6 ms·

How many million are we talking about? Because if you cash out for 4 million, 2 million of that is a decent new house in a major city, and not some water front

How many million are we talking about? Because if you cash out for 4 million, 2 million of that is a decent new house in a major city, and not some water front property, but a cookie cutter above average new build. Now you have 2 million left, which, to be honest, if you are just living off of index fund earnings, isn't all that much. Figure 7% growth per year, and you need to set aside 3% of that to grow the fund, you are stuck with 80k a year left to live off of, in a major city, and this is all ignoring taxes. 10 million in the bank and you can start to "be secure". Though it all depends on what QoL you want in retirement. I know a guy who retired early and happily spends 70% of his time playing video games. He avoids bougie foods and goes on a couple of nice trips every year.

neilv 3y ago
> at least a several-million post-tax windfall, On the index funds, I'd probably outspend returns.
arthur_sav 3y ago
Why would anyone buy a house in a major city, especially for retirement. You can get something decent for half the price near nature.
- renewiltord 3y ago
  Bad for environment. No friends around. Pluses and minuses so it’s not obvious.
  - arkey 3y ago
    How is that bad for environment?
  - Gyrantula2 3y ago
    The irony... I did this. I cashed out in my 20s, bought a $2m home in the middle of nowhere (that goes a long way out here), and live out my days in my workshop surrounded by singing birds, bees, wildlife, trees and gardens, with views across lakes and plains. And some cosmopolitan wants to tell me, as they cram another million people into gridlocked high-rises in their smoggy grey hellhole, that we in the country are bad for the environment? Or that the soulless crowds you have to navigate through every morning and evening are friendlier than the neighbours and strangers who wave and chat everywhere I go? If you're able, get out of the cities. Especially if you have children. You have no idea what you're missing.
    - com2kid 3y ago
      > as they cram another million people into gridlocked high-rises in their smoggy grey hellhole, that we in the country are bad for the environment? Uh yes, if you shove a million people out in the middle of nowhere, you have to cut down all the nature, remove the wetlands, pave a bunch of really wide roads, and now all of a sudden your paradise is a bland soulless sub-urban hellscape that is no longer environmentally friendly. As for gridlocked, I can walk to multiple bakeries, grocery stores, and parks. The vast majority of my driving is to places that are less than 15 minutes away. My rural friends talk about taking a quick trip that's only 90 minutes away. 90 minutes there 90 minutes back, shit, that's 2.5hrs extra spent driving compared to my 30 minute round trip commutes. If I go over the last 5 or 6 months I haven't lost a total of 2.5hrs to gridlock. > Or that the soulless crowds you have to navigate through every morning and evening are friendlier than the neighbours and strangers who wave and chat everywhere I go? Why do you think people in the city are soulless? Cities are bastion of art and creativity. I say high to my neighbors all the time, we get together for drinks and we swap baked goods. This is made all the easier by how close we are together. Indeed, once I moved into the city, meeting people became easier, and the people around me are friendlier. (And I'm in Seattle, literally the worst city for meeting people in!)
      - Gyrantula2 3y ago
        If anyone proposed housing a million migrants here, we'd sooner build gallows for the genius with that idea than to break ground on high density housing. It's a wildly controversial idea, but you could just stop letting so many people into your city... Cruising through the countryside at top speed to a larger town with the windows down and the radio up for an hour on the rare occasion I need something urgently is a pleasure compared to sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic to and from work, or crammed into a train with everything around me being suspiciously sticky and slightly smelly twice per day. We have what we need. You'd be surprised how little you miss the overwhelming number of choices and conveniences you have in the city. Anyway, I'm not that remote - I do most of my shopping online so everything is delivered to the door (albeit a day or two later than for you). It's the look in their eye, or their nature and priorities implicit in their choices. Cities are utterly bereft of soul, spirit, meaning, purpose, culture, etc. Whatever they do have in these respects seems to me like a cynical parody of their true form. They will convene a meeting for consultants to identify an urban area in need of beautification, commission an agendered hippie to plonk some monstrous perverted multicolour sculpture there for millions of dollars and boast about it like this isn't an insult to everything pure, and decent, and good in this world. The baked goods trading sounds really wholesome, I'm genuinely glad you have that. Still, there's a good reason city-folk come out here for rest and relaxation while I dread going into the big smoke and get the hell out as soon as I'm done doing what I need to do.
- dukeyukey 3y ago
  I put a lot of effort to get out of my rural farming hometown and into a city, why would I give that up? Especially since I could buy a place on the outskirts right next to a tube station and a nature reserve.
bagels 3y ago
Don't forget the 2 million in taxes.
olivermuty 3y ago
Why do you need substantially more than 80k to live if your house is paid down in cash? Earning 200k is usually about spending half of your net income on mortgages etc. Not that 80k is the lifestyle of a king, but it is plenty to get by with if all you are buying is insurance, food and entertainment.
- com2kid 3y ago
