How Rich do you want to be?
When you end your career what would you like your net worth to be? Do you want to be one of the billionaire bankers (Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, Bill Ackman, even Carl Icahn) or do you want a silent and peaceful life? Just curious…..
Done working at $15MM liquid
when you realize some billionaire kids or royalty kids already have that the minute they were born ...
Damnnn. I wanna have a couple of million set aside and that’s about it. Haven’t got a family to support or anything so having time to/for myself is the priority
lol
I don't so much think in terms of a net worth but how much I can be generating passively. Ideally enough that I can afford to live extremely comfortably as off grid as possible and be able to consistently make high-6 to low-7 figures a year just off of interest/passive dividends. At that point I think there are enough things I would want to pursue independently (farming, hunting, hobbies, having a large family) that I could conceivably retire. Realistically I think I'm a workaholic and would keep going at some capacity well into my older age but having that safety net of consistent high passive income would make it so I'm only having to do things "when I want to" which I think for everyone is a good goal to have. One of my bosses basically has this set up (his passive is more like high-7 to low-8 but he's one of those outlier PE guys who cracked 9 figs at a young age), bought a huge ranch out West and spends a good chunk of his time there.
Realistically I think mid-high 8 figures net worth would be a cool goal, recognizing that I'd likely have to take on some real risk of potentially losing most of it to hit a number like that before I'm 70+.
As much as possible without sacrificing family.
$5M liquid + 100% home equity
The real answer here
This is a very good answer. However, depending on age / family situation etc., $5M may not be enough even if you live a pretty basic life. If you’re single it is fine, but if you’re married and planning on having kids, $5M may not take you as far as you hope.
Bro what. By the time you probably reach $5M and are ready to retire, your kids will likely be older and off to college or beyond... won't really be a large expense anymore. $5m for you and your wife is plenty for most.
This is spot on.
40ml by 60 is the goal. We’ll see where this inflation stuff shakes out though, I really don’t want to revise this up because this is already ambitious (though doable) enough
I’m which industry?
Long-Only AM (Equities)
Why do you refer to millions as milliliters? Is this common at your firm?
I don’t know why people use mm, there aren’t even two m’s in million
We had a whole thread on this. Where were you. m = 1000. m x m = 1000 x 1000 = one million.
May be he’s referring to 40ml dark matter
It's the amount of blood sacrifice necessary to achieve his financial goals
To emphasize their liquidity goals, surely.
I am in a different phase of my career than most people here but tbh, I have never really worked hard enough or smart enough to accumulate money like Jamie Dimon. I am not a poor guy, though. I live in a large house in affluent part of suburbia. I have accumulated some money via work and the stock market over a long period of time but no one here would be envious of the total. I guess I was never as motivated as some others here to be uber wealthy. I will admit I am a superficial guy at times, but not about money but may be that is because I do not have a lot of it, haha. These days, I am just more interested in physical appearance via physical fitness or clothes or hair or skin, etc. I know it sounds kind of girly but it is what it is.
Also, as one of the most liberal members of WSO, you gave away most of the money to the less fortunate through charity right. Very noble.
Most liberal guy on here is mainly worried about physical appearances and his skin care routine? Sounds about right.
So what, haha. I am a big sports fan, so may be I do not exactly fit your understanding of what a liberal person does or does not do.
Every man should value their looks no matter their political stance
Not really. Progressive left is more interested about “body shaming” and “feel comfortable how you are” rather than taking extra efforts like financeabc is.
I thought I was willing to do it whatever it took for signfiicant weath but after 2yrs of IB and seeing what MF/UMM PE hours are like. I think I and many analysts around me have realized that the actual # to sustain a good life and be happy without sacrificing all our time is much lower than we all estimated going in.
I just want to earn a three comma T shirt.
I want to be a billionaire by 40 my main goal in life is to slightly improve my shithole 3rd world home country so I can actually raise my children there
Seems like a fools errand. People have thrown billions at improving third world countries since WWII and have jack shit to show for it.
No amount of money in the world will change people if they don't want to change themselves. For the record, I was born and spent half my childhood in a sh*thole third world country.
