Chatting to some folk in work yesterday about what we considered a life changing amount of money (lottery win/windfall). Amounts ranged from millions to thousands.
For me it would be enough to be mortgage free. Could reduce hours or even give up work/change of career.
So would you need millions or just enough to go debt free?

Had the advantage of being born a long time ago, so paid off the small mortgage 10 years ago.

Would have to be millions to make any real difference and even then I’d just give 90% to Charity as I don’t want a lavish life style and quite like working…..

I guess it depends on whether you want to stop work, your debts, whether you want to live a frugal life or like a lord, whether you want to help family, and so on…

for me, probably a surprisingly small amount, but then I’m largely debt free, and single.

Enough to pay the mortgage off and buy a decent camper van. £100k would do it.

I think the better question is what is your personal threshold for a substantive change in life.

For me that would be for me and partner not to have to work for money but to work (in whatever capacity, charity, small niche business, very part time, whatever) for pleasure. So it would be enough to replace our estimated life earnings from now to planned retirement.

Life changing for me always means – “Don’t need to work, could choose to”

So given it’s probably 20 years of work time I want to not have to do – 20 times my annual nett pay.

An then there’s MrsWW who I’d want to have the same choice so add 20 times hers as well.

It’s quite a lot.

And that’s really just to continue my current lifestyle. If I wanted to have lots of holidays or do interstign things with cars I’d need more.

So let’s say 40 times our current joint annual incomes.

[edit] what convert said.

Fixed cost: pay off mortgage – 200k

Even that on it’s own would make quite a difference, and would allow a change of lifestyle, so I suppose that counts as ‘life-changing’

For pretty comfortable early retirement: annual income of £40k for 40 years =~ £1.6m lump sum, so with 200k to pay off mortgage on top call it £2m for cash all in.

It’s not just the money, it’s a state of mind. Some folk would take the cash and pay off the mortgage, others would just move to a bigger/better house.

For pretty comfortable early retirement: annual income of £40k

Woah. You think £40k per year is only “pretty comfortable”?

For pretty comfortable early retirement: annual income of £40k for 40 years =~ £1.6m lump sum, so with 200k to pay off mortgage on top call it £2m for cash all in.

Thing is, if I retired now, mid 40s and pretty fit, I’d want to do loads of outward bound holiday type stuff, so my spend rate would more than treble – 52 weeks holiday a year vs 5….

£5mm.

I have 3 years left to retirement. I will earn around £90 000 in that time. 3 years pension contributions will also increase my pension by around £1000 pa and say 30 years drawing my pension so for me £150 000 would allow me to give up work tomorrow without any damage to my future income and allow me to have 3 more years of retired fun.

Had the advantage of being born a long time ago, so paid off the small mortgage 10 years ago.

mid 40s

😐

Woah. You think £40k per year is only “pretty comfortable”?

Yeah, tbh (although I mean ‘pretty comfortable’ in the British sense of ‘really quite very’), mainly cos of

Thing is, if I retired now, mid 40s and pretty fit, I’d want to do loads of outward bound holiday type stuff, so my spend rate would more than treble – 52 weeks holiday a year vs 5….

There’s a lot more potential spending time if you’re not working.

And wot Jamie said 😐

Mortgage. Without question.

So about £110000.

For me it will be 4 years mortgage and all household bills plus a little contingency.

That will allow me to go self employed (totally different field from day job), spend 2 years trying to make it work and still have 2 years to find a job if it doesn’t. All without having to worry about bills, food etc.

I will have this saved up by August of this year and fingers crossed I can make it happen.

It would have to be enough to give up work + not worry about pension and still live at least as comfortably as I do now. So at least a million quid tax free (sounds a lot but it’s only £25k for 40 years and £25k isn’t going to buy much in 30-40 years time…).

Sure £100k would be nice, would allow me to be debt free (inc. mortgage) and sort my kitchen and bathroom out but it wouldn’t really be life-changing, might allow me to switch to a 4 day week I guess but I think I’d soon get used to that and still hate work just as much :p

I’m in the same boat as tjagain but less time to go to retirement. so give me £50k and I’ll leave now. Life changed.

Well I never considered it a ‘Life changing’ amount of money, however a few years ago I took voluntary redundancy and walked away with a years worth of salary. This went on to a deposit on a bigger house in the suburbs on the other side of the city. Its been life changing because daughter goes to a different school and made new / more frieds, as have we. We have a nicer place to live, bigger garden and so on.

Tough one, a few years ago £10k would have been a total game changer, but thankfully those days are past now, hell of a slog mind you.

I think £250k would be enough to be mortgage and debt free which coupled with youngest starting school full time in Sept would mean I could earn a LOT less, I read about a STW who’s recently taken a job ferrying around Oldies in a mini bus, I really fancy that in a few years.

I think the biggest lesson I learned through some though times were I don’t really need *things* and I certainly don’t need the agro that comes with trying to maintain a ‘lifestyle’. I’d rather have the time.

£300k would sort me. I’m 51 and as soon as last kid has left the nest me and missus are off touring Europe in our motorhome til we kick the bucket. £300k would pay off remains of mortgage and credit cards with a small income each year. We are reckoning on £20k/ year when we leave the UK. ( I have my mums house which I will rent out along with mine). 6 years and counting!!!!.

