If all you’ve got is $5000, that “endowment” still isn’t going to remake your life. Perpetual endowments usually spend about 5% of their market value per year,

If all you’ve got is $5000, that “endowment” still isn’t going to remake your life. Perpetual endowments usually spend about 5% of their market value per year, so you would receive about $20/month. Not nothing, but not life-changing either. Since you’re not going to live forever, you could draw a bit faster—-but transaction costs are also going to eat into that too.