Every country was once third world
Why do you want to raise your children there instead of where you are now and working (and presumably have a much higher standard of living/freedom/expression)? I used to think that way until I realized that my own native sh*thole third world country and all the ones I've been to and worked in aren't really going to change.
I want to be able to rent a yatch (considerable, not like super yacth or something) every summer in the mediterrean for 1-2 weeks without problem. That level rich.
https://www.worldwideboat.com/charter-advice/crewed-charter-cost
Having spent 2 weeks on a yacht in Greece, it is totally worth it if you have the opportunity and good friends/ family to do it with
sounds amazing - did you have a chef on the yacht too?
$5MM in market investments (no RE). That should be enough to obtain passive income for a more-than-comfortable lifestyle ($500k) according to my standards (yours may differ).
I wouldn’t want to retire needing a 10% return.
It depends. Sure, you don't want to build a lifestyle that requires 10% every single year but it's also a fairly modest goal. There are some annuities that can get you pretty darn close to 10%. Some of the income funds or even the ETFs can also get you pretty close to that. And there's also some dividend stocks that can approach that number. Even some covered calls on stocks you already own - which isn't quite "passive" but still easy - can get you close to 10%.
I know it sounds like a lot, but I'm optimistic that with a large enough nest egg and the right guidance, you can get pretty close to a reliable 10%.
does this account for having a family?
If you can't raise a family on $500k you don't have an income problem, you have a spending problem.
10%!!! You have some extreme risk tolerance. I retired with the objective of living on 2% and every now and then i doubt this strategy… I’m rather conservative in that way though.
this is the correct return assumption. DIA yields 2%, you can basically just buy the dow and forget about it, on average that plus the appreciation should beat inflation and leave you enough to pay your taxes
$150k per year. Single in Texas. Able to take trips wherever, shop for whatever and not think about it. Most high dollar items like Rolexes and Porsches are just not worth it after seeing the work required to either wear or maintain expensive things.
I don't think you can be a homeowner in Texas on 150k (as crazy as that sounds). The property taxes would make this a small number very, very quickly and you'll be paying those until the day you die.
Taxes aren’t that bad depending on where you live and how much house you buy. Although, with mortgage rates going up you might be right.
rich enough where I can say fuck you to anyone and not have it affect my finances negatively
love that speech
Lmao a man can dream
1. yes
2. no idea, its a fun list
Do you really need two skiing villas in neighboring countries that have identical ski seasons? I'd rather do something in Switzerland and then something in Chile so you have both seasons.
Yes
As someone who has a side in the music business, if i can generate $250k from that hustle and have my home paid off, i'll quit
Currently living in London - £20m should be enough to get out of this city and buy a house in my home country (in Europe as well) plus a villa in the US (most likely in Florida or California). With appropriate investments, it should be enough to live decently and ride a Porsche 911s daily.
I don't have a number, but enough to have a beach house on Cape Cod.
how much are those?
Oh yeah.
Two questions for the people responding:
1. Do you currently have a family / does your number account for the added cost of a family (bigger place, more expensive everything, education, etc.)
2. How do you think about your number in relation to how much you might be making if / when you hit it? For example, if your number is 10m, would you immediately retire if at that time, you're a PE MD and you would be giving up carry worth 7.5m and you're making 1.2m a year? What if you double both those numbers, etc.
I don't have a number, but I can comment on them
How different are your 1 and 3. Obviously the cost of having a family differs from person-to-person, but I urge people to recognize the difference in lifestyle maintenance costs / fixed costs between renting a studio / 1 bedroom and seeing friends when you want and sleeping on a mattress on the floor to having a family home, real furniture, education costs, weddings, birthday parties to throw, etc.
