Your Number?

Working the long hours of financ and enjoying your pay from time to time, have you ever wondered what you would do when your retired or when that will be? What do you think would be your number to leave and never think about coming back?

 

I just need half of that $50m then I am moving to a third world country like Brazil, DR or Colombia and live the rest of my life like a king surrounded by hot Latinas gold diggers who doesn't know what real money is. Then die of overdose by the age of 60.

Damn just realized my dream is to die like a successful drug dealer.

Cocky millionaire
 

What's your thinking behind the scenario to retire in the early 30s with 2 million? At a life expectancy of 80-85 the 2 million would have to last you 50 years. You could invest 2 million at a real rate of 7% and with a capital gains tax of 25% you'd get 105,000 per year. But any hiccup in return or spending in the first decades could have an outsized effect later down the line. Also, if you want to have children or travel as often as many middle-class retirees do the calculation would look a lot less friendly.

To answer the question, I would feel comfortable retiring tomorrow if I had 5 million.

Array
 

If you like what you do the number becomes insignificant. As long as your career is growing in a positive manner and you can live comfortably you’re in a much better position than disliking your job and waiting for a number to cash out. You might not even hit it.

 

$6,000,000

$2MM to buy house outright, could probably get away with less

$4MM at 5% return = $200,000 but reinvest $80,000 (2%) a year, live off of $120,000 a year is very comfortable if housing is eliminated

Use the rest as down payments for some rental properties, use that cash flow to just give away to loved ones.

I would also like to be an adjunct professor, lecture a few classes and get a good enough salary to give away to loved ones. Teach at a local state school to help those who didn't grow up knowing about the potential of going further in life.

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” - Nassim Taleb
 

CA property taxes aren’t too bad compared to other parts of the country

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” - Nassim Taleb
 

LA property taxes are 1.16%. So that's 23,200. Assuming your $25k a year upkeep (seems sort of steep, $2MM gets you a good sized home but not always a megamansion out here), that's $48,200 in expenses.

That leaves you with $71,800 to live off of. That's nearly $6k a month of absolute spending money. Savings are already accounted for (that $80k reinvestment), so it's really just food/ travel/ fun/ kids. I don't have kids so maybe I'm underestimating how expensive they are.

I am also not into designer clothing or luxury items. I'm most comfortable in jeans a v neck from Target (off topic but they have amazing clothes, highly recommend. Really cheap and very high quality for Goodfellow & Co clothing). My fiancee (presumably wife in this scenario) is the same.

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” - Nassim Taleb
 

You are correct. There is something to be said for not needing to keep up with anything though. Being able to just be “done” keeping up with a mortgage is more of a mental thing. But your solution does reduce that number significantly.

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” - Nassim Taleb
 

I’ve thought about becoming a professor closer to retirement too, I feel like that would be a cool gig, some higher level advanced classes and maybe a couple entry level ones too, just fuck around with students.

Quant (ˈkwänt) n: An expert, someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.
 
Wu_Tang Financial:
$69,420

Seems very low. 69 420 80085 seems more reasonable

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” - Nassim Taleb
 

Lol - I see what you did there... brings back the old upside down calculator days from middle school (i.e. before we had TI-83's)

 
Most Helpful

Not sure there's a real number for me. I recently returned to finance from what I imagined was my early retirement. I got divorced, at age 30, a little over a year ago I sold my practice, my vehicles, and sold my house in Nashville. After liquidating everything and giving my ex-wife her surrender fee, yes marriage is an annuity... , took a 6 month break from the business all together. All said and done I walked with about 800k in my pocket, and left all the qualified shit alone to the tune of another 400k.

I moved up to Ohio to be close to my daughter, and ended up buying my little cottage on Lake Erie, and updating the beach shack since it was mostly original to construction (1912). Hired an interior designer to tell me which couch would get me laid the most, she basically just ordered all the shit off the home page of Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams. I then bought a mid 2000's 911 turbo for my fun car, and I 2003 MB G55 for my daily driver. Downloaded Tinder only to realize once I had a date that my wardrobe only consisted of Navy and Black Suits, a hand full of trousers, dress shirts, my tie collection, and a single pair of jeans. Decided that being a unemployed 30 year old in business causal might be a little odd so I had to go buy some "normal" clothes. I proceeded to get day drunk and started ordering shit on Neiman Marcus. At this point I convinced myself I had everything I wanted and could enjoy my new retired life on the income from my medical retirement from the military, and minimal draw from my non qual money.

My daily ritual consisted of waking up around 7/8 to enjoy the sunrise, riding my bike to the hipster coffee shop to fuck off on my laptop/read till around Noon, then I would go home and mess around the house until I took some twenty something tinder chick to dinner or something downtown, typically take them back home for a solid 5 minutes of magic and send them on their way, and goto bed. After about 2 months of this the novelty had worn off, and I needed an adventure, so I took a trip to Europe to hang out with my buddy Paul in London, who's in a similar boat. Partied at the normal spots for a couple of weeks, then we decided to goto Patagonia and Chile to explore for a few weeks overlanding in an old LR Defender. Had a great time, saw some cool shit, did some dumb shit, and figured my batteries were charged up to head home.

Once I got back home and I was bored within a week. Obviously I needed a hobby, maybe one that makes money... like a job? Fuck, I had been retired 3 months and missed working already! Within a month I found my current job and now I'm not bored anymore.

