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Comment by hrabago | Hacker News Reader

$5M is definitely not retirement money if you're only 30 years old. I figured at that age you'd need about $15M, and even at that you'd need to make sure you invest it properly to at least keep up with inflation.

I've always thought that FYM and retirement money are two different concepts. If I had FYM, I can quit my job. I would still be looking for what's next, but I can take my time. (Usual disclaimers apply re: deadlines)

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$5M is surely retirement money at 30. At benchmark inflation that is $1.5M when you are 90 years old.

If you can earn just 1% a year (in real terms) on that cash, you'll be fine. (At $100k annual expenses, you'll drop 1% per year. That'll still last a lifetime.)

I'd have no problem extracting 250,000 in annual income from 5 million, after it's been invested for a year. Whether or not that's enough t decide to go walkabout depends on the person.

What would your strategy be to get that 5%?

Tax free municipal bonds.

Come back and tell me about dumping all your money into tax-free municipal bonds in two years.

<neutral question> What is the reasoning behind your comment?

See btilly's comment that mentions them. There is a lot of chatter about bankruptcy. It's still just chatter, with a small number of exceptions. Let us all hope it stays that way.

Mind you, I'm not guaranteeing they'll all go away, but it won't take very many bankruptcies for your returns to go below inflation. (Or worse.)

I might invest in specific municipalities, if that's possible for a mere mortal investor, but I wouldn't think it's necessarily a safer assert class than anything else right now.

Here's one recent link (far from the only long-form article I've read; reminds me of some of the articles I read before the tech and housing bubbles burst):

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_2_municipal-bonds.html

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