I’m going to come in on another tangent. I’m not sure any amount of money would make a difference in making the changes I’d really like, because those changes are within.
Several tens of thousands would allow me to get that dental work I’d like, and several hundreds of thousands would allow me to buy land and build a house, and maybe I could get some social training and join a dating service again and all that, but… as I discovered when I went to Helsinki with a crazy back-of-the-mind hope of meeting a girlfriend there (and after arriving, completely failing to impress any of the women there): no matter where I go, I can’t get away from the contents of my own head. Much of my life has been a struggle to make myself a better person, and that struggle goes on, difficult as ever, no matter how much money I have.
A quarter of a million would leave me the same poor grad student I am now, except with debts paid off and money to live off of until I get my degree. A half million would allow me to live comfortably while I finish my degree. Once you hit about a million, I start to question if I really need to bother finishing my degree.
About $1 billion would allow me to be the philanthropist that I’ve always aspired to be. If I can’t have enough to give it all away my life won’t be significantly changed for me. I’ll give it all away a million dollars at a time to worthy people and organizations. That would be so much fun.
I really don’t know what a life changing amount would be. I have paid off my debts and have a healthy savings account. However my real problem is a lack of stable, full time, gainful employment (the 4 years since college have been a mixture of unemployment, temp work and underemployment). The real world is depressing.
I think a decent job with a future would do more for me than a 200k windfall since once the windfall is spent I’m still chronically unemployed and underemployed.
However if I had a 200k windfall I could easily invest it and that alone along with SS would provide for my retirement. So I really wouldn’t have to save money for that anymore.
If anything, maybe as little as 100k would be enough to help secure my retirement (if it had 30+ years to compound faster than inflation, becoming 200-300k by then), along with SS and medicare. Assuming medicare still exists by then. But having enough to know that I don’t have to worry about retirement would help me out a lot and change how I relate to money.
Also, stable health care would be amazing. Enough money to have stable, reliable health care and enough to have a secure retirement. Whatever amount that takes would change my life since I wouldn’t have those issues to worry about saving money for.
$300,000 would make a significant change in my life, because with that sort of money I could buy a nice house outright, plus pay off all my debts. It’s not the sort of money that’d mean never working again, but changes considerably less than that are still pretty damn significant.
A dollar. I could buy a cookie with a dollar. Then, my life would have changed from “not having a cookie” to “having a cookie”. I would eat the cookie, and while you might not count this as a “lasting effect”, I would have the memory of that cookie forever.
For me to consider a higher style of living, I would think it would have to be something over $1 million. I don’t think $1 million would change my life that much, though. I’d still want to live in a house under $300K. I wouldn’t buy a shiny new car. I’d just sock it all away in investments, keep working, and come back in 30 years. I would, however, travel a whole hell of a lot more without feeling guilty about the money I’m spending.
If I had about $500K dropped on me, I’d still do pretty much what I do but I would consider moving and doing it somewhere else. I’m not certain I would, but I’d consider it. I’d also consider taking a year off to travel before I settled into another place.
Anything less than that would just mean more in savings, more/nicer vacations, a few more toys. Nothing would fundamentally change.
Well, there are a couple of nice pieces of land I’d like to buy. Not to build a mansion on but to preserve in their natural state. If I had them, I’d probably will them to the state to make a park after my passing. Probably need a couple million to buy the property. Wouldnt change my life much I guess, but it is something important to me that just ain’t happening unless I get a big windfall.
I’d like to own a nice plane and be able to afford to fly it very regularly. Not a Lear Jet, one of the newer faster single prop 2 passenger (maybe 4) models would be fine. Thats going to run you about 200k. I’d like to fly it to a couple different destinations that are 200 to 400 miles from home on many weekends (close enough to fly but a bit much by car on regular basis). Thats going to run from a couple hundred to a thousand per weekend to run the plane. Then I’ll need some money to either rent cars or buy some to leave at my destination (nothing fancy, just a decent car/truck). So, I’d need something on the order of 50k a year to fly. Need the better part of million to invest to pay for all that flying.
Might be able to swing my flying playboy ways with 300 to 500k. Something between a mill and two would probably have me sitting pretty flying wise.
Just being out of debt would be life-changing for me, so I’d say about $75,000 would be a huge change. No, my lifestyle wouldn’t really change, but my level of worry would drop drastically.
$125,000 (after taxes, of course!) would add a lot to our comfort level: We could pay off those debts, make a down payment on the house we want, move, and upgrade my van and our furniture.
$500,000 would allow us to do all of the above, except pay off the house entirely; plus put away some retirement money and some money for the kids’ college. Maybe take a decent vacation. We’d still have to work, but it’s a lot nicer to know that you have some “kiss my ass” money stuck away.
$5,000,000 would really change our lifestyle. Hubby could retire, or go to part-time duty. I’d continue to work - mainly because I like my job and I would lose my mind without something to do on a regular basis.
And with $10,000,000, I could live my dream lifestyle: Comfortable home, comfortable plans for the future, and enough money in interest that I could travel extensively.
I estimated that it would be the amount to pay off my debt, buy a new house and 2 new vehicles (that are more conducive to my commute) with a buffer of about $50,000 leftover.
As pointed out, ‘change’ is slippery - it could be a cookie or a billion dollars.
I used to think about money changing my life quite a bit, like many here it came down to ‘enough money to do x (which I can’t do now)’. Now I have realized that after ‘x’ comes ‘y’ and so on, so for me there may not be a real answer to the question. Life would change, but another change might then be desired. More money might a lessening of anxiety over one thing, just to become anxious over another.
I found this article about a Boston College survey of the Super-Rich to be very interesting.
100,000 – Mortgage gets killed and we remove a fair bit of fear/stress
500,000 – Mortgage killed, remainder in 5% dividend bank stocks gives $20,000 a year to live on. By keeping my job this significantly changes my life by reducing the length of time I need to work
1,000,000 – Mortgage killed, remainder in 5% dividend bank stocks gives $45,000 a year to live on. Not bad but I’d have to keep working
2,000,000 – Mortgage killed, remainder in dividend bank stocks give $95,000 a year to live on. That’s pretty good and I could stop working
so somewhere between 1 and 2 million since I’m likely to work anyway.
$250k would let me quit my job and get an advanced degree as a full time student, rather than trying to part time it at night. Anything less than that changes the numbers in my bank accounts but doesn’t really affect my life plans too much.
The quit for the rest of my life number is more in the $10 or $20 million range.
Going by MareIt’s scale, which I like, my numbers would be:
Small scale change of still needing to work and watch my money, but have a little extra for fun stuff like occasional dinners to places that aren’t chains, increased tennis lessons, etc., my number would be about $25K. This would pay off my car, my (small) credit card balance, and pay for my braces and crown that I need this year.
Medium scale change of still needing to work, but having my salary being pretty much discretionary spending (outside of basic utilities) my number would be the same $200K. This would pay off the stuff mentioned above and give me $175K to find a nice home that I would buy with cash, and with home prices being what they are, I could probably furnish it as well.
My large scale change of never needing to work again and live a bit more comfortably than I do now would also be $5M, after taxes. Even assuming a 2% rate of return (that would appreciate to be equivalent as years went on), I would be fine as I’m not an extravagant person by nature.