I was fantasizing about the idea of winning the $50k 4 life and like $50k it would be a good amount of money to not have to work for a year but I don’t know if most Americans could live with only 50k for a year. In my case, I am a single person without children or large debts (be beyond a financed car).
Could you live with only $50k? What would be the right amount to be able to live with all your debts paid and with a cushion to spend on basic things (e.g. clothes, food, gasoline) for a year?
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Probably $250k. I don’t just want to sit on my ass, if I’m going to skip work for a year I want to enjoy it, and that costs money.
The amount of your bills plus a little for unexpected emergencies plus a little for discretionary spending. That amount can be wildly different from person to person. $50k after tax would be fine for me this year and next year, but we have no idea what things will cost in 10 years from now. The annual payment from your lottery winnings does not increase with inflation.
It depends on what part of the country you live in and what kind of lifestyle you want. Where I live, I can’t live off 50k for a year because it might pay for my mortgage and taxes, but it wouldn’t cover any other necessities. And I live in a part of the USA that is less expensive than the West (California) or NE (New York) coasts.
If I didn’t have to work, I could. Gas is one of my biggest expenses right now and that’s what’s killing me
You could totally live off 50k a year but your life would be a lot more fun if you also worked and used the work money just for fun
That depends *wildly* on where you’re living.
In a rural area, or in many suburban areas, $50k a year is enough to live quite comfortably on your own.
In a city, $50k might be tight living, or it might be virtually poverty.
50k would be enough for me alone but I got kids so that’s not enough. More pls.
Yeah 100k would have to be my number. I could pay my monthly bills on 50k minus food and gas and I’d have nothing left for discretionary spending at all and nothing for food or gas. I wasn’t COMFORTABLE until I crossed 100k
$100k unless you’re in an expensive coastal city, in which case $200k.
I have never made that much in a year, so yeah I could do it and I would be better off than I’ve ever been 🤣
My very first thought is how much I need the insurance that my employer provides. My husband is in a wheelchair—taking care of his needs isn’t cheap.
It would take about $55,000 to cover food and basic bills for a year. So I’d want that plus the money to enjoy the time off – if I wanted to mostly stay home then I probably wouldn’t need much more, but I’d want to travel
200k would be my lowest amount to stop my career.
I would think of it more as what would my life be like if I had an extra 50k a year. In the short term that would be extra savings and more trips for my PTO days. I’d probably pay off my car earlier and think about investing in a house or condo. I wouldn’t quit.
Could you live off of 50k? Probably unless you are in an expensive city, but it would be a lot more comfortable to have even a 30-50k job with 50k extra.
Here in WV it would get most people through a year.
Not having to work lets you live cheaper.
You can pick of low COL area, because you aren’t constrained by your job. You have tons of free time so no excuse not to cook 90% of your meals. You don’t need to commute 5 days a week, so you spend less on gas or transit (and any car problems are less of an emergency since you don’t need your car every day to get to work, so getting your car fixed isn’t a rush job).
I make about $50k a year, and single with no kids I accrue thousands of dollars in surplus every year after taking care of my expenses, even while I’m paying for college classes out of pocket.
As long as you don’t chose somewhere like NYC or California to live, $50k/year is plenty.
It would cover most of my non-mortgage bills and let me save more. But 1K per week wouldn’t be enough to live on very well if you had to pay for housing too.
$50k would allow early retirement with proper investing, but unless you live minimally and pending on location, that’s not enough to live comfortably especially with future inflation.
The poverty line in San Francisco is like $80k/year last time I checked. $50k in rural Arkansas is pretty good money. Just depends on where.
I live in L.A., 50 grand is not enough to live on for a year.
I could live on $50k but I’d have to cut back a lot of trips and luxuries I enjoy now. But to be able to live without my soul crushing job, I’d manage a way.
After taxes come out of that it’s not even enough to pay my rent for a year.
I’d probably get a sailboat or maybe a camper van. $50k a year is easily enough for living on a sailboat, haven’t looked into an RV/van
> I was fantasizing about the idea of winning the $50k 4 life
Well, that situation is pretty different from being a working person making $50k. If you’re guaranteed $50k a year for the rest of your life you don’t have to worry much about savings or retirement. Unless you live in a high cost of living area, as a single person $50k should be plenty to “survive.” FWIW the median household income in the US is about $70k and the median household size is just over 3 people, so that comes to around $23k per person per year.
I make $50k a year and live paycheck to paycheck lol. So I guess it would work but it wouldn’t be a luxurious year off. 75k maybe in my area?
I’d continue working, for sure. After ~5 years my house, car, and any other loans are paid off, and then my normal paycheck can be stretched further with no mortgage nor car payment, and that 50k can be put into stonks until I’m ready to retire for good
$50k isn’t enough anywhere in the US because unless you are 65+, healthcare is tied to employment. You’d need a part time job that offered health insurance (which can be hard to find) at minimum.
Yeah I could, but that’s because I’d go backpacking all year so living expenses would be lower (no rent, water, electricity) but food expenses would be higher.
Are you collecting unemployment?
It completely depends on where you live/COL, your debt load, your bills, food costs, and dependents. You figure out if 50K/year (NET, not gross) will work by taking your monthly budget and multiplying by 12.
A married person with three kids living in San Francisco, and needing two cars, is going to have a huge yearly nut. A single person renting an apartment in PoDunk MO is going to need a fraction of the SF budget.
I live in DC and no way would 50K get me through a year.
Assuming it is not taxed, 50k would be a reasonable amount. You could get an apartment or small house for yourself, get a mid 2000s to 2010s vehicle, insurance, food etc and still be okay. Now if you had a partner or children, you’d need more.
50 k before or after taxes?
Our nominal expense is about 100k a year so it’s not enough. I expect this to increase to ~130-140k in the next 5 years as we are still in a growth phase.
So for us, about 150k after all investments and savings would be a good quantity.
$50k is only about $25k after they take all the taxes, as lottery winnings are taxed heavily. Its probably livable somewhere cheap. It’s probably not the version freedom you are looking for. It might be ok for van-life.
One billion dollars
If it were just me 50k would be fine. However if you mean my wife and I both not work, we are looking at 80k
To not work, I’d need a minimum of 70k annually. That’s just to cover bills, food and gas, no luxury items.
You’re American, right? How about health insurance? (And if you have a family, add them, too.) Because we have a screwed up system in this country of sort-of affordable insurance being tied to employment, you may not be able to afford not to work. You may be paying $12k a year just for insurance.
I’m getting some real sticker shock looking at the other posts in this thread. I live in a rural area, and the cost of living is really damn low out here. Whole houses rent for ~$1500/month. Gas tends to be 25-50 cents below the national average. My utility breakdown is $130 for electricity, $35 for trash, $120 for Internet (I’m on Starlink), an average of $100 for propane (I have a tank and buy fills as needed), and no water or sewage (well and septic).
Food for me, a dog, and two cats is about $120 per week, though I do a lot of scratch cooking. Some reference prices: a gallon of milk is usually $2.50 or less. 18 large eggs are $1.87 right now – it would actually cost me *more* to keep chickens to lay them for me (though the eggs would be a lot better). Butter is $3/lb. Good, local bacon is $5/lb. In the summertime, $20 at the local farmers’ market will get me a week’s worth of fresh produce.
Seriously, move to the country and your $50k will be *plenty.* Just not too close to me, please.