I agree on the lifestyle inflation but it's a balance. I don't expect someone making $1m to live like a new grad making $125k. Obviously there are those making $1m and not saving anything, which is extreme. Mentioned this before but the key on lifestyle creep is to be intentional. The purpose of the question though was both (i) lifestyle creep (i.e. yes you have $10m but if you're making good money you may see $10m as limiting and a few more years of work as opening up another "lifestyle tier") but also (ii) what's worth the time. Obviously if you're 200k and have 20m and don't enjoy the work, stop. But if you have $10m and you're pulling in $2m you might look at it and say hey, I don't need to push myself to the next level but if I can work for another 5 years, let this nest egg grow another 40% through market returns and add another few million in saving, maybe that's worth the time
When I was 15: 50 million net worth
25: 10 million
30: 3 million
Assuming a 6-7 percent return 3mm would spit off around 180k. More than enough to live in the mountains and ski all winter with a family at the type of ski hills I like and take extended trips to tropical locations to surf.
so fucking true
Do you know anyone that has rented primary residence through retirement?
that's the right answer.
most people posting in here are kids saying that they want to be billionaires/astronauts when they grow up. in reality, once you work long hours for years and pay half of what you made to Uncle Sam, and another 30% on basic needs like rent, food, medical expenses, you'll be very happy to settle on $2-3M and escape this sad corporate life.
Completely agree. Some of these comments in this thread are detached from reality. I saw a comment above saying $5mm liquid and 100% paid off mortgage "may not take you as far". Not sure what kind of expenditures people have in this thread but that would give me more than I would ever need to maintain my current lifestyle even with kids.
Rich enough to pursue poker as a full time career
Not sure there is enough money on the planet for that
You can have both. What you're asking is do I (or anyone else) want to be known for being insanely wealthy.
Known never.
Enough to not have to work and do whatever I want throughout the whole day. As long as I have a decent roof over my head and good food I'm set.
I have this dream of doing an analyst stint, going to b-school, buying some startup off of microacquire and scaling it up and becoming a billionaire
Its not as easy of course, but its something to look up to doing
I mean some of these micro/business brokerage options are not bad options at all.
Look up the company "Asurion" - a private held company in Nashville, TN.
In 1993 two Stanford GSB grads formed a search fund called Mill River. They found a company called Road Rescue which aimed to compete with AAA by responding to cell phone calls for roadside assistance (how quaint, right?) That business ended up being a dog, but what they pivoted into (cell phone insurance) was certainly not. Arguably one of the biggest (if not the biggest) search fund success stories in history.
I think about this all the time.
I need $10mm liquid, including retirement accounts but not including real estate.
If I don’t screw up and get a little lucky, I think I can retire with a safe withdraw rate of 4% at age 45.
This I believe.
I'm getting a game ranch in Montana or Kentucky and retiring before I'm 40. Cost of living will be low as fuck. Figure I need to get to ~$3mm to be able to do that and be able to cover COL through passive investment.
I entered S&T so I presume my net worth will be in the minuses come retirement and my wife will have left me for a Spanish barman, but ideally I want enough to buy a nice suburban property, to send my kids to the same school I went to, and to be able to spend my sixties doing what my parents do - golfing and touring the world.
Also, extending this post, which kind of billionaires would you guys want to be and why: Tech billionaire or Wall Street Billionaire(i.e. a Hedge Fund billionaire) or any other type of billionaire
Enough to tell my boss to go fuck himself.
Totally agree
^this. A thousand times this.
$20m-$30m for early retirement (probably includes 3-5m home). This amount is a great lifestyle in a HCOL area, ensures being able to give kids a head start in life (both any education they want + a monetary safety net to allow them to take risks or live comfortably when they're young), many very nice vacations per year, rent a nice home out east for 2 months, pursue expensive passions if I ever develop them (e.g. go back to school to study a subject I'm interested in), maybe a crazy spend every 3ish years ($200k top-of-the-line safari).
Also allows flexibility to move to nice but lower cost areas and never worry about money.
The trick is the goal is not to get there when I'm 60 and too old to really enjoy it (no more time with the kids, body can't take the same beating, etc.)
I was gonna post pretty much the same exact thing so I'll just piggyback off yours. Only thing I would change is adding a second home in Poland for 1-2m
I'm confused on having your kids live comfortably when they're young, especially with rich parents. Seems like a recipe for disaster down the road, although I guess it all depends on the definition of "comfortably".
Dream is to get to a point where you're playing with house money. For me that's getting to a point where i can comfortably manage my own money and still provide great life for myself and family w/o having to take outside capital (albeit I might if it's offered to me on my terms). prob $10m liquid is fair. Could be more or less.
what type of money management are you thinking about with 10m other than broad market investing?
equities mostly. maybe some real estate. maybe some crypto. The point though is to get to a point where I don't have to work for anyone again and do whatever I want while still having a family that'll thrive. I'd start my own fund / biz at this point.
