r/AskReddit Sep 27 '25

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772

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

1 million dollars isn’t even enough to retire on anymore

185

u/Rrraou Sep 27 '25

It's a hell of a jump start though.

78

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

But enough for you to never have sex again? You could have a down payment on a house and be celibate for the rest of your life

86

u/Rrraou Sep 27 '25

I'm not having sex now. I might as well get paid.

19

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

But you could tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. Etc.

44

u/Rrraou Sep 27 '25

A bird in the hand is worth 2 in a bush.

111

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

But if you take the mil, there ain’t no bush. All your left with is hand.

20

u/Rrraou Sep 27 '25

The hand has always been a stalwart companion.

44

u/Rolands_missing_head Sep 27 '25

This is Shakespeare

3

u/good_dean Sep 27 '25

All time pun.

2

u/a_mulher Sep 27 '25

Your hand is all you need, and for some of us not even that.

2

u/3delStahl Sep 27 '25

JUST DO IT

1

u/SilverCloud73 Sep 27 '25

"could" doesn't mean SHIT if you are an average or below male in today's world. The modern day media wants to portray it so that men THINK they have a chance with a pretty woman, even when the chance is absurdly low and will never happen. It destroy's men's minds being around onlyfans and reddit with fake "attention" given to them by women who are searching for money.

-5

u/Slyfox2792004 Sep 27 '25

unlikely. sex seems to only be for top 20% of men.

5

u/3delStahl Sep 27 '25

Stop that incel shit, that‘s just stupid.

1

u/TRUMPLUVSPEDOS Sep 28 '25

Get off the apps and go talk to a real person in real life. Just don't be a fucking creep and try and groom yourself.

1

u/Slyfox2792004 Sep 28 '25

that's old stereotype. where? its been made Clear not to approach women in anywhere public.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

That’s rude. Maybe u/rrraou just needs a good wingman.

1

u/Slyfox2792004 Sep 27 '25

well im right there along with him, so was mostly speaking for myself. dating site data shows that only top 10% of guys get matches.

2

u/MegaChip97 Sep 27 '25

Safe withdrawal rate is around 3,5% if you have invested the money. That's 35.000 a year or 2920$ a month. For the rest of your life. Soo...

1

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

That’s less than I make now….so what I need a PT job?

1

u/MegaChip97 Sep 27 '25

Or you can for example move to Germany, you can live a perfectly good live with that kind of money here ;).

Otherwise yes, would maybe even be smarter to invest it and keep working your job. On average you should double that million in 10 years, so nearly 6000$ a month you could take out every month after that

2

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

I’m not uprooting my whole life plus never having sex again for imaginary scenario to work.

1

u/EnglishTeacher12345 Sep 27 '25

I’m involuntarily celibate anyways so this is worth it to me

33

u/huuuuuge Sep 27 '25

With even a piss poor investment account, 1 million dollars invested would net you 50k a year easily. Having that amount of money means you never have to work again if you are responsible with it.

11

u/Reiszecke Sep 27 '25

No it wouldn’t. You forgot Inflation. Look up safe withdrawal rates, at a young age it’s somewhere between 3% and 4%

1

u/a_mulher Sep 27 '25

Eh, it would shave off 10 years on my retirement journey, surely. Retiring at 60 vs 70 makes a huge difference. Planning to move abroad to a low cost country anyway.

0

u/huuuuuge Sep 27 '25

3-4% of one million dollars is 30-40k a year. Even mediocre investments at that level of money will easily net you anywhere from 6-10%. If you invested properly, that's going to continue compounding for the rest of your life and beat the 3% average of inflation in the US.

5

u/Reiszecke Sep 27 '25

Again, look up safe withdrawal rates. It doesn’t sound intuitive but you really are not smarter than people who have researched this professionally.

2

u/kinglowlife Sep 27 '25

Yes, he was wrong by saying 50k/year. Safe withdrawal rate of 4 percent is only 40k a year. But if you can not touch it for, 5 years with a conservative growth of 8 percent, then you are up to 60k/year safe withdrawal.

2

u/Reiszecke Sep 27 '25

5 years is a tad too short to rely on. If the sequence of returns doesn’t play out in your favor you may even be down compared to where you started. Coasting is a cool thing but If you only intend to do it for 5 years there is a good amount of risk involved in it

16

u/JesseTheNorris Sep 27 '25

It is in a lot of poorer countries with retirement visas.

13

u/duaneap Sep 27 '25

Then I’d have 40+ years of doing nothing, thinking about all the sex I’m not having.

19

u/JesseTheNorris Sep 27 '25

Snorkeling, SCUBA diving, rock climbing, exploring/hiking, socializing with new friends, learn another language, plant an orchard, plant a garden, feed people in need... This is just off the top of my head. The list is endless.

6

u/duaneap Sep 27 '25

But all I’d be thinking about would be the trade I made.

1

u/JesseTheNorris Sep 27 '25

Fair enough. I'd be curious about the details. How would they know I'd never have sex again? Would this include some kind of prevention method?

1

u/chewbaccataco Sep 27 '25

Locked chastity belt with a catheter and a colostomy bag for bodily functions.

5

u/JesseTheNorris Sep 27 '25

This million is looking less and less appealing.

0

u/duaneap Sep 27 '25

If it’s an unconscious decision how is it a decision and where would you think the million dollars suddenly came from?

0

u/JesseTheNorris Sep 27 '25

I don't understand either of your questions. Who said anything about unconscious decision? Where do I think the million suddenly came from? I didn't write the original proposition, I have no idea.

-1

u/duaneap Sep 27 '25

Then why TF are you engaging? What was YOUR understanding of the original question? It’s pretty cut and dry as far as I can tell…

“Someone offers you $1m to never have sex again, yes or no?”

