Would I just need to have a different life goal?

Why do you need a life goal?

I’m 50, paying off our mortgage in two weeks time, wife took very early retirement last year and we have everything we need. I’ll be retiring at 55 so all I would really need is enough money to get me by until then.

We have saving etc so I don’t necessarily need to continue topping up my pension.

So say £2k a month, which would still allow me to save a bit, for the next 54 months, £108,000. That’ll do me.

Hmm.

£100K tax free would allow Beej-ess to cut back on her current work dramatically and continue her studies to something she really wants to do, without there being any financial risk or change in current lifestyle.

For a significant life change – so different house, not needing to work, place in Italy, lots of trips and travel, probably £5M?

Any amount of money would technically be life changing, but to really help it’d need to as others have said pay off the mortgage or something.

I think enough to pay off the mortgage, buy a nice car (Yeah I know, but I like cars – £30k or so should be enough for something I’d consider very nice) and not have to work would be what I’d really consider life changing.

I would probably continue to work but I would use some of the money to start a business. I’ve never been at the point of costing up any of the businesses I’d consider running seriously, so I don’t know how much it’d cost.

I’m pretty sure 5 million would do it, perhaps less. Perhaps more for some lines of work!

£1M

Nice house in Bristol with space for a secure workshop = £500k

New motors for me & the mrs, nothing mental but nicer = £50k

2 Bristol rental properties to generate ongoing income = £450k

Very surprised that people think they need £5m to get by for the rest of their lives!

Gary_M – Member
Very surprised that people think they need £5m to get by for the rest of their lives!

But this is STW.

Very surprised that people think they need £5m to get by for the rest of their lives!

I know, they must be very frugal….

Even £2M wouldn’t be life changing. It would mean that I could live the best version of my current life without any consideration to money for the rest of my days but if I wanted a significantly different life then it would need to be a fair bit more than that.

The thing is I don’t want to change my life, I’m very happy with it as it is. If I didn’t have to waste time going to work that’s pretty much the only thing that would make it any better.

My life would be significantly changed by being in a house actually big enough for the 4 of us.

The difference in price between ours and something with an extra bedroom/garage/extra reception/downstairs toilet room seems to be about £200k in these parts.

I don’t think I need anymore money to be honest. Its not that I’m already loaded, just that my lifestyle doesn’t cost much. I live a fairly simple life through preference. Don’t see that changing if all of a sudden I came into several millions. I’d likely give away most of it to more deserving people who could use a break if I did so.

if i could sell up pay off all debts and retire to a nice chalet in the alps

Enough to give me and Mrs SWSD investment income of about 24k. (we’re not particularly extravagant).

I have no idea how much I would need. Half a million maybe?

rene59 – Member

I don’t think I need anymore money to be honest. Its not that I’m already loaded, just that my lifestyle doesn’t cost much. I live a fairly simple life through preference

thats the sort of position I am in so I only need enough to allow me to retire now not in 3 years. Even with millions I wouldn’t lead an extravagant lifestyle as carbon footprint is really important to me. I’d still cycle / train to travel not buy fancy cars. Probably buy a nicer commuter tho and maybe a full sus MTB

Life changing money to me is financial independence and finically future security. It’s different amounts to different people obviously. Money does not necessarily equate to happiness of course!

Probably buy a nicer commuter

You wouldn’t be commuting anymore 🙂

People who think you need £Xm to secure an income for life clearly aren’t familiar with compound interest, investing and safe withdrawal rates.

£200k and I’d quit my job tomorrow – would bump my annual passive income up to about £12k/year and I’m mortgage free.

I’ve no doubt I’d start creating extra income streams pretty quickly, but on my own terms. To me, retirment doesn’t mean going on endless holidays, just the freedom not to spend five days a week in an office.

People who think you need £Xm to secure an income for life clearly aren’t familiar with compound interest, investing and safe withdrawal rates.

I don’t think most people are taking it that seriously 🙂

Fair point 😀

I don’t think most people are taking it that seriously

You never know, Trump and his loaded mates could read this thread and take pity on us all, and give us what we want!

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

That’s how I would look at it too. So around £5MM would do it.

Very surprised that people think they need £5m to get by for the rest of their lives!

Hang on – this was supposed to be ‘life changing’ amounts of money.
£300k would leave us totally debt free with a great standard of living on our current wages..
But £5m will buy me a sensible detached house on a plot of land in the SE, a few toys (Motorhome and a couple of Landrover Defenders) and give us a decent income, through investments etc) to enjoy life without having to work.