As a PE associate, I live more luxuriously now than I’ve ever lived before, and can essentially do anything I want, and still manage to save my bonus every year.
When I say want, I mean actually want — nice dinners, nice vacations, trips with friends, drinking with friends, buying random shit. Sure, everyone dreams about yachts, ski homes, etc, but if you asked me if I’d sell my soul for another 10 years to guarantee that life, I’d say no every time. Those kinds of dreams don’t make you happy.
if I could keep making ~$300K/yr (adj. for inflation obviously), and keep ratcheting down my hours until I retire, I would be happy as fuck and still better off than I’ve ever lived before.
Does this account for having a family?
Stop asking about the fucking family shit dude lmfao. All of America can afford to have a family making way less than $300K so I’m sure this would be fine. There’s a lot of childhood expenses, sure, but there’s a fuckton of superfluous and ridiculous spending on childcare that is entirely unique to privileged upper middle class families that aren’t necessary whatsoever. Does that answer your question?
You couldn’t satisfy Jessica Alba or Jennifer Aniston with this PE money.
Don't have a number, but my goal is to make enough to live a comfortable upper-middle-class lifestyle in a good neighborhood with a good school district and to be able to take 2 - 3 nice family vacations per year and have a fully funded retirement. In an ideal world, I'll fail upwards into a role that I'm content with enough such that I don't feel pressured to retire at any specific time and can continue to clip my annual W2 salary coupons for as long as I please - I am well aware this isn't the way to true wealth but that's not what I'm after anymore. I've hit the point in life where I value stability over anything else. Not sure what it is yet, but I want to start a side hustle to generate some extra cashflow on the side, but that will be more of a labor of love and any and all of that income will flow straight to savings. That said I'm sure when asked again in 2, 5, 7, and 10 years from now, I'll have a different answer each time as life isn't so linear or predictable.
Couldn't have said it better!
$1 billion in 2019 dollars.
€5M + house in Istanbul + a boat
Realistically, $200k/yr net in 2022-dollars for annual spending. I don't enjoy where big financial companies are located, so I'd like to retire relatively soon to be able to move to a lower COL place. With a 3% withdrawl rate and assuming 20% tax rate, that puts the NW req at slightly over 8 mil. With my current position, I'm on track to hit that before age 40.
Enough to have what makes me happy. Family, health, shelter, a bunch of cash flowing real estate, and maybe a couple kids and a dog.
A huge philosophy on making tremendous wealth lies in the understanding of global economics & finances. The reliance of the democrats on fake media is apathetic and for the rich to manipulate world economics. Although I’ll admit I belong to such class of citizens but before I could afford to be here called wealthy I had to liaise with a good hedge fund and stock trade manager that increased my current networth then from 70,000$ to $4.3 million in just 1 and a half year and still growing. If you have my knowledge, connections and network you’ll never see poverty and definitely profit financially.
Care to elaborate on this meteoric journey?
It's a scammer's account, read their other comments.
Just bought a modest house, but the kind of house that I would build onto if my income doubled/tripled etc rather than the kind of house that I'd want to get the hell out of once I was making a lot more. So that changes the game for me- I want somewhere between $3-10M invested so that I can live off of $100-200k by drawing down 2-3%. That is the range I make right now, but I pay the mortgage and am saving 30-40% pre tax. So with the mortgage paid off and no further need to save, just spending that amount every year would be enough.
If you are modestly frugal, it's a comfortable life.. anyone who thinks you can't have a family and a decent home on 100-200k pay probably expects a new car every 3 years, eating out all the time, etc. Though I will concede that we intend to homeschool the kids- if you are looking at certain private schools suddenly you need a lot more money to cover education.
As my income grows and my savings/retirement potential increases, the goals I'd add are a winter home, and/or a decent cabin cruiser ($500-700k ish Regal, Carver) for sailing The Loop, the Gulf, going to South America, etc.
That's the dream my friend
Wanna be rich enough so I don't have to worry about AC being left switched on for the whole night.
P.S I know that I can use a timer but don't trust the shitty timer of my AC.
