How Much Would You Need to Drop Out?

Filed in archive Investing , Retirement , Saving , The Joneses on July 17, 2006

As much as I love writing this blog, I often fantasize about leaving it and all work behind, preferably at a relatively young age. But what would I need in terms of net worth dollars in order to do it?

According to this article by Scott Burns, I need less of it than I used to. He figures that if I have $2,162,000 in my big money pot, I could conceivably leave it all behind.

Burns is a little sketchy on details, but as far as I can tell, this means you'd have to have that much in a portfolio of savings & investments that you could draw from. So, actually, it's not all about net worth. For example, I have a good amount of home equity, which makes my net worth look good, but unless I sell my home, move into something cheaper and use the difference to invest, that money isn't going to help me retire early.

The main point of Burns' article is that with interest rates rising, those with money to invest actually have an easier time living off their stash because there's a greater return on safer investments. At least I think that's what he's saying. Anyway, let's look at Burns' $2,162,000 figure and see what you could grab each year based on different interest rate returns. Then you can decide if you could live off of that in your part of the country:

1%: $21,620
2%: $43,240
3%: $64,860
4%: $86,480
5%: $108,100
6%: $129,720
7%: $151,340

If I were close to retirement, I'd be OK with Burns' thought process here, especially if I lived in a low cost of living city.

For me, though, I wouldn't really feel comfortable chucking it all until I knew I could get at least 100K from a portfolio that earned 3%. That's probably pretty conservative, but I'd get the jitters otherwise.

Let's put some of my long unused algebra to the test to figure what I would need to dump this blog like a bad habit (which some days it definitely is):

_____ x .03 = 100,000

What do I do here? I think I get my answer by dividing 100,000 by .03:

100,000/.03 = 3,333,333.33

Wow, that's rough. I need over $3.3 million to quit forever.

I'm going to be working for a while longer.