231–240 of 349 posts
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Life has whatever purpose you give to it. That's it.
Yes, but is fundamentally true that humans don't really have any other reason for existence than to make more humans. So it makes sense that it's the easy button for manufacturing purpose.
Do people here like working? That's a thing that often seems missing from these wealth optimization conversations. I love working. I don't love working all day. But I got into programming because I love programming and then I found that I also love what I can build through programming and what people do with the things I build. I spent a lot of my career leveling up my situation so that it was more of doing those thi…
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> Why do you think that? All the numbers work out. Even in your hypothetical scenario, investing 100k for 7 years, especially in the last 7 years, would easily bring you 1M total investments. My point was that to show that the only way to get this to work out was to make everything work out perfectly, from getting the authors highest quoted day rate of $1000/day on every single day of every single contract from the s…
What are those expensive hobbies and luxuries? My hobbies cost about zero (making music, doing the occasional woodworking, reading, walking). Travel can be expensive but it can also be quite cheap and is very dispensable. Luxuries outside of travel (expensive hotels), I don't even know what they are. I'm sure it's not hard to spend as much money as you want on many different things; but you make it sound as if it was…
Very little of this is strictly necessary but many people do spend money on this sort of thing without conspicuous consumption being involved. Mostly paying only for what you have to pay for is pretty much the definition of a very frugal lifestyle.
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I once shared this outlook, but when one considers their own ideas about the lifestyle "wealthy" entails, and run some numbers, specifically determine the annual spend for that lifestyle, one will quickly realize the truth. A million can be blown in a year, or SWR'd (safe withdrawal rate) at $40k a year indefinitely. Can you retire on $40k a year? Would you want that level of income and lifestyle? Of course this depe…
> Can you retire on $40k a year? Maybe in Europe. No, in the US. Not even close. Even with a paid-off house. Certainly not before "retirement age". Health care is the reason.
So do your mega-backdoor ROTH conversion and take out of that and it doesn't count against the insurance-company subsidy.
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> would easily bring you 1M total investments. I think this is the disconnect with GP, $1M isn't what anyone can really call "wealthy" nowadays. Yes, it's a lot of money, but does not allow one to live what most people consider to be a rich lifestyle.
I absolutely can and will call $1M wealthy. Anyone who thinks it isn't is absolutely living in a bubble.
Average isn't great, I wish they reported median, but anyway that's about 6% of a million, which is a pretty aggressive number.
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I absolutely can and will call $1M wealthy. Anyone who thinks it isn't is absolutely living in a bubble.
I once shared this outlook, but when one considers their own ideas about the lifestyle "wealthy" entails, and run some numbers, specifically determine the annual spend for that lifestyle, one will quickly realize the truth. A million can be blown in a year, or SWR'd (safe withdrawal rate) at $40k a year indefinitely. Can you retire on $40k a year? Would you want that level of income and lifestyle? Of course this depe…
I consider $40k/year pretty good, and definitely enough for me to live comfortably on here in Austin TX (Source: I've lived here for 13 years now, and I'm only just now getting close to spending+taxes [retirement+charity excluded] exceeding $40k as I've started spending more liberally.) I've got friends here getting by on half that.
So no, earning $40k/year as an individual is pretty good. It's only slightly over the 50%ile (but nearly double the 25%ile). Not wealthy.
However, having enough money in savings that you get $40k/year without having to work is something else entirely. A 65-year-old with that nest egg is borderline-wealthy. A 40-year-old with that level of savings is solidly wealthy.
If you can retire by age 40 and still have a higher income than half the country in your retirement, that's wealthy. Sure, you don't have a private jet, but you do have forty hours extra free time each week.
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> But contractor income is not comparable to normal career income because you have to handle additional taxes and health insurance, so this is more like a $150K (plus or minus) full time job once you subtract self-employment taxes and pay for health insurance. What ? I've never heard of a scenario where you get less money after tax as a contractor vs employee, even without doing things like claiming a bunch of everyd…
> What ? I've never heard of a scenario where you get less money after tax as a contractor vs employee It’s called self-employment tax: https://smartasset.com/taxes/self-employment-tax It’s not actually a separate tax. Normally your employer pays these taxes but you don’t see it. When you are a contractor you are self-employed, so as an employer of yourself you have to pay these taxes like any other employer. Some pe…
It's perfectly legal though, not a matter of oversight.
Countries like the UK are now closing these and other loops with IR35 but you can still do that in many places.
You also have the option of not taking money out of the company and use your company to invest your own money, paying up taxes only on the money you need to support your lifestyle.
When you're done living where you're living you can also opt for a stop in Dubai or Portugal with NHR, to withdraw the profits as foreign dividends tax free.
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I once shared this outlook, but when one considers their own ideas about the lifestyle "wealthy" entails, and run some numbers, specifically determine the annual spend for that lifestyle, one will quickly realize the truth. A million can be blown in a year, or SWR'd (safe withdrawal rate) at $40k a year indefinitely. Can you retire on $40k a year? Would you want that level of income and lifestyle? Of course this depe…
$40K is more than the median personal income in the U.S ($35K as of 2019). Plenty of people would consider $40K/year without having to work wealthy. Even in VHCOL areas, $40K/year is fine if you own your own home and your kids are out of childcare years. VHCOL areas are typically VHCOL because of housing prices and their effect on service-provider wagss. If you take them out of the equation and only need to pay for f…
Are you considering "childcare years" to include college? Also, in CA/IL/NJ you could easily spend $15k/yr in property taxes alone. That would leave $25k for everything else. Lastly, the average price of a new car sold in the US is $40k. You can buy used, sure, but these days even those are getting more expensive.