  We are talking early retirement here, so presumably young enough to still have a family. Daycare in my area is ~2400 a month (not the super fancy daycares either, they are over 3k a month). If you want to fully fund a 529 college fund, that is 30k a year for 15 years[1]. So right off the bat we have 50k a year in expenses for having a single kid, not counting feeding them and other activities. If you choose public school, then that number drops after the kid is 5, but if you want a private school that is 15k-35k a year. tl;dr 2 million in the bank isn't enough to raise a single kid w/o supplementary income. If you retire early you'll have to pay for your own health insurance, a Platinum plan is ~700 a month, not counting any other expenses that you have to pay. 7k a year right there. Cars cost $ to purchase and maintain. If you retire in Manhattan you can get away with not having a car, maybe Boston if you are lucky. Most other US cities require a car and that is going to average around 10k a year, assuming you have a mid-range car and that somehow you don't need to buy a new car during your retirement. If all you do is shop at Costco (perfectly doable!) you'll be able to keep food costs down, although you'll have to spend the time and money driving to a Costco. Outside of Costco, I'm paying around $200-$300 a week for groceries for 3 people. I found this lovely quote > As far as specific food items go, a dozen eggs and a pound of apples in Seattle costs $3.54 and $2.71, respectively. Which, while written in August of 2023, is already horribly out of date. (For whatever reason eggs got super expensive recently...) Figure 1k a month for food, if you never go out to eat, ever. Also no drinking alcohol of any type, that'll blow the budget. So we are up to 29K a year in expenses so far, just eating and driving around. No gym membership, no sports or hobbies, no vacations. No streaming services, no cable TV, no internet, no utilities, etc. Figure another 1k a month for those things and you are now spending 41k a year. Assuming no kids and a paid off house, 80k is livable, but it'll be somewhat bare bones for a person who "retired with millions in the bank". Which is kind of messed up, when I graduated college 80k was a really good lifestyle, but inflation did its thing, and so did the rising CoL in Seattle. [1] The absurd price of college is a huge expense for parents who don't want their kids to be stuck with lots of debt. Having to pony up 30k a year is an obscene necessity driven by the horrid cost of a college degree in America.
Closi 3y ago
It's easily into the 'diminishing returns' category in terms of lifestyle. You can buy a lovely house, support a family, 80k is still a full salary for most people and will certainly support 'standard day-to-day' living, and if you want a little more money for your holiday in the Caribbean you can always take on some cushy exec/advisory work a couple of days a week.
- com2kid 3y ago
  > It's easily into the 'diminishing returns' category in terms of lifestyle. It is, but a burger and fries and Five Guys cost me $20 yesterday, and that isn't exactly living it up. The nice pizza places around me charge nearly $30 for a Pizza. tl;dr shit is expensive and it is really easy to get excited with an Uber order and realize dinner from an Indian takeout place is going to cost $120. (I've pretty much give up on Uber and I just go pick up the food now, saves a good $20-$30, and some restaurants give sizable discounts for NOT ordering through a food delivery app!)
  - Closi 3y ago
    Having an occasional Indian takeout isn't living it up, but having $120 Indian takeout every night and spending $43,800 a year on dinner is. We will all have different definitions of living it up, but I would say you can live a good food lifestyle if you can afford HelloFresh/BlueApron or high quality ingredients for cooking and go out 1-2 times a week.
  - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
    To me fast food in general is slumming it. I don’t care the place, I can produce similar if not better food at home for a fraction of the price. And I‘d much rather go out to a restaurant with my wife and actually enjoy myself with the atmosphere, the staff, and the food rather than go get some fast food that makes me feel horrid the rest of the day, let alone picking up restaurant food to eat at home where I‘m charged for everything I just mentioned that I don’t get to enjoy.
dilyevsky 3y ago
Why do you want to be anywhere near major city if you are retired?
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  Maybe all your friends are there. I don't know why I'd want to be in the middle of nowhere with no socialization especially with no external force like a job motivating that I do so, as in retirement.
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  Healthcare, family, culture, food, international airports
  - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
    Young people. I live in a semi-rural area in the UK and it's starting to feel like the last stop off point before the crematorium. The consensus view seems to be to move further out as you age but I'm starting to wonder if the opposite would be better.
horns4lyfe 3y ago
If it takes 2 million to get you a “decent” house, you’re already playing the status games that will have you chasing money forever.
- j0hnyl 3y ago
  Not if you want to live in a good neighborhood in a major city.
  - horns4lyfe 3y ago
    If NYC and SF are the only cities you consider “major” then sure. Just speaking from my own experience, for less than 1M you can get a lovely home in a nice neighborhood in Dallas (actually in the city).
    - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
      in this area 300k will get you a very nice, above average house and moving outside of the city will get you even more house for that price. I'm all the time telling people who claim they can't afford housing because it's 1-2 million to move.

