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Comment by carlosjobim | Hacker News Reader

A person has to be completely financially incompetent not to have a very good life on $10k per month – no matter where in the world.

Or an expensive drug habit, or paying loan sharks, etc.

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> A person has to be completely financially incompetent not to have a very good life on $10k per month – no matter where in the world.

I don't agree, or at least it depends what "a very good life" looks like, but that's not the point, and I think it's just a strangely framed association between MRR and retirement, which is usually discussed in terms of an aggregate at some specific point.

If I make $10k a month as revenue and take it all as salary, I'm left with probably ~$7k or less after taxes, assuming I'm not paying an accountant, doing all my own paperwork, all the usual caveats. That's potentially a great salary depending on lots of factors, but it's only a retirable amount if a very healthy portion of that goes directly to retirement savings/investment. If you don't own a home yet, it's easily possible that $2-4k of that could go right into shelter costs, $1-2k to miscellaneous daily expenses and bills or transit. It's great if you're single, own a home, have no dependents, are frugal, have roommates etc... and as an income in retirement at a typical retirement age, it's probably pretty great in many cases, but as a young person you'd need to keep it up for a few decades consistently to retire on it, and idk how safe a bet it is that a small project would continue earning that money long term.

All of that might be implied, or it might not, idk anything about the person who posted it originally, but $10k a month after paying for a high CoL mortgage or rent, food, a kid, I just don't see it. $10k a month USD living in SF? $10k a month AUD living in Sydney? What about $10k a month CAD living in London?

There's just not enough information to make such a confident assertion, imho.

the purpose of the expensive property in the high COL city is to be near the best jobs. 10k MRR is recurring, it is not a job, it continues if you stop working, it is an asset that can be sold, it means you never need to be employed by someone else ever again. Recurring revenue also grows, 10k MRR today is 20k MRR in 2 years if you work it, which you have time to do because you are not wage slaving your life away at your job making other people rich, clocking your hours and vacation time for those 4% raises while the business doubles revenue. 10k MRR means you are now free to do literally anything with your life that you want, such as grow your business if your number is 50k MRR or whatever, which is $600k annualized and at 8x saas revenue multiple can be sold for 5 million which makes you top 99.9%† net worth in the world.

†Fact check: not top 99.97 I as originally stated, just top 99.9 according to https://docs.dpaq.de/17706-global-wealth-report-2021-en.pdf - $1M threshold = top 1.1%; $5M threshold = top 12% of the 1.1%

> the purpose of the expensive property in the high COL city is to be near the best jobs.

Yes, in theory, and in most cases, among many others.

The rest of your comment provides useful context, and I agree, it's a great place to shoot for and build from, such that if it grows to those numbers it's certainly possible to rely on in full retirement mode.

While $10K was a rough number, the same can be said about $20K .. it "should be", "relatively easier" to get to that solo .. the point is should you aim for that, or aim for much bigger .. which will mak you realistically hit that goal .. and my perspective had been that aiming big, while starting small (smallest complete unit to get you to a reasonable income). What you do after is another story.

> [...] what "a very good life" looks like [...]

The great American philosopher Russ Hanneman comes into mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oV4IVy8tvE

$10k/month (after taxes) for the rest of your life? Ok, I agree. But if it’s just for the next couple of years, it’s certainly not a game changer.

20 years ago, sure. The US has become obscenely expensive since then. Two kids in preschool at the same time in the US will be about $3000-3500/month. Add a mortgage on top of that and that $10k has mostly evaporated.

If you're falling for such scams then you'd have to put yourself into the "financially incompetent" category. You can hire a nanny for less that will take much better care of your kids.

Cost of a full time nanny is about 3000/month in a high col area. Childcare for small kids is expensive, and while it may be a scam, it’s a scam most parents I know have no choice but to pay into.

Describing mortgage payments as a scam seems pretty out there. Renting isn’t any cheaper, and with a mortgage at least your home is an investment

I was referring to childcare. That's just insane and you're being ripped off. That's like buying toothpaste for five hundred dollars per tube, just a solid scam no matter how you flip it. Regarding mortgages, I think that's another discussion.

It’s just what it costs though. What’s the alternative for a two-income family? A full time nanny isn’t cheaper.

An alternative that makes sense is that two families share the cost of a nanny for four kids, and the kids can visit at each other's homes. There's always a way when there's a will. But there's never a way if there isn't a will.

...a family

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