What's your minimum viable amount to "retire" (feel financially independent, whether or not you decide to keep working on things you find worthwhile)?
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The trouble is the hedonic treadmill; I think people tend to adjust fairly quickly to whatever their lifestyle is, and people with healthy imaginations can always imagine something better.
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I am puzzled by those answering >5m. At a 3% real return (which is low) that gives you the equivalent of 150k in income. How is that not enough to feel financially independent?
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Without knowing the age of the respondents, the answers are probably not very meaningful. Maybe better repeat the poll for specific age brackets?
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I'm curious to know who plans on retiring in the U.S. or overseas (for U.S. citizens).
Depends quite a bit where you want to live.
In southern europe, where it is warm, safe and cheap, 500k on a etf or stuff like that , lets you live prosperously without even worrying about anything.
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I’m aiming for just under a million, paid for house or condo and no debt at all , if it’s decently invested I can more than live off the interest without touching the nest egg, then the nest egg can be for old age health issues long term care to big expenses that pop up
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500-1.5m with the presumption that I would keep working, but doing things I enjoyed doing. Closer to 2~mil if I anticipated to stop working. I could probably pull that off with 1~ but then I'd feel restricted about going in on interesting projects.
Either I’m bad at math or most people have a very different definition of what the word ‘viable’ means—and whether ‘compromise’ is included in that definition.