Comment by agentwiggles | Hacker News Reader

Comment by agentwiggles | Hacker News Reader

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I was recently fantasizing about winning the lottery and had the somewhat funny realization that I really couldn't think of what _things_ I'd want to buy. I'd buy a nice but not extravagant house, on a nice but not huge piece of land, and just enjoy having the free time to do things like spending time with my family and playing guitar.

In short, what I want out of life is largely not material things, but just a nice place to exist and pursue my interests.

I realize, of course, that nothing about this is particularly radical, I don't expect this comment to blow anyone's mind. By my estimate a cool 8-10 million would be more than sufficient for me to have basically everything I ever wanted - i.e. buy the aforementioned nice home and then live comfortably off the returns for the rest of my days.

If any recently minted tech billionaires reading this would like to donate to the cause of me fucking off from society to the woods, feel free to shoot me an email ;)

If I won powerball lotto money, I'd want a big plot of old growth timber with a decent sized creek running through it. I'd build a small cabin, run fiber internet to it, and I'd be good.

I'd bet that combination is rare. Especially old growth forest with fiber internet access, but with powerball money I'd bet I could find something.

If you haven't yet, I'd recommend to check out the FIRE movement (Financial Independence, Retire Early). You probably need much less than 8-10 million to exist and pursue your interests indefinitely. I'd recommend the blog by Mr. Money Mustache as a good entry-point.

Yeah, I'm a fan of the ethos, although pretty far behind on the implementation.

One article I really like from that blog is this one: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/08/19/urban-tribe/

It's more than a little bit counter to the idea of "fucking off from society to the woods", though. Still, a man can dream of total independence :)

Also, re: the amount of money - you're absolutely right. 5m at the 4% safe withdrawal rate is 200k a year which would be way more than enough. I'll start the bidding at 2.5m for those aformementioned tech billionaires (what a steal! this deal won't last! act fast!)

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