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Comment by DobryMorozov | Hacker News Reader

Being a millionaire isn't enough for most people to retire these days unless you are older or relatively close to death.

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That is a good point. How much is enough should ideally be asked for someone in late 30's, 40's or early 50's. The assumption is being able to live off net worth without compromising on lifestyle. Can someone tell, what is considered a decent net worth these days? ( Keeping the above point in mind)

It’s going to vary a lot depending on where you live and other lifestyle factors. The rule of thumb I have heard is take your yearly expenses and multiply by 25. That should yield enough income from investments to last more or less indefinitely.

$1M should provide you some $30-40k a year in perpetuity. That's actually pretty decent retirement money in most parts of the world, somewhere in the top few percent of the world population by income.

But of course, $2M would be better, provide more buffer against the uncertainty and allow you to retire even in the US.

It really depends on the equity cost of owning a home. Plenty of people want to live in a location where a home would soak up all or a large percentage of $1M.

There's a whole world besides the Silicon Valley bubble and in most of it homes don't cost nowhere near that much. In my home city in europe a decent couple bedroom flat in middle of the city goes for about $30-50k.

If you want to retire in the land with million dollar houses, well duh you gonna need more than $1M, and I'm sure plenty of people would love to have that. But it's not really a necessity. There's plenty of affordable locations for retirement on $1M budget.

There's also a lot of people like me who would rather avoid those expensive areas. Even if I had that sort of money, I'd rather spend it buying 100 acres or so of land and building an average or slightly above average sized house on it. I'd even have money left over.

In the US, you'd need closer to $2M depending on age. If you retire before reaching Medicare age (65ish) you could be looking at $15k per year in medical bills, probably more if you're married or have bigger issues.

I hope I don't get stuck in this stupid treadmill mentality.

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