I'm guessing HN is going to have a lower number than the general population because it's relatively easy to get a new tech job.<p>But anyways, what is your figure for FU money?<p>EDIT: I see people are putting down their early retirement number. For some people, "FU Money" is just a year.
I created the doron FU scale, which like the richter scale is not linear:<p>-2: you must file bankruptcy
-1: you may be able to repay your debt
0: you're living paycheck to paycheck
1: you can live for a year without working
2: you can live for the rest of your life without working maintaining the same lifestyle you have now
3: your kids (if any) can live their whole life without having to work
4: you can afford any luxury such as jets and yachts
5: you are in the same league with Gates, Buffet, Ellison, etc.<p>A few notes:
You can find where you are on the scale using a decimal fraction between the integers.<p>Just because level 3 says your kids can live without working does not mean you should strive to achieve that. It is simply a measure of wealth, not a desired outcome for obvious reasons.<p>Just because level 4 affords you jets does not mean everyone should aspire to buy a jet. Again it is mentioned as a reference of what you could attain at that level.<p>In America in my view, amassing $5 million gets you to level 2. The figure could be argued and it fully depends on your style and standard of living. So for you it might be significantly less or perhaps much more. This figure assumes a monthly spend of $20K and a paid off house (paid out of the $5m)
$2M. I could live off that for the rest of my life if I invested wisely and lived frugally, and I'm pretty good at both. I'd live on a sailboat and work on software that there's absolutely no money in, like DragonflyBSD, Wayland, Enlightenment, Haiku, etc. It would be relaxing and fulfilling to be an artist instead of a capitalist.
About 10m. Invest that into 'safe' assets that only produce 3% a year, but do so with low risk and low overheard.<p>300k a year is about the right number to do everything you want to do if you are a family. Buy whatever cars you want (within reason) - travel when you want, eat what you want, live where you want.
Thats the definition of FU money.<p>You can do it for less, but its not FU money if you have to worry about possibly losing your fortune.<p>Kids/family increases the number obviously, if they go to private school/college- Add 50k/yr per kid to that figure above.
About $500k-600k would mean I would not need to work for pay for the rest of my life. Doing whatever I please doesn't cost much money.<p>If I'm only taking one year off, I'd <i>want</i> $20-50k so I could travel, but ~$12k would be more than sufficient for me to drop a job without worry.
Have had this tested recently. I was at a startup that got acquired early by a company I didn't love. Salary, equity vesting + retention package package came to about a little less than $1M/year for 4 years. Took one year and decided it was enough to say "fuck you." So did most of the rest of the team. (Not sure exactly what their #s were.)<p>It was interesting -- if you'd asked me a couple years ago how I would've acted in that situation, I think I'd've told you that for that kind of money I'd be stupid not to stick out four years. But when it actually happened I barely even considered it.
$10k+ MRR (actually monthly recurring take home) with little to no work on my part (ie: 4hrs/wk ish)<p>It's much more likely than me magically getting $5mm+, so I'm going to go with that.
$300k. This would be the perfect amount for me to stop working for someone else, take good care of my family, and have a very large runway to try out some audacious ideas. Then after a few years if I wasn't liking the direction it was taking, I would be in no hard spot and would have done some incredible things, both professionally and with the fam. (To clarify, $300k is the "quit today" amount.)<p>I also think that with that amount of capital it would be more plausible to create a business that would then generate the much higher numbers others are suggesting here.
$1M. I could live off for the rest of my life with this number here in Mexico. Simpler life, side on projects, maybe doing open source, not worring too much about the money.
Well some people love the rich life here!<p>Assuming no need for work, I would say £2.5m to never work again. Tax free savings aren't much in the UK: you can put away £11k per year in an ISA and £40k total in Premium Bonds. For non UK people, ISAs are tax-free savings accounts that can either be cash only, stock only or half cash/stock (but stock only has a higher annual limit).<p>An initial £500k is used to clear any debts, clear the mortgage (or buy a new house) and buy whatever creature comforts are needed e.g. do up the house, buy a nice efficient car, etc. I would probably go and live in Spain and build an eco house, solar is actually decent there and living costs are pretty low (if you don't need to work!).<p>Let's assume a poor rate of return of 3% on the remaining £2m, or £60,000 before tax. The taxman will take 20% of that giving £48,000 to you. £11k of that should go straight back into tax free savings, so you've got £37,000 remaining. Some years you'll do better, some you'll do worse, but you could probably push for 5% without much trouble most years. I think my first port of call would be to hire a very good accountant.<p>That's not a bad salary at all, especially if you own your house, car, etc. It's also more than enough to support dependents, but if you start thinking about private schools then it eats into it a bit. You have plenty to live day to day and enough to go on a good holiday each year.<p>Let's assume you're fairly old when you get this magic windfall and have 40 years left to live. By the time you die, you'll have around a million in the ISA, by the power of compound interest. The bonds will pay out on average 1-2% a year leaving around £80k unless you win the jackpot. You'll also still have your starter £2m.<p>Remember that rich people stay rich because they don't spend money.
