5 ms·

It seems the hardest problem is (always) finding the first million with which one can invest.

drchiu 9y ago
Pretty much this. It’s a rough trek and requires a lot of saving. And even once you get there, you don’t feel rich — not with a few kids and more expenses. Having said that, I estimate around 30k passive per month should do it if you have a family and are living in a major city.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- a_cactus 9y ago
  360K in passive income a year?
  - jkmcf 9y ago
    *Before taxes?
    - discoursism 9y ago
      That's still 180k a year post-tax. That's still enough to fund an absolutely lavish lifestyle, even in the highest cost of living locations. It's not MTV Cribs rich, but it'll still put you in the 95%ile in Manhattan, to say nothing of more reasonable locales.
      - dgacmu 9y ago
        It's probably more than that if you've structured your passive income such that decent chunks of it are long-term capital gains at 20% federal.
  - ianai 9y ago
    Pretty sure, but not 100%, that I could just maybe scrape on 360k/yr. /s
ryanSrich 9y ago
And it's not even that "easy". Say you make $1mm from the sale of some stock in a startup. First off, this is incredibly rare. Second, your take home is roughly $600k in the U.S. after federal and state taxes. So even $1mm doesn't get you much. Good luck starting a business with only $600k.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  > Good luck starting a business with only $600k. Some of the most popular, profitable YC startups (even just regular 'ol startups) were started on a fraction of $600k.
  - dekervin 9y ago
    There is a school of thought that argues that too much money at the initial stage is actually harmful.
- froindt 9y ago
  At 600k you could work a job that covers your expenses only while investing the money, and have ballpark 1.2M in a decade. Another decade could put you around 2.4M. Saving just 10k/year would massively inflate these numbers. I encourage you to think in terms of percents. The Trinity Study says you'll need about 25x your expenses saved. If you can lower your expenses by 5k/year, you can not only invest that money, but your target also lowered by 125k. That double whammy allows diligent savers to do very well and retire on a much shorter timeline than those spending 95%+ of their paycheck.
  - ataturk 9y ago
    And while that is completely lovely, it places you far short of what is necessary. The trick that is played on US citizens is the goal posts keep moving further and further out because or buying power is eroded so horribly by insidious inflation. A $50K/yr. job in the early 1980s is today's $120K/yr. job. It took me 15 years to make it to $120K, though. And most people don't even make what I make!

Pretty much this. It’s a rough trek and requires a lot of saving. And even once you get there, you don’t feel rich — not with a few kids and more expenses. Having said that, I estimate around 30k passive per month should do it if you have a family and are living in a major city.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
a_cactus 9y ago
360K in passive income a year?
- jkmcf 9y ago
  *Before taxes?
  - discoursism 9y ago
    That's still 180k a year post-tax. That's still enough to fund an absolutely lavish lifestyle, even in the highest cost of living locations. It's not MTV Cribs rich, but it'll still put you in the 95%ile in Manhattan, to say nothing of more reasonable locales.
    - dgacmu 9y ago
      It's probably more than that if you've structured your passive income such that decent chunks of it are long-term capital gains at 20% federal.
- ianai 9y ago
  Pretty sure, but not 100%, that I could just maybe scrape on 360k/yr. /s

ryanSrich 9y ago

And it's not even that "easy". Say you make $1mm from the sale of some stock in a startup. First off, this is incredibly rare. Second, your take home is roughly $600k in the U.S. after federal and state taxes. So even $1mm doesn't get you much. Good luck starting a business with only $600k.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
> Good luck starting a business with only $600k. Some of the most popular, profitable YC startups (even just regular 'ol startups) were started on a fraction of $600k.
- dekervin 9y ago
  There is a school of thought that argues that too much money at the initial stage is actually harmful.
froindt 9y ago
At 600k you could work a job that covers your expenses only while investing the money, and have ballpark 1.2M in a decade. Another decade could put you around 2.4M. Saving just 10k/year would massively inflate these numbers. I encourage you to think in terms of percents. The Trinity Study says you'll need about 25x your expenses saved. If you can lower your expenses by 5k/year, you can not only invest that money, but your target also lowered by 125k. That double whammy allows diligent savers to do very well and retire on a much shorter timeline than those spending 95%+ of their paycheck.
- ataturk 9y ago
  And while that is completely lovely, it places you far short of what is necessary. The trick that is played on US citizens is the goal posts keep moving further and further out because or buying power is eroded so horribly by insidious inflation. A $50K/yr. job in the early 1980s is today's $120K/yr. job. It took me 15 years to make it to $120K, though. And most people don't even make what I make!