[hinkley]

$20k a year in interest after taxes if he’s not a complete moron. I could survive on around $45k a year (including health insurance) so I could putter for a long time before I had to deliver something.

But domain knowledge and contacts will probably be the biggest assets OP turns out to possess. Don’t undersell those.

[smileysteve]

~$100k/year if returns are based on 10%. Aka, what some people use for expected S&P returns to beat

[DVassallo]

I have 80%+ in short term US treasuries and CDs (the rest in some stocks that I've held for a long time). I have no interest in the upside of the stock market right now. I'm already doing something speculative myself.

[hinkley]

If you're working out a budget to allow you to quit your day job you'd better have all of the numbers in post-tax dollars or you're gonna have a bad time.

[smileysteve]

We're taking about a pre-tax salary at 500k. Capital gains means no payroll taxes and discounted long term taxes too.

And 80k is still well over the average household income

[spyspy]

That's mostly capital gains. He won't earn that in steady dividends to live off of.

[smileysteve]

These are fungible. (We're already averaging out volatility)