there's few different categories of FU money each with increasingly lower probability<p>1 million dollars: doable but very hard. you can finally buy that crack shack in vancouver, bc<p>10 million dollars: could be doable depending how you got to your first million. if it's scalable operation, no problem.<p>100 million dollars: continued growth from previous operation with compounding returns or have been part of a successful startup that was sold.<p>1000 million dollars: founder/co-founder of a company that was sold previously to a very large search engine or social network.<p>10000 million dollars: own majority equity in a very well known public company, inherited.<p>100000 million dollars: run a country that produces oil or cocaine as it's most popular exports. You can't have any competition around. launder it excessively.
3 million.<p>The safe withdrawal rate is between 2-3%, tbh. You've got to eat inflation, down turns, etc.<p>I could live off of 60-90k/year [depending on the market], and not worry too much.<p>However, if you throw in a wife [that brings you to 6 million] and the expectation of kids...its probably like 7-8 million.
$20M at least. To me, the definition of FU money is having enough money to turn down an opportunity to make $1M simply because you wouldn't enjoy the work. Even at $5-$10M, you're still considering those kinds of offers.<p>People are saying much lower amounts in these comments, but one or two million doesn't go nearly as far as people think. When I think about the people I've known that are truly free and are easily able to afford enviable lifestyles, $20M seems to be starting point.
I've always ballparked that if things fell into place with a project and I walked away with 10M or more I'd be out of the game.<p>However the reality is that people who are ok with cashing out and walking away from the table seem to seldom be the ones getting the payoff.<p>EDIT: I don't think a lot of you all know what FU money is. Its enough that you can say "FU" to anyone on the planet and not have any worries about doing so as you no longer need anything from anyone.
F U money in my mind means "could live comfortably and never have to worry about money again." Depending on age, I estimate $10m (I like to travel)
Note: Numbers below would be money in the bank, after taxes.<p>1 million: Takes the edge off, I could support a family, and live a reasonable lifestyle. I'd take up a hobby with the spouse, or work on personal projects to bring in some extra money and to keep busy.<p>2 million: Similar to above, but working is no longer necessary. I could life comfortably and be happy. Of course, I'd need to be careful with my spending, and not drop $1,000 on a bottle of wine. I'm not one for fancy toys, so this could easily be retirement money in my situation.<p>3 million+: Same as 2 million, but I'd just have the option to do everything a little bigger. Higher end cars, larger house, more expensive city, better downtown location, etc. Personally, not necessary, so I'd just bank it, or put it towards a startup.<p>In short, I'll say 2 million is FU money. It provides everything I need in life, it would support a family, and at that point I can leave the rat race.
$50M... that's 10M in spending cash, 40M in investments, and with a moderate rate of return I'm making $2.5-5M a year for the rest of my life...
At 22 years old it's probably around $800k with no wife or kids. According to an annuity calculator I found online, that's about $1100 a month for the next 60 years adjusted for inflation. More than enough to retire outside Europe/NA.
50M for me.<p>8-10M for a house in a perfect location<p>10M at least for retirement<p>10M for living, house taxes, vacations, probably a boat.<p>10M for creating a company, funding it myself at first.<p>The 10M left I would probably share it with family. If I'm the only rich person around my family that would suck. And I have a big family.
About $1m. Enough to buy a house and take care of emergencies/unemployment/travel. I would drive me insane not to be able to program, but it's nice to be picky about what programming you actually do.
If I had 1k BTC, I'd be willing to quit my job and work solely on my passions for a while.<p>If I had 5k BTC, I'd never need to make money again.
$75,070 + however much taxes needed to purchase a Tesla Model S.<p>I literally would not need anything else. I could go wherever I wanted whenever I wanted. I wouldn't have to pay for gas. I'd use Uber to drive people around with zero expenses. I'd sleep in the spacious back seat.