[random4369]

300k is laughable. 2-3M is a more plausible figure if you want to finance two people purely off passive income.

[2sk21]

Came to say the same - unless you lived in, say rural India, there is just no way you can live off the dividends from a $300k investment.

[bitcoinboi90]

I spend about $800 monthly on 2 people in Croatia's capital. I do think I'm living a good life.

I'm slowly accumulating my QQQs and SPYs and will probably stop it at a similar amount.

[ThrustVectoring]

$300k of investment yields roughly $1k a month, which is doable in the US. You just have a studio apartment in Indiana or something, and do very little other than cook very economically.

[smileysteve]

and don't have health insurance, or a car (in rural indiana)

[ThrustVectoring]

You qualify for significant ACA subsidies at that income level. And there's small towns where not having a car isn't that much of a problem.

Like, you're under 133% of the poverty line, so you pay no more than 2% of your income on health insurance premiums.

[gaius]

But do you still qualify if you are sitting on a pile of investments? Don’t think you would in the UK.

[ThrustVectoring]

You do, but the pile of investments is either generating income or losing value to inflation, so in practice it's not that much of an issue. You can't spend tax-deferred retirement accounts like a 401k or tIRA without realizing taxable income, and there's significant contribution limits for Roth IRA balances for tax-exempt gains. You can defer capital gains but not dividends, so a large stock portfolio doesn't help you much either.

Plus if you manage your income to stay under ACA subsidy limits, you're generally going to be paying a higher effective tax rate by forgoing tax-deferral opportunities at higher tax brackets in your income earning years or Roth IRA conversions to use up lower tax brackets in your post-retirement years.

So yeah, it's a pretty big loophole.