[keithwhor]

$10M is a pretty standard “set for life” goal based on a 3% annualized rate of return.

It’s obscenely difficult to get there, but an entirely reasonable and well-defined goal for people who are willing to compete (and, with high likelihood, fail) in the market to get there.

It’s up to you to decide if you’d like to pursue that path. There are plenty of paths to stability without setting that goal; you’ll just find yourself arguing with a self-selected subset of people targeting it when you post on a place like HN.

You shouldn’t wish ill upon them, and they shouldn’t wish ill upon you. We’re all just figuring life out on our own, but if you’re in a professional career in your ~30s you’ll hear “$10M” (USD, or in North America) as a pretty standard target for a “dream amount.”

[tejohnso]

So the standard point of view is that you can't stop worrying about money until you have passive income of roughly USD $300,000 per year? Why would you need five times the average annual gross household income to be comfortable? That sound like the symptom of a serious problem.

Why not take your current annual spend, multiply it by 1.2 for a nice cushion, and then figure out what you need at 3% to gain that annual return? This should come out to be roughly an order of magnitude less than $10M.

[ThrowawayR2]

That passive income does have to carry you through bad economic times as well. What if the rate of return is only 1% or the value of your portfolio drops drastically because of a full-blown economic depression?

[tejohnso]

The 3% is an average. Some years it'll be higher, and that extra income goes into your savings and offsets the bad years. Plus there's the cushion mentioned and that should also be accumulating a larger and larger safety net.

[10122018]

> you’ll just find yourself arguing with a self-selected subset of people targeting it when you post on a place like HN

Very true, and thanks for my first chuckle of the day.

I certainly don't wish ill on anyone. I've suffered a lot, in various ways, but that has made me more compassionate, and I think therefore there has been value in that suffering. I have learned how to make do with very little.

Again, I appreciate your comments.

[keithwhor]

No worries. Thanks for the appreciation.

Ten years ago I was a broke college student doing lab grunt work. I couldn’t really afford coffee in the morning. I know what it’s like. He might not like me sharing this, but I watched my father who didn’t have a whole lot to begin with lose everything to his name just as I was preparing to enter the working world. That wasn’t even the worst of it for me personally, shit just happens.

I am very fortunate now to be able to work alongside some absolutely mind-blowingly talented people. Hit me up in ten years and see if I’m in a a cohort of people who have reached their dream amounts, but I’m not sure how much absolute numbers matter anymore. I’m happy. There’s a really big world out there. Don’t discount yourself and don’t sweat being broke in college. It’s part of the experience, humbles you, and grows something special that will allow you to relate to others more freely in the future.

I bring this up because: keep it up, keep asking questions, and when people tell you “$100k isn’t much,” work on figuring out what they know that you don’t yet. If you know it’s possible there’s a chance you’ll get there sooner than they did. Stay humble, but be hungry. Good luck in the future.