Life changing money - how much would it take?

I've thought about that too. My family thinks I'm nuts, but I'd rather win the "small" prize. The big one is just too public, too much responsibility...too life-changing. I talk about what I'd do with it, but actually being in that position would be very stressful in a way.



::yes:: I am so not into drama!

I'm going to say $800,000 (after taxes) would be enough for me to move (read, build my dream house) so I guess that's the life-changing level. Below that, I'd probably put it toward less dramatic things - pay off debts, DS's college tuition, trips, improvements to our current house, extra in the retirement savings...mostly things that would happen anyway, but faster and better.

I said $500,000 because I think we could get the house and land we want for that. We have enough equity in our current house to pay it off and misc debt (a car, student loans, etc). So if we then kept working and had no student loan payment, mortgage, or car payment...that would allow us to travel more and save for a better retirement and save more for kids college. Having that assurance would be "life changing" for me. Now, we will probably get there anyhow, but it would be nice.

Anything between say $1-$4 million and we would be in the gray area of it being a ton of money, so much that we may have to quit our jobs, but not so much that it would replace healthcare, salary, other benefits, etc. for the rest of our lives (we are still in our 30s), especially if it got mismanaged or if friends, family, general onlookers decided to sue us or mess with our personal security.
 
I'm in the camp that it would take a few million.

A friend of the family, came into some unexpected inheritances over the last few years. The only change that we can see is that they fly first/business class now for long haul flights. And they are taking some Adventures By Disney trips. Otherwise, they still are the "way more frugal then us" in their daily life. So I think that's what it would be for us, if we found ourselves with hundreds of thousands of dollars. It might change some aspects of life, but not the overall trajectory. No one would quit a job, wouldn't move into a house that is larger than most normal people (although, we would want a house upgrade, we only have a 940 sq foot house + basement). We grew up in the PacNW and left to find affordable housing. It would take probably a million dollars just to allow us to move back home and feel comfortable about maintaining our current lifestyle.
 


I think about 4 million would be life changing for me and my kids. It would allow me to send my kids to college debt free, purchase the house I wanted to live in for the rest of my life, buy the car I wanted and put more money away for old age. Of course, there’s the added perk of being able to retire immediately and begin traveling to all of the places on my bucket list....
 
$2 million. Add that to what I have, and we'd definitely be on easy street. DH could quite his job tomorrow, and could afford to buy health insurance on the open market for the next few years until Medicare kicks in.
 


$10,000 would help to make our lives a little easier in the present by allowing us to pay off a car and the only credit card we have, which would free up a few hundred dollars every month, at least until the car needs to be replaced in a few years.

$100,000 would allow us to sell our house and have enough of a down payment to get another one in our same neighborhood that we would currently be priced out of if we were to get anything bigger/better than what we have now (2000 sq ft, updated/renovated homes in my neighborhood are going for up to $500-750K)

$250-$300K would allow us to pay off our current home

Another ~$150-$200K and we could send all three kids to college if they were smart and choose in-state schools.

But to be TRULY life-changing, I would think we would need around a million or two, or more. Anything lower would definitely make life easier, but we would still be working and paying our bills in monthly increments.
 
Last edited:
I can’t tell you why they’re not eager to get it but I can almost guarantee that it would be life changing for them only briefly. People who are perpetually broke by their own making and waiting for their ship to come in rarely learn to magically manage money.

I agree.

Another thought came to my mind..

Is it possible they owe money and it's going out the door anyway?
 
I am also in the process of taking care of my mom's estate.

They have helped out all of us siblings over the years. This last amount won't be life changing but I am thankful and appreciate any $ that comes our way. We are very thankful.

I am not sure what would be a life changer for us........$500,000. - $1,000,000. We are debt free except one car lease.....Make some upgrades on our current home. Help out the kids some more. Start to enjoy life a little. It would makes us splurge a bit more. Set up a few $ for the grandchildren maybe......
 
There are stages of "Life Changing".
1) $13,000 would pay off my car loan.
2) $400,000 would pay off my car loan, and replace both my wife's and my paychecks until we reach full retirement age.
3) $1 million would pay off my car loan, replace both my wife's and my paychecks until we reach full retirement age, and give us a whole lot of travel money.

