[rufus_foreman]

ACA subsidies or, in most states, expanded Medicaid would be available for health insurance for someone living off $1 million in assets.

You can get an apartment in a cheap city for under $800 a month. In a cheaper city it will most likely be downtown, and that will be a bad thing.

[FooBarBizBazz]

Touché.

I forgot about subsidies, once your income gets that low. (Remembered that marginal tax rates would be low, at least.)

The difference between "cheap city downtown" and "expensive city downtown" is an interesting phenomenon. It isn't a hard and fast rule, but you're right about the general pattern.

It's also true that I could have aimed even lower than I did. If I'd assumed roommates in a larger apartment, I could have ended up with lower numbers.

If you really wanted to be a starving artist, you could probably get by on $1k/month. So then, as little as $400k invested plus a $30k cash cushion might suffice. It'd be pretty rough though if you were trying to pull it off in the US. Honestly we're starting to get into food-stamp territory.

[rufus_foreman]

I did the starving artist thing as a young man, decades ago. On one hand, there's really no limit, it's about how committed you are to this starvation thing, but on the other hand, yeah, less than $1k a month in current dollars, you're out of the joke starving artist level and into the real starving artist level.

Now I'm an old man and I'm looking at it from the other direction. Is $x amount enough to get me by until SS and Medicare. It's scary because as an old man I don't think I'm going to be able to jump back in to a software developer job once I quit. And on the other hand, the clock is ticking.

[FooBarBizBazz]

> Is $x amount enough to get me by until SS and Medicare. It's scary because as an old man I don't think I'm going to be able to jump back in to a software developer job once I quit.

Yeah, I'm not always sure whether "retirement" is a carrot held in front of us, or really a threat.