neilv 3y ago

> at least a several-million post-tax windfall, On the index funds, I'd probably outspend returns.

arthur_sav 3y ago

Why would anyone buy a house in a major city, especially for retirement. You can get something decent for half the price near nature.

renewiltord 3y ago
Bad for environment. No friends around. Pluses and minuses so it’s not obvious.
- arkey 3y ago
  How is that bad for environment?
- Gyrantula2 3y ago
  The irony... I did this. I cashed out in my 20s, bought a $2m home in the middle of nowhere (that goes a long way out here), and live out my days in my workshop surrounded by singing birds, bees, wildlife, trees and gardens, with views across lakes and plains. And some cosmopolitan wants to tell me, as they cram another million people into gridlocked high-rises in their smoggy grey hellhole, that we in the country are bad for the environment? Or that the soulless crowds you have to navigate through every morning and evening are friendlier than the neighbours and strangers who wave and chat everywhere I go? If you're able, get out of the cities. Especially if you have children. You have no idea what you're missing.
  - com2kid 3y ago
    > as they cram another million people into gridlocked high-rises in their smoggy grey hellhole, that we in the country are bad for the environment? Uh yes, if you shove a million people out in the middle of nowhere, you have to cut down all the nature, remove the wetlands, pave a bunch of really wide roads, and now all of a sudden your paradise is a bland soulless sub-urban hellscape that is no longer environmentally friendly. As for gridlocked, I can walk to multiple bakeries, grocery stores, and parks. The vast majority of my driving is to places that are less than 15 minutes away. My rural friends talk about taking a quick trip that's only 90 minutes away. 90 minutes there 90 minutes back, shit, that's 2.5hrs extra spent driving compared to my 30 minute round trip commutes. If I go over the last 5 or 6 months I haven't lost a total of 2.5hrs to gridlock. > Or that the soulless crowds you have to navigate through every morning and evening are friendlier than the neighbours and strangers who wave and chat everywhere I go? Why do you think people in the city are soulless? Cities are bastion of art and creativity. I say high to my neighbors all the time, we get together for drinks and we swap baked goods. This is made all the easier by how close we are together. Indeed, once I moved into the city, meeting people became easier, and the people around me are friendlier. (And I'm in Seattle, literally the worst city for meeting people in!)
    - Gyrantula2 3y ago
      If anyone proposed housing a million migrants here, we'd sooner build gallows for the genius with that idea than to break ground on high density housing. It's a wildly controversial idea, but you could just stop letting so many people into your city... Cruising through the countryside at top speed to a larger town with the windows down and the radio up for an hour on the rare occasion I need something urgently is a pleasure compared to sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic to and from work, or crammed into a train with everything around me being suspiciously sticky and slightly smelly twice per day. We have what we need. You'd be surprised how little you miss the overwhelming number of choices and conveniences you have in the city. Anyway, I'm not that remote - I do most of my shopping online so everything is delivered to the door (albeit a day or two later than for you). It's the look in their eye, or their nature and priorities implicit in their choices. Cities are utterly bereft of soul, spirit, meaning, purpose, culture, etc. Whatever they do have in these respects seems to me like a cynical parody of their true form. They will convene a meeting for consultants to identify an urban area in need of beautification, commission an agendered hippie to plonk some monstrous perverted multicolour sculpture there for millions of dollars and boast about it like this isn't an insult to everything pure, and decent, and good in this world. The baked goods trading sounds really wholesome, I'm genuinely glad you have that. Still, there's a good reason city-folk come out here for rest and relaxation while I dread going into the big smoke and get the hell out as soon as I'm done doing what I need to do.
dukeyukey 3y ago
I put a lot of effort to get out of my rural farming hometown and into a city, why would I give that up? Especially since I could buy a place on the outskirts right next to a tube station and a nature reserve.

bagels 3y ago

Don't forget the 2 million in taxes.

olivermuty 3y ago

Why do you need substantially more than 80k to live if your house is paid down in cash? Earning 200k is usually about spending half of your net income on mortgages etc. Not that 80k is the lifestyle of a king, but it is plenty to get by with if all you are buying is insurance, food and entertainment.