Funny, because I usually don't play the Lottery unless it is $50 million. And I never bother with scratcher tickets, just not enough prize money.
 
I disagree. Here's my assumptions:

$2,500,000 nest egg (after paying off home and funding college)

$75,000 annual spending (3% withdrawal rate)
less $12,000 healthcare spending (plus or minus, but it's a ballpark)
less $18,750 taxes (using 25% effective tax rate; for what it's worth, the current rates are half that in reality)
leaves $44,250 to "survive" even using these VERY conservative assumptions.

That $44k to live on is positively luxurious when you're not commuting to work and when you're not making a house payment. If you squander $4k a month in addition to housing, transportation, and healthcare, you're living better than probably 95% of Americans and 99.9% of the world.

Per firecalc.com, a portfolio of $2,500,000 with $75,000 annual spending, invested 75% equities and 25% fixed income, over a period of 70 years (assuming I live to 100) has a 100% success rate. That's accounting for the Great Depression, multiple world wars, multiple stock market bubbles, and various other scary things.

FIRECalc looked at the 78 possible 70 year periods in the available data, starting with a portfolio of $2,500,000 and spending your specified amounts each year thereafter.

Here is how your portfolio would have fared in each of the 78 cycles. The lowest and highest portfolio balance at the end of your retirement was $2,500,000 to $104,285,880, with an average at the end of $41,862,843. (Note: this is looking at all the possible periods; values are in terms of the dollars as of the beginning of the retirement period for each cycle.)

For our purposes, failure means the portfolio was depleted before the end of the 70 years. FIRECalc found that 0 cycles failed, for a success rate of 100.0%.

So using actual back tested data, in the WORST 70 year period ever in stock market history, I would die, at age 100 with $2,500,000 in the bank. In the BEST, I'd have $100 million in the bank.

Let's not forget that Medicare will probably still be a thing when I'm older and even if I only get 50% of expected Social Security, that's even more safety margin.

And this is assuming that I never make a single additional dollar from a job, ever.

So yeah, I'm still good with $3 million :)
If you ever are fortunate enough to come into that kind of money, good luck to you. You'll need it.
 
Life changing would be being able to quit our jobs and maintain current standard of living. We’d need a principle amount of money which would generate enough passive income to replace our salaries plus insurance costs without eating much into that principle. Figure 3-5 million after taxes.
 
provide stability for our special needs kids long term.

::yes::::yes::::yes::

can't come up with a set amount but life altering to me would be enough that it would cause me to never give thought again to how much i hope to have in place for ds's support after dh and i are gone (b/c i don't EVER want it to be a financial consideration for dd).



op-so sorry you are going through this. i went through something very similar about 10 years ago (except brother predeceased mother by 10 months so i couldn't settle her estate until his got settled-which was a battle royal with another brother who was one of the perpetually broke/living off mom for decades). would'nt wish it on my worse enemy. it's in large part why dh and i are doing estate planning that entails paying an independant 3rd party to handle EVERYTHING.

My husband predicts that they will blow through it and be broke again in no time

i agree with your dh. i don't know how long it lasted him but my battle royal/perpetually broke brother managed to score several hundreds of thousands of dollars and when he died 7 years after my mom he was indigent again. never heard from him after he got his cut of mom's estate and frankly it took allot of stress away.

take care, it will get finished up at some point.
 
I think at my stage in life, 300,000 or more would make a difference, but it would take 1,000,000 or more to possibly enter the realm of life changing, as that would hopefully produce an extra $30-50,000 a year for life.
 
I'm cheap. I would be very happy with $150,000. $36,000 to pay off our house, $13,000 for our solar and the remainder to be put towards saving for the future. DD has a 4 year prepaid tuition when she graduates high school. My DH will retire in a little over 2 years when the house is paid off
 
We are currently supporting my parents. Enough money so that we don't have to worry about my parents and MIL would definitely be life altering because it would remove a lot of stress and a big financial burden. It's hard to know how much that is because with their medical problems taking care of them will get more and more costly.

Another great help would be money in case my DS12 is unable to hold a decent job when he's an adult. I worry about failure to launch with him. He's got a genius level IQ but he has high functioning autism and ADHD so his social skills and decision-making ability are really lacking.
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!





Top