> the idea of living off the interest on your wealth is pretty insane and unattainable to any remotely normal person. I'm not sure why you say that when this i

> the idea of living off the interest on your wealth is pretty insane and unattainable to any remotely normal person. I'm not sure why you say that when this is now the dominant form of pension/retirement planning in countries like the US and the UK. People generally buy annuities with their pot, or keep it invested and go in to 'drawdown', living off the returns. The couple with $6000/mo pension are probably guaranteed that income for life. It may even be inflation adjusted annually. Someone aged around 60 who wants a inflation adjusted lifetime annuity here in the UK is going to start on around 2%/yr these days[0]. This isn't unreasonable given a 3% inflation expectation, 30 years of life expectancy, and 30 year UK gov gilts yielding just 1.2%[1]. So $6000/mo on equivalent terms could require a $3.6M pot You can invest your lump sum more aggressively of course, but if you're not disciplined enough to keep withdrawals below a safe rate (widely believed to be 3-4% for a stock portfolio), and suffer a bad run of variance, you'll risk running out of money and dying in poverty. [0] https://www.hl.co.uk/retirement/annuities/best-buy-rates https://www.hl.co.uk/retirement/annuities/best-buy-rates [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/Bond/TMBMKGB-30Y?countryCode=BX https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/Bond/TMBMKGB-30Y?count...