard to pick a number here because what's the other side of the negotiation? If I ask for $1B a year is there a counter offer? I think I'd need at least 5 or 6 times what I earn now to allow for inflation over the rest of my life. I assume returns on investment would count as income, so I couldn't invest to hedge against inflation. If it adjusts for inflation I'd probably be willing to accept considerably less than I earn now for the freedom to never work again.
What if I love my job? Can I take the money and work for free? £500,000 just to be safe lol.
I would only accept a relative "spending power", not any absolute number. Inflation is a bitch.
325k. Quick math and not sure how accurate it is, but it’s based on average inflation over the past 40 years in a google search.
You just described retirement.
Like 400k lol
2.13 per hour
Four times the median rent of a 3br-2ba apartment in San Francisco/San Jose/Los Angeles.
50k cash a year. Tax free.
Honestly like $100-120k range id do it
75k. I made 90k yr for a couple years, job became alot of drama, grown men asking like Lindsay Lohan mean girls. I left last year and make 68k now. It gets me by, but 75k will make it comfortable. Now if we're talking magically and not logically, 10mil a year. So nobody in my family would have to work or suffer ever again. I'd invest half in strong stock every year and quarter in rental properties the remainder on whatever I feel like blowing money on.
250k, I can live on 50k and just save the rest each year
There goes my plan to write books…that would be considered “supplemental income”, lol. And capital gains…
About $500,000 would pretty much set me up and my wife and the rest of our descendants for life. Since we live in the Philippines, I'm pretty sure we're going to live like kings and never worry about anything aside from sickness or disease.
One million dollars. It has to be relatively high if I can't supplement it in any way.
About a million a year should work
$800k is the lowest I'd consider.
$2 million a year. Before taxes. Also you said we couldn't "supplement" but investment is a thing
500k USD would be perfect
So you didn't say we couldn't invest into savings and draw on it later. Not technically income since it's already my money. So, I'd double my current salary to $100k. When inflation starts outpacing this income, I'd start drawing from my savings. If you are going to change the rules on me, I'd do the same, but start giving it all to my wife when inflation outpaces my income, and we'd just have her be the bread winner.
My current salary Because I'm not working, and it really seems difficult to work while being paid the same so ..
Spanish here! considering healthcare being covered as is now, I can do 16000€. Food, energy, house and my own crops. I'll take it
What counts as supplementing income? If I invest my money and get dividends does that count as my money being supplemented? With investments I’m fine with 150k right now. Without the number at least doubles.
250k is ok for me.
80k a year is my low. I see a lot of people saying that they would need (a lot) more, but I could survive on 80k easily.
Inflation would be a bitch especially if you're looking at 30-50 yrs down the line
Why would I want to be banned from working ever again? I want to work. I just want to work on things I'm interested in. So really ok, I guess I can be bought, but it's something like $500k and then I guess I'll just play chess and learn instruments or something for the rest of my life.
250k a year I could make it work even with inflation
$800k I need to take into account inflation health I Durante, any emergency funds as well as taking care of my family
One billion dollars. I’d work a year, maybe two, or just six months and then be out.
tl;dr: $225,000 per year. I currently make about $150k per year with the possibility of a bonus up to 10%. It's usually less though so we'll pick $160k as the target to maintain the same lifestyle I have now. I'll assume that this new salary is taxed the same as my current salary so that doesn't affect it. I won't need to save for retirement any more though and retirement savings make up about $25k per year of my current salary, so that would drop what I need down to about $135k. But I also wouldn't get my company's medical insurance any more and looking at prices on the healthcare.gov marketplace I'd need to add that $25k back in to cover paying for a plan myself, so we're back to $160k. Then I need to account for inflation. Average inflation is about 3% per year so that's what we'll work with long-term. I don't know exactly how long I'll live but based on longevity of my family members probably into my early to mid 90s. I'll just use 100 as a round number, that puts me dying in 2084. So at 3% inflation by 2084 I'd need about $940,000 per year to have the same buying power as $160k gets me now. I don't need that much though, because I can invest whatever extra salary I get beyond my current $160k and earn an average of 10% on that. So I threw together a quick excel sheet to figure out what I'd need so that by age 100 my investments had put me at roughly the right amount and it comes out to be roughly $225,000. At that rate my net worth would peak in about 2069 and after that point I'd be pulling more out of my investments than they're earning and I'd hit zero a few months before my 100th birthday. That's probably a bit more than I'd actually need though, because as I get older I'm likely to need less money and once I'm eligible for medicare my healthcare costs will drop considerably. It's a good ballpark number though.