Short term, about £1.50 would do it, as there’s a doughnut with my name on it int he canteen and getting my hands on it right now would be pretty life-changing in the immediate future 😀

Long term, I’d be happy with paying off our (modest) mortgage, that would allow me to drop to part time, or lower-paying charity based work with enough money to buy food, keep the house going, and a few luxuries. Then maybe having, say 50K in the bank would be a bonus as a ‘just in case’ type backup plan of taking the odd year off here and there or to travel a bit.

Enough to buy some reasonable sized area of farmland/forestry nearby and turn it into a trail centre I can cycle to.

£10M?

Well, mortgage is paid off and we’ve no debts of any kind. Life changing for me would be not working to get money to live. I’m closing in on my 59th birthday so let’s say I’ve got another 30 years (my grandparents all died in their mid 80s, parents in their 60s). Take my current disposable income and add a bit to allow for inflation and possibly going ga-ga, let’s make it £40K PA.

That comes to £1.2M. That assumes I’m just taking money out of the pot and there’s no interest being paid on the residual.

There’ll be some reduction in costs – no commuting, etc. but that will be offset by increased leisure costs. I worked out our base costs (council tax, utility bills, heating) at under £8K/yr but that might have included the finance on the car which has ended.

Finish off the Mortgage, and a bit extra – £90k

+ Enough to provide me an income per year that would cover the difference between what I currently earn, and what I’d earn doing what I really want to do ~£300K

Not a huge amount if any rich one’s got that going begging?

I got no debt, but also no money. Enough to pay to get mrs woodbine to America for the surgery she needs would make the world of difference for both of us. She could potentially go back to work, I could work full time, anytime rather than having to take days out all over the place to look after her. That would be truly life changing.

A tenner could be life changing depending on what you done with it.

Half a million quid would change our lives, but not by much. We’d still need to work a few months a year.

2 million is plenty to give up work and live comfortably, though perhaps not if you’re intending to spend as hard as you can.

£300k would clear our mortgage + all other debts/liabilities, but we’d probably both need to still work, but could drop down to something less stressful.

I’m 45, with kids aged 7&10, so they’ll need our financial support for another 15+ years.

I’ve got no interest in Hypercars or penthouses in Dubai, but I would like to see a bit of the world, by a combination of motorhome, 4×4 and bike.

I think at this point in time I’d need something like £5m+ for us both to never have to work again and lead a good standard of living for potentially the next 40 years.

If I won a silly £100m+ on the Euromillions I’d probably start a charitable foundation to give me something to do, and to build a legacy.
(the “Freeagent Children’s Hospice” or similar)

…..And I’d do the Dakar rally.

Properly life changing: would have to be enough to give up work, buy a bigger house (nothing outrageous, the dream is a 4 bed detached house with a double garage), and have a bit of spending money.

Enough to pay off mortgage would be amazing but would still have to work, imagine the only real differnece is we’d spend money on nicer things / holidays but the basics of out lvies would be the same.

I’d also need enough money to be able to fund other people to investigate things I’m interested in but don’t have time for.

£300k would do me – just enough to buy a nice place in the mountains. I like working (for myself, not for The Man) and we don’t have a huge amount left on our mortgage but I’d love to spend part of the year in France.

But then, if I had that coveted mountain abode – what would motivate me? Would I just need to have a different life goal?

dont own a house so enough to buy one mortgage free would be enough for me, even a modest wage would be alright if you didnt have to pay rent/mortgage.

500k so I could retire 🙂

Not much to be honest.

I’m of the opinion that you can’t sit and do nothing with your life (without it being very expensive!), so I’d always want to work part time doing something I enjoy.

With that in mind, enough to pay the mortgage off and a bit left to get all the house re-decorated and up to date (at least 120 year old stone house with wattle and dube plaster, and old floor boards all over the place!), then I’d earn any spending/bills/saving money from my part time job.

£100k would do that for me, probably £70k actually. For reference to people above, I’m 32.

Honestly? £10M.

I’m 53, paid off our mortgage 3 years ago and bought a fully-restored VW camper 😀 My biggest ‘life change’ would be to relive us of the shackles of having to look after my wife’s house-bound mother :(- non-existent social care means my wife doesn’t work. If she was to move into assisted / supported care it would cost £50k / year – the sale of her house would provide maybe 8 years, but based on her mother’s life expectancy that still leaves us 7 years short. With a bit more freedom, I’m hoping to rent the house out for a few years and go off travelling for a few years before settling down to take my pension. Luckily we have no kids, so we just need a couple of one-way tickets to Dignitas. My priority is staying healthy and active rather than having chronic illness, a bank account full of money I can’t enjoy that’ll got to the taxman

depends on your age, your housing situation & were that house is.

early 30’s and our house definatly isn’t our ‘family home’ so to pay off the mortgage we have would be great but wouldn’t leave us mortgage free for life.

live in the SE so housing is silly money too. half a million would pay off our debts & buy us the house for life.

One of my collegues is mortgage free – doesn’t buy him an extravagent lifestyle but just a slightly different outlook on life. He takes the train places as it’s relaxing (I don’t becuase it’s cheaper to drive), and he eats out a lot – not in fancy places just local ones.

£150 000 would be life changing but I’d still need to work. It would need 2 million I would guess for me to live a life of my view of luxury.

Must try harder at pushing MIL down the stairs!