As said before it depends on your current situation. I certainly don’t need millions as apart from going to work life is just how I want it, about £100k would sort that.

I don’t need a bigger house, new cars or an income for life – I’ve already got investments and savings to cover that. I just need to stop going to ******* work 🙂

Never had the chance to go to university. To stupid and lazy at the right time to realise I might actually be able to do it.
So Id say enough to do that

Or even, just enough money to not work for one year and get to Maritime college, get my Masters ticket. That would be properly life changing as many more positions open up for me.

I wouldn’t count slightly larger suburban box and a german car life changing. For that money you could live out your days letting out kayaks on a beach in Thailand or buy an old tramp steamer and smuggle diamonds along the amazon Now THAT’s life changing

Depends on your outlook and your definition of ‘life changing’ I suppose.

Having no mortgage would certainly change my life pretty significantly. Going past that would change it some more, it’d certainly be nice not to worry about funding the kids through Uni.

£50k ish….

I purchased a huge sprawling property in Croatia for £35k with enough land to become fairly self sufficient if we needed to in the future….

Came here with £20k in the bank and a joinery businesses worth of machinery to start up….

5 years on and a couple of little un’s and all is good.

That small amount, In comparison to the above comments, was pretty life changing for us.

I started my business 15 years ago with a £1.5k loan from a very generous friend….. Also pretty life changing at a time when I had been made redundant,had nothing and needed a new direction.

People who think you need £Xm to secure an income for life clearly aren’t familiar with compound interest, investing and safe withdrawal rates

I’m 34, lets say that to stop working I want to draw £40k per year (as people have said above not working would dramatically increase my holiday budget). That £40k needs to go up with inflation (let’s call that 2% per year) and last until I’m 90 (while my cost of holidays may go down with age the potential cost of care will go up).

My initial investment will be growing at, say, 2% after tax.

I then plugged this all into excel and I would need £2.24m today leaving £0 when I get to 90.

If on the other hand I only want to have £15k/yr with the same parameters as above I merely need £840k.

In reality I would like to continue working part time/ doing more charity work rather than stopping altogether, but the above gives an idea of just how much money a 35 year old would need to stop work.

Obviously I’ve ignored the small issue of buying a house and at £40k/yr I assume that I could buy cars/ bikes from income,

£100k would be enough to pay of my mortgage and give me a couple of quid spare. That’d be fairly life changing I reckon.

To be honest, being made redundant and having to live on Universal Credit would be a life changing amount of money too, just in a different way.

But in my case 100k would more than do me. I don’t earn a huge amount but have paid the mortgage off & Mrs.P is retired so that would enable me to get a new car & caravan, go part-time and enjoy spending a bit more time with the wife, whether she wants me to or not 😉

How much is a bag of heroin? That could be pretty life changing.

Yeah I would like to pay off my mortgage and do something more worthwhile with some of my time and this is something I have pondered a bit on recently. I am in the ‘fortunate’ position of having a big enough house (with correspondingly big mortgage 🙁 ) but I could downsize (without moving town) and still have a home and no mortgage. I shall definitely do this when the kids have grown up and moved out (10+ years yet)

Very surprised that people think they need £5m to get by for the rest of their lives!

I thought we were being asked what was life changing, not what we could get by on.

I could probably do fine with significantly less if invested well, but 5m would really make a huge difference.

I thought we were being asked what was life changing, not what we could get by on.

It was really a response to people saying they need £5m to be able to give up work

Enough to pay off the mortgage and my current gross income until retirement age: so about £2.5m.

It was really a response to people saying they need £5m to be able to give up work

Also the amount you need is less than you’d think if looking to replace a lifetimes income, assuming that lump sum is tax free. I would hope that I could invest the income replacement I would have earned in 20 years if given it now. Also I would have paid tax & NI on that income so that can be knocked off too. Finally if I’m able to pay my mortgage off now rather than pay years of interest on it that would have otherwise taken away a chunk of my take home that reduces it again.

Anything could be life changing, 10/20/50k would change my life, 100k would leave me mortgage free 10 years early at early 30s. That gives me 10k a year extra to play with, would certainly change my life in a massive way.

A million quid well invested would give me a 50k a year income before tax assuming 5% return.. and actually when you think about it it wouldnt be that life changing as id still have to work, that amount wouldnt be enough to do all my hobbies all the time, but would certainly make life easier.

So, if anyone scoops a 5million lottery win i suggest splitting it up on here and giving 49 of us 100k each for maximum life changing ability!

50k a year and you’d still ‘have to work’?

Even with no mortgage?

This is one of these threads when you realise that you really are on the outside looking in.