com2kid 3y ago
We are talking early retirement here, so presumably young enough to still have a family. Daycare in my area is ~2400 a month (not the super fancy daycares either, they are over 3k a month). If you want to fully fund a 529 college fund, that is 30k a year for 15 years[1]. So right off the bat we have 50k a year in expenses for having a single kid, not counting feeding them and other activities. If you choose public school, then that number drops after the kid is 5, but if you want a private school that is 15k-35k a year. tl;dr 2 million in the bank isn't enough to raise a single kid w/o supplementary income. If you retire early you'll have to pay for your own health insurance, a Platinum plan is ~700 a month, not counting any other expenses that you have to pay. 7k a year right there. Cars cost $ to purchase and maintain. If you retire in Manhattan you can get away with not having a car, maybe Boston if you are lucky. Most other US cities require a car and that is going to average around 10k a year, assuming you have a mid-range car and that somehow you don't need to buy a new car during your retirement. If all you do is shop at Costco (perfectly doable!) you'll be able to keep food costs down, although you'll have to spend the time and money driving to a Costco. Outside of Costco, I'm paying around $200-$300 a week for groceries for 3 people. I found this lovely quote > As far as specific food items go, a dozen eggs and a pound of apples in Seattle costs $3.54 and $2.71, respectively. Which, while written in August of 2023, is already horribly out of date. (For whatever reason eggs got super expensive recently...) Figure 1k a month for food, if you never go out to eat, ever. Also no drinking alcohol of any type, that'll blow the budget. So we are up to 29K a year in expenses so far, just eating and driving around. No gym membership, no sports or hobbies, no vacations. No streaming services, no cable TV, no internet, no utilities, etc. Figure another 1k a month for those things and you are now spending 41k a year. Assuming no kids and a paid off house, 80k is livable, but it'll be somewhat bare bones for a person who "retired with millions in the bank". Which is kind of messed up, when I graduated college 80k was a really good lifestyle, but inflation did its thing, and so did the rising CoL in Seattle. [1] The absurd price of college is a huge expense for parents who don't want their kids to be stuck with lots of debt. Having to pony up 30k a year is an obscene necessity driven by the horrid cost of a college degree in America.

Closi 3y ago

It's easily into the 'diminishing returns' category in terms of lifestyle. You can buy a lovely house, support a family, 80k is still a full salary for most people and will certainly support 'standard day-to-day' living, and if you want a little more money for your holiday in the Caribbean you can always take on some cushy exec/advisory work a couple of days a week.

com2kid 3y ago
> It's easily into the 'diminishing returns' category in terms of lifestyle. It is, but a burger and fries and Five Guys cost me $20 yesterday, and that isn't exactly living it up. The nice pizza places around me charge nearly $30 for a Pizza. tl;dr shit is expensive and it is really easy to get excited with an Uber order and realize dinner from an Indian takeout place is going to cost $120. (I've pretty much give up on Uber and I just go pick up the food now, saves a good $20-$30, and some restaurants give sizable discounts for NOT ordering through a food delivery app!)
- Closi 3y ago
  Having an occasional Indian takeout isn't living it up, but having $120 Indian takeout every night and spending $43,800 a year on dinner is. We will all have different definitions of living it up, but I would say you can live a good food lifestyle if you can afford HelloFresh/BlueApron or high quality ingredients for cooking and go out 1-2 times a week.
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  To me fast food in general is slumming it. I don’t care the place, I can produce similar if not better food at home for a fraction of the price. And I‘d much rather go out to a restaurant with my wife and actually enjoy myself with the atmosphere, the staff, and the food rather than go get some fast food that makes me feel horrid the rest of the day, let alone picking up restaurant food to eat at home where I‘m charged for everything I just mentioned that I don’t get to enjoy.

dilyevsky 3y ago

Why do you want to be anywhere near major city if you are retired?

satvikpendem 3y ago
Maybe all your friends are there. I don't know why I'd want to be in the middle of nowhere with no socialization especially with no external force like a job motivating that I do so, as in retirement.
iancmceachern 3y ago
Healthcare, family, culture, food, international airports
- tonyedgecombe 3y ago
  Young people. I live in a semi-rural area in the UK and it's starting to feel like the last stop off point before the crematorium. The consensus view seems to be to move further out as you age but I'm starting to wonder if the opposite would be better.

horns4lyfe 3y ago

If it takes 2 million to get you a “decent” house, you’re already playing the status games that will have you chasing money forever.

j0hnyl 3y ago
Not if you want to live in a good neighborhood in a major city.
- horns4lyfe 3y ago
  If NYC and SF are the only cities you consider “major” then sure. Just speaking from my own experience, for less than 1M you can get a lovely home in a nice neighborhood in Dallas (actually in the city).
  - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    in this area 300k will get you a very nice, above average house and moving outside of the city will get you even more house for that price. I'm all the time telling people who claim they can't afford housing because it's 1-2 million to move.