Tres Commas club
It’s called the “Three Comma club.”
Post-tax retirement income of $250K (so maybe $8M in investments), house is fully paid off, with a retirement home in FL (also fully paid off) and kids college tuition fund is set aside. I am done at this level.
Its enough for multiple international vacations a year.
Sometimes being a billionaire is not as fun as it seems. So much pressure and you never truly get to enjoy your life.
10 million liquid and I buy a villa in Milos, live peacefully rest of my life
In my opinion, people BS saying money doesn't provide happiness. And those saying it doesn't in my opinion don't make nearly as much as the ones who say money brought them joy. I think you should never aim for a benchmark, you should have a changing goal. I want to make 100k, once you make a 100k, increase that goal. With money you provide not only yourself with the luxury you worked for, you also give back to the people you have helped raise you. The moral of this TedTalk is that don't worry about making too much money where you are overwhelmed and stressed with life until you truly have got to that point in your life!
$60MM in various assets. Massive farm in my third world country where i'd live with my family, live off the land and chase any intruder with a shit ton of guns
Christian Grey/ Walter White kind of rich.
Didn’t Walter White top out at $80m?
The earliest of 40y old and 3m$ liquid + house paid to leave the rat race and focus on a much more balanced lifestyle.
Enough to own a townhouse and a castle in the South of France plus get a PhD and become a professor without sweating any of that.
Billionaire hedge fund manager is the goal
this is the way
$100mm total net worth by 60
I don't need to be rich nor do I think about being rich. I care about freedom and security. I don't need to buy Jack squat. What I want is the comfort of knowing come hell or high water me and mine are safe. That means enough in the bank for years of living expenses.As the man said in the Gambler.
“You get up two and a half million dollars, any asshole in the world knows what to do: you get a house with a 25 year roof, an indestructible Jap-economy shitbox, you put the rest into the system at three to five percent to pay your taxes and that's your base, get me? That's your fortress of fucking solitude.That puts you, for the rest of your life, at a level of fuck you. Somebody wants you to do something, fuck you. Boss pisses you off, fuck you! Own your house. Have a couple bucks in the bank.”
1B would do it for me. Not sure if I'll have the same answer when I get there.
100 million and I can die
“Who is wealthy? One who is happy with his lot!” (Avot 4:1)
I ran a fun lotto budget to see what I could do with $25 million; everything I want/think is important totaled around $7.5 million all in. Based on that I think I could live quite comfortably with a $10-15 million net worth.
Who is truly rich
A Christian parable
A man was asked of an old man if he was rich.
- I don't know," he replied. - I only know that he has a lot of money.
- Does that mean he is rich?
- Being rich and having a lot of money are not the same thing," said the elder. - One who is really rich is the one who is satisfied with what he has. A man who tries to have more than what he has is poorer than a man who has nothing but is content with his lot
2.5 million by 30.
7.5 million by 35.
25 million by 45.
45 million by 55.
75 million by 65.
This seems kind of weak, especially from you.
Just a little bit more ...
Has to be 9 figures before I stop - I enjoy this too much to ever want to retire.
House is paid off in a HCOL area. Inherited a beach house in a desirable area, just had to pay taxes on that. And don’t indulge in conspicuous luxury purchases so we keep our spending low. Live more than comfortably on $300k income day-to-day.
Went all in on stocks and housing in 07-10 and those gains gave me so much flexibility. Real estate is kicking off $400k after taxes now and that all goes right back to purchasing more. Don’t know I’ll ever sell any of it off, but I’m sure I’ll need to harvest a portion of these earnings to pay for college in a decade.
All early stock gains and subsequent earnings have gone to investments in private companies. Partners and I are just reinvesting all capital back in the businesses - we can’t wait for the recession so we can pick up some cheap add-ons and do some capex with vendors willing to give out discounts. Goal is, in a decade, to harvest these investments and be sitting on ~$50mm and then be in a position to make bigger bets and really juice the net worth.
I like.
Very
Whatever it takes to stockpile multiple barrels of Ardbeg, Laphroaig, Bruichladdich, and Talisker.
When I was in undergrad the number in my head was $200MM. Now its $400MM. A billion would be nice...
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