|
This is so context-sensitive. I have a large family and I've had some rough employment years. Our basic expenses are high. We took a huge loss on a house. My retirement savings are in terrible shape. I've had to cash out three different 401K accounts over the years to pay the mortgages. That's of course a terrible thing to do, you lose a lot, but it's also sometimes the only realistic option. If I had been able to leave those accounts untouched, I'm not saying I'd be all set for retirement, returns have been very uneven for decades, but I'd have 2-3x the retirement savings I actually have today. For a while I was working for a self-driving car startup; I had an equity arrangement that, if everything went _just right_, would supposedly be worth about 700K after 4 years of employment. I knew this was a long shot, but I was working hard for that, harder than I might have otherwise been willing to work. What actually happened is I hit the one year mark, 1/4 vested, and shortly after that the company shut down, so that extra work and stress only ultimately harm, not help me, although I did learn a bit, though not as much as I was hoping to. So, a windfall of enough money to pay off my mortgage or significantly improve my positioning for retirement. $700K had my attention. I know that's just a theoretical number and I'd have to sell the equity and take various hits on that, but I could fantasize about retiring early, shifting to part-time, etc. A smaller amount like $100K would allow me to make a huge payment on our house, which would drastically reduce the interest I have to pay over the life of the loan, so that also could be life-changing, but not as dramatically. $50K would bring back most of what I blew from savings after having to cash out the last 401K. I think $75K would about make up for everything I lost because of that last job loss. $10K would probably immediately go into projects, like repairing bathroom ceiling, replacing a dishwasher, getting some more shelving, a couple more desks for my kids, upgrading some ancient laptops, etc. Or, we might be able to repair a car that's been sitting around for months waiting on money to repair it. Not really life-changing but life-improving. $600 is about week's food expenses for our family of nine and I wouldn't say no to that - it would allow me to increase our savings a little bit. $100 is pizza and wings for the family. |