The issue then becomes how to make use of this extra time without spending money. If you're not employed, spending those extra hours doing 'whatever you want' is a potentially expensive proposition.

Are there that many interesting things you can do all day that really doesn't cost you anything? Maybe WALKING to a local library, but let's get real. Staying at home and watching TV? But that isn't really free, is it? The expense of cable, the electricity, the heat while your watching, the chips your eating while fapping to Kara Scott on last nights PAD.... the tissues necessary to clean up.

$$$ down the drain.

What is the cost of learning?

What is the cost of staying fit?

What is the cost of picking up a hobby that is potentially +EV?

What is the cost of charity work that is +EU?

95% of the population fits into at least 2 of these categories.

I'd be more than happy to give it a shot, and at 54 years old that "forever" part would be a lot less than for the young ballers here.

Buy a small house with a bit of land in a rural area, some gold and silver as an inflation hedge, and put the rest in some kind of total market fund for diversification. $1M would easily be enough for me.

One big tournament win is all that it would take.

thailand FTW

I may qualify for AMT at some point in the future -- I've been trying to find a place on the internet that describes AMT in a clear manner and have been unable to find said place. Could you point me to somewhere that I could learn the ins and outs of AMT?

It is one of the most complex tax laws around.

I already provided the link as to how it relates to munis. I am sure others exist, but probably not all in one place.

3000 hrs? that is a lot of work, 60 hrs a week? you must work in the auto or restaurant business.

If you are good with money, knowing there is a need to invest in something then it can be done quite easily. Open a liquor store and as a absent owner you should be able to pull a easy $1000 a week. That would take about $400,000 off the top of your million, buy a condo for cash another $200,000 for a small one by the beach, put the other $400,000 in the stock market and it should jump up in the next few years. So yes it can be done.

2000 of actual work but then you need to add in the time it takes to get to work and that is on average 10-15/hours a week and for some people 28/hours+ a week. Time getting ready for work again varies greatly depending on what you do. Work drains energy so an extra bit of sleep that you won't need. I was factoring in everything related to employment that will now be gone.

nope 1M ain't near enough.... UNLESS... ur willing and able to live off next to no money for ever

If you never want to have children I think it's pretty doable. I don't think it'd be as enjoyable as some imagine it, but if you can handle the first year of restraining from spending it on ridiculous stuff, then you should be good.

I would definitely need some sort of safety to keep me away from going on a spending binge

Assuming I'm still addicted to video games when I'm 35, I think i could find enough ways to occupy the free time. Not everyone works a 9-5 so finding people to spend time with at any time of day isn't difficult.

Because $30,000 to $40,000 a year is next to no money.

Thats more money then one heck of a lot of people have as take home pay.

Sure you can't live in New York or LA probably...but thats not the point.

30k in 2030 will be next to no money. (about like 10-15k today)

If anyone here happens to have a spare million, I'd be more than happy to prove that it can be done.

please show me where u can make $30 - $40k after tax and inflation adjusted.

I thought about this as well. Then I imagined Patrick Bateman and how he can do 1000 now, and how much time that must take. So 3000 seems reasonable with all the other errata thrown in.

Amusing how posters here cannot even conceive of passive income moving up w/ inflation.

That of course would depend on your risk-reward comfort level. Long-term Treasuries currently yield 4.5%, gold is up way more than that year-to-year, etc.

And if you're any good at poker, a million is one hell of a bankroll. (yeah, okay, that would be work)

using the bulk of $1 mil for rental properties just seems crazy to me. Seems like way to much risk incurred. You've got ongoing maintenance expenses to pay, possibly even more depending on how good your renters are and a lot more headaches than laddering it in bonds with different yields. Why not ladder it in bonds? local, national government, international and junk and a little < 200k in Canadian oil trusts and income producing ETFs? Seems like an easy way to get yield (1-10%+) and even some appreciation.

yep i think this is on the right track. but we don't have to put the whole 1 mil in one class of bonds. We can spread it into different yields and re-balance locking in long-term appreciation that will keep pace with inflation. We can spread it in long-term bonds, short-term, corporate, international, junk, etc.

This all depends on your standard of living. If you own any properties this can be done easily. If you were a blank slate and suddenly happened upon 1 million dollars, the car you drive and the place you rent will decide whether or not this is feasible. In terms of living above the poverty line, doing so with 1 million is easy.

10% cap rates just grow on trees and are purely passive. lalo

It's called "laddering". Common technique for passive investors.

yeah i know. i was just explaining it.

$5M pre-tax is effectively 2.5M after tax. That's fine if you're 20 and want to continue that lifestyle as a 20 year old with nothing to spend their money on.

The other part that was contentious when we discussed this the first time was how much you could make on average per year on that money. The arm chair investor can easily say you can make 15-20% in RE, it's certainly doable... I settled for 7% in my calculations as I think it's probably closer to the what you'd really make. But the point of our excersize was discussing how much you'd need to never work again. I think owning rental properties would be work. Then on top of that you have to pay taxes on your income while still covering inflation. So even if you made a 15% return every year, it's 3% gobbled up by inflation, and whatever is leftover of your 12% after taxes is what you get to live off of. It's probably between 6-9%. If you apply that to the 1M that's 60-90K obviously.

So the bottom line is that "it depends". If you're willing to do a little work with your money it'd be easy to retire from $1M. If you wanted to stare at the walls, you probably couldn't be "comfortable"

I want Henry to post in here with something like: "How can you freaks live on < 300k a year?!?"