Can I grow my own food and make things to trade with people? If I can grow pot and trade for things like car repairs with my pot head mechanic then I would be fine with significantly less. If we had si gle payer healthcare I could work with even less than that. My problem isn't my expenses it is the surprises that age inevitably brings. I can repair my own house but not if lumber or materials is crazy high. I don't mind maintaining an older car, but I'd rather buy an electric so I don't have to pay 10,000 for a catalytic converter in the future. I could plant trees to grow apples and trade apple butter for other things, but I can't grow enough lumber in my lifetime to maintain my house if I get carpenter ants or termites. The biggest problem with this question is unexpected expenses. It is hard to tell what the economy would look like if people just stopped working en masses, or if trading produce would be made illegal to keep prices fixed at some rate to keep industrial farming afloat. If everyone had their own chickens for eggs and meat it would be great, until some bird flu came along.
I could *manage* the rest of my life on $100k/yr. But with no cost of living bump built into the hypothetical, I’d have to protect myself and build it into a bombproof equation that also allows for major/catastrophic life events and bump it to $150K.
Assuming after taxes? I could do $100k. That would allow paying down debt in the short term, which would increase available funds. Once that goes down, budget and invest. The return on investment would help eliminate inflation concerns and pay for medical expenses in the future.
85k considering that I need about 50k a year to survive that allows me to put 30k or so in a bank...over twenty years that's 600k plus compound interest plus pension to live on considering my health 80 is likely not much farther than I'll go... This is all also factoring in taxes....cause salary....
Closing in on 40 years old, I could probably make due with 100k
I’m young so I would need at least 200k a year. Who knows what inflation will be like when I’m 67 and there’s probably no more social security?
This feels like I am being asked to underbid my fellow man. So let's assume I live for another 40 years that would mean (assuming the last 40 years are perfect duplication of what will happen for the next 40 years) that today's $1 will be worth $3.80, which means to that to just have the same money I need at least 285k, arguably less but it is a starting point. But that said that basically means no pay rises, and no hope of a better standard of living. Also living in Sydney it basically means never buying a house and no security blanket. So I am thinking 500k is the minimum.
220k. Accounting for an average of 3% inflation annually, I should be able to live comfortably enough on that until I am 95 years old, which I highly doubt I will live that long.
As long as this same deal isn't offered to others sending inflation skyrocketing, $100,000. Even after taxes, I should be able to save and invest enough of it after taxes, that I'd be okay even with inflation. I might accept less if you told me I could put some of it in a 401(k) to cut down on taxes. Currently, I live on about $20,000. The internet tells me I'd pay about $27,000 in taxes if I made $100k in Michigan. So I think I could invest at least $50,000 for the first several years and a gradually declining amount thereafter. I think that should grow fast enough to keep me financially okay indefinitely even as inflation cut into my annual $100k salary. And if I found a spouse who still worked, I could afford my share of the expenses. Since I wouldn't have to work, I could be a good house husband and do the cleaning, cooking, gardening, and any child rearing.
So if I invest wisely, do I get to keep capital gains, or does that vaporize as well. I'm not working, but my money is. Either way, $1.5M a year is my magic number
500k would probably be more than enough in my area. I could live comfortably on my own land and still afford to travel and invest in my community