So what did I learn? Well first thing I'll say is that you should have a specific goal for all the time your going to have in retirement. If you don't have one time goes pretty slow without a purpose. Next, 30 is too damn young to retire, all of your friends will still be at work so plan on going to networking or become a hermit. Then consider that normal retirement calcs are based on normal spending patterns. It's not fucking normal to be retired at 30, so plan saving at least an extra 30% of your estimated needs to support all the extra energy you'll have compared to your 60 year old counterparts. Finally, buy/do more of the shit you want now if you can afford it. I had been saving pretty hardcore prior to my little social experiment/third life crisis to have the option to retire early. I clearly underestimated the PV of treating myself. Overall I would recommend taking a sabbatical before you decide to retire, much like my marriage it wasn't as good I had hoped.

 

Did you drive down the Carretera Austral and went on the boat crossing the lake to Mount Fitzroy in Argentina? I spent a few months after high school working in the village there. Loved the untouched nature.

Array
 

You basically described the life of an entrepreneur. Sort of. It's horse shit the "I work 24 hours a day on my startup", don't know any entrepreneur who does that unless you count the hours on facebook in your WeWork... I am most productive in the morning, so wake up at 9 - work about 3 hours then fuck around wonder what I am doing with my life. Have a minor panic attack, remember that I have money and my own house, then just remember that I am going to have to be paying for private school soon enough, have another panic, then realise it's in only two years so I should have my business ready by then. Have a pint of beer calms the nerves down and then relax. I've had plenty of time so I have been hosting all my friends for dinner for the past 3 months - I am essentially cooking all week end, my wife loves it. She doesn't work either as look after the kids.

Point is - you don't have a walk away number cause you can't just sit on your ass and do fuck all. You'll go mad. CloseMinded hit it spot on.

 

Lol at people saying 50-100mm like that’s not when you can REALLY get shit rolling. It’s also not like your gonna have the drive/ambition to make it there and just stop. If it’s an inheritance or lump sum, sure maybe you’ll stop, but the two people I know with net worth of 50mm+ definitely don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

Gun rights activist
 

I honestly try to keep my greed in check. Greed will fuck with your head. I was in an incredible ibanking & PE hybrid rotation program. I let greed fuck with my head and made the leap to a high-returning PE shop in China, chasing the golden dragon. Bad move. Never managed to get the train fully back on track after that.

One of my colleagues in the rotation program went into sales and trading and got some peachy HF accounts. He complained to one of them over drinks that his bonus sucked. He let greed fuck with his head. Mgmt of the bank found out and he was fired the next day.

It's not that we're not already greedy of course. It's a prerequisite for being here in WSO. But keep greed in check or you'll make dumb mistakes as it will F- with your head.

 

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. Don't drink. That's all I have to say to anybody on any social level. Did your grandfather take risks? I guarantee he did it from a position of fuck you. A wise man's life is based around fuck you. The United States of America is based on fuck you. You're a king? You have an army? Greatest navy in the history of the world? Fuck you! Blow me. We'll fuck it up ourselves.

 

$2m post taxes. set aside $1m for angel investing/hobby companies, $500k in retirement, $100k small house in BR $50k car rest i can play wit.

"Out the garage is how you end up in charge It's how you end up in penthouses, end up in cars, it's how you Start off a curb servin', end up a boss"
 

I think about this a lot and my number is probably lower than most peoples here.

I need about £800k for a house in London and €500k for a cabin somewhere in the alps (somewhere low key and close to great off -piste skiing).

I'll split my time between London and France skiing in winter, hiking in summer, reading and writing. I might also do some study in my own time (distance learning) towards a degree in a subject that interests me (philosophy, psychology, physics most likely or economic history).

I'll pursue my other interests like martial arts and music and will hopefully be in a position by then to earn small amounts on the side from these endeavors.

I'll sleep 9 hours a night, wake up when I want and meditate for 1 hour a day. I'll play some chess and get a dog. I'll walk a lot with that dog and drink a pot of good strong coffee every day.

I may work towards a phd (depending on how study goes) and try to teach later in life. Relationships are very important to me, and I believe it is an essential to cultivate friendships with many people. I will always have a well stocked drinks cabinet and wine cellar for when friends visit.

I'm not sure what else there is?

All in all, around $4k per month would give me a very comfortable lifestyle. $48k per year...basic rule of thumb is multiply by 25 so I would need about $1.2m. Think I can hit that number along with mortgages paid off on the two properties by age 50.

I have a very different view of life than I had 10 years ago so who knows where I'll be or how I'll view things in 10 or 20 years. But that is the plan for now and it seems ok to me.

 

You're asking a few different questions there. (Almost) absolutely no one "walks away" from banking. You've worked too hard to get to that point and you're making too much to just walk away. What happens is you get pushed out more due to personalities and politics. If you're asking how much I would need to have to be ok retiring after being canned, then it would be $15mm in securities and investment property. If I'm still managing my book and making money and getting paid, there's no way I'm just leaving on my own choice.

 

A lot of successful people on this forum say that past a certain point, money doesn't matter that much anymore. What is this threshold for most people?

 

When I win that multi million dollar parlay (acca for the brits) on the Horses I will retire until then I will grind through university and fight for that analyst job and work my ass of so I can lose money on the horses and every other thing I bet on.

 

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