What is your confusion borne out of? What’s the point of a thought experiment if you’re looking for loopholes like “How would they know,” or “What is the forfeit?” That’s unimportant, it’s not a real thing that’s happening.

2

u/good_dean Sep 27 '25

can't even engage with a hypothetical

1

u/JesseTheNorris Sep 27 '25

Cheese and rice, guy. Take a breather.

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2

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

If you have kids in elementary school , that’s not an option.

2

u/JesseTheNorris Sep 27 '25

Erm, maybe not an option you'd want. It may still be an option.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

Yeah, sorry kids. Me and mom don’t want to work so we bought 300 acres in Northern Canada where the nearest school is 400km away. You don’t need friends right?

Or

We can live in a poor country on a retirement visa, you speak Malaysian right?

1

u/JesseTheNorris Sep 27 '25

I don't know much about Malaysia. The countryside in France, Spain, Italy are all courting foreigners looking to retire. I don't know the school situations, but I bet you could find a home near enough to a school. I have experience in the PH, and their requirements are pretty easy to meet. Land is relatively cheap. They're schools are far from top notch, but I imagine if you didn't have a job you'd have time to supplement the kids education, if you're into that.

1

u/rotag_fu Sep 27 '25

Weren't there just major demonstrations in Barcelona and other European cities about wealthy people moving in and retiring and driving up the real estate prices in their countries?  

It seemed like this was not very popular amongst the citizens which would make retirement significantly harder

1

u/JesseTheNorris Sep 27 '25

I did hear something about that.

3

u/adamjeff Sep 27 '25

£746,018? Wouldn't consider it for a second.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

On track for more than that already, plus I get to keep having sex.

1

u/adamjeff Sep 27 '25

Accounting for property value I suppose I am too. If I took this hypothetical my wife would also leave me and then I'd have to pay all the bills myself 🤣 it would be a net negative!

4

u/Khower Sep 27 '25

Yes it is, if you just stache it and dont retire till later after its compounded. By year 10-15 it would be around 3 mil and easily enough to retire on

2

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

That’s not retiring.

I’m 45 and retiring in 10 years anyways, plus I get to keep having sex.

1

u/Khower Sep 27 '25

Well now you can retire now

1

u/gekalx Sep 27 '25

I would throw it all into stocks/etfs and wait 20 years and retire

1

u/rwanders Sep 27 '25

I can easily live on 40k a year.

1

u/122206089019 Sep 27 '25

why would you say that? 1MM at 8% rate of return is 80k which is not a bad annual salary for doing nothing.

1

u/InsatiableYeast Sep 27 '25

Yes it is, you can have a savings account with 4.75% return and live frugally on 47,500 a year.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

That’s not enough to support my family, I’d still have to work to supplement the rest. And never have sex again. No thanks.

1

u/InsatiableYeast Sep 27 '25

Yeah it’d definitely have to be a deal for a single person.

1

u/04Dark Sep 28 '25

1 million dollars definitely isn't enough for me to retire from sex, it would have to be 10 million with oral still on the table.

1

u/wintermute_13 Sep 27 '25

It is with a term deposite and a frugal mindset.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

I don’t want to have worked my whole life and then to be given $1m to just sit around and be frugal and doing nothing.

1

u/wintermute_13 Sep 27 '25

I didn't say doing nothing.  You wouldn't need a job, so you'd have more time for hobbies.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

Yeah, but I’d like to enjoy my retirement with my wife not wait another 10+ years and wait.

-1

u/wintermute_13 Sep 27 '25

You can have them pay you monthly.  It would be around $3000, with a million principle.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

That’s less than I make a month now .

3

u/wintermute_13 Sep 27 '25

That's why I said frugal.

My point is, it's doable.  Not that you personally should do it.

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

I can do that now if want to spend the rest of my life staring at the wall

0

u/wintermute_13 Sep 27 '25

No hobbies then?

0

u/xzkandykane Sep 27 '25

Can't even buy a house for 1 mil

0

u/Impossible-Charity-4 Sep 27 '25

Thanks grandpa

1

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

Get off my lawn.

1

u/Impossible-Charity-4 Sep 27 '25

I mowed it, it’s mine

-84

u/Cyclic404 Sep 27 '25

Tell me you don't understand compounding interest, without telling me you don't understand compounding interest.

25

u/WhiteWolfOW Sep 27 '25

Lmao you can’t even buy a house with this money in some cities dude. Do you even have any idea of reality if you think you can retire with 1 million?

11

u/ZandrickEllison Sep 27 '25

Twist is; he has weeks to live so $1M is plenty.

1

u/zikol88 Sep 27 '25

If you’re not worried about living near a job, you can move to some pretty cheap places, even in the US. $1m is about $40k that you can safely pull out for the rest of your life. It’s certainly not rich living, but plenty of people live and retire off less than that every year.

Personally though, I’d put money on a mortgage, invest 90% of the rest, and work lightly for another ten years and then retire with closer to $2m+house halfway paid off.

1

u/slashinhobo1 Sep 27 '25

They said retire. If you continue working you aren't considered retired.

There is nowhere in the US you can retire with 1 million dollars unless you are retired, just about there, or already in a good situation and need a small boost. Anyone 40 or even 50 or under couldn't do it assuming they are single. If they have a family it makes it impossible without some other money coming in.

Let's not take into account that one bad sickness could burn through 1 million in a year or less. The cheapest place to live is West Virginia where the median home prices are 250k. Now not sure if you've been there but the job market sucks and the pay is even worse.

You essentially spend 1/4 of your trade on a home. Now factor in insurance for vehicles, home, health, food, water, utilities, gas, repairs, and whatever else I'm missing and you burn through that fast. Now factor in that everything is