# How much money would significantly change your life? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 3, 2000, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-money-would-significantly-change-your-life/18455 "2000-05-03T15:05:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Silo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac91a4/32.png) [@Silo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silo)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2000, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-money-would-significantly-change-your-life/18455/21 "2000-05-04T17:38:39Z")
A cool million would upgrade my life style, but I already have plenty of money. ---
**Author:** ![G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c67d28/32.png) [@G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.B.H.Hornswoggler)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2000, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-money-would-significantly-change-your-life/18455/22 "2000-05-04T17:38:51Z")
**All of it.** ---
**Author:** ![mouthbreather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a698b9/32.png) [@mouthbreather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mouthbreather)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2000, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-money-would-significantly-change-your-life/18455/23 "2000-05-04T17:42:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > “If we had $10,000, we’d be **millionaires**. We could buy all sorts of useful things, like _love_.” > > Reference? > \*\* Homer Simpson ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2000, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-money-would-significantly-change-your-life/18455/24 "2000-05-04T18:39:59Z")
$30,000 would pay off all my debts, my car and allow me and my man to go on vacation (my first in six years and my first ever someplace tropical) ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2000, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-money-would-significantly-change-your-life/18455/25 "2000-05-04T22:37:16Z")
Where I live is vacationland so no real need for a vacation. But for around $500,000 I could tell certain people straight to their faces some interesting things… ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2000, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-money-would-significantly-change-your-life/18455/26 "2000-05-04T22:43:13Z")
Today at lunchtime I went out for a coffee drink (I’ve been enslaved to the sweet temptations of iced mocha) and realized I forgot my wallet at home. US$2 would have changed my life and made me a happy man, instead of the miserable wreck I am now. I have to resort to the miserable excuse for coffee from the kitchen’s coffeepot. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![WillGolfForFood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/82dd89/32.png) [@WillGolfForFood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillGolfForFood)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2000, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-money-would-significantly-change-your-life/18455/27 "2000-05-04T23:36:45Z")
This is an interesting question, and after thinking about it, my answer is probably kind of boring. Ah, well, sometimes boring is good… My wife and I earn enough money to live the way we want to right now and have a fair amount of retirement money socked away, so the only amount of money that would change our lifestyles would be enough to convince us to retire right now rather than the six-to-eight-years-from-now that we’ve been planning / thinking of. Basically, enough to cover six-years’-worth of our current revenue stream. Any lesser amount wouldn’t change our lifestyles right away - we’d probably retire earlier, but not right now. Any greater amount, and we’d probably still retire right now - but give / assume we’d leave the leftover funds to our kids. ---
**Author:** ![spartacist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@spartacist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spartacist)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2000, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-money-would-significantly-change-your-life/18455/28 "2000-05-04T23:49:35Z")
$500 would completely change my life. Stealing that is grand theft, and I would be looking at some prison time. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2000, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-money-would-significantly-change-your-life/18455/29 "2000-05-05T00:14:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > If I received $400,000, after paying off debt and taxes on the $400k, I should have about $200k left over. That goes into a mutual fund bringing 20% interest a year, giving me an income of $40,000 a year without touching the capital. That’s enough to totally supplant my regular income should I lose my job or get fed up enough to quit. Keeping my job, that’s a lot of money for bubblegum. > \*\* Sheesh, kids these days. Just 'cause the stock market’s been on crack the past few years doesn’t mean that you can rely on mutual funds doing 20%/year forever. 7-8% is probably more realistic and when (not if) the economy goes into its next nosedive, you’ll want a cushion against inflation. I’m in the Boston area which I don’t particularly like because it’s too developed. So to change my life the way I’d like it to be, I’d have to move out to western Mass. But there are no jobs out there for us high-powered 🙂 computer scientists. So I’d have to retire and live the life of a dilettante parasite upon society. For that to happen, I’d probably have to find 2.5-3 million under the sofa cushions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-money-would-significantly-change-your-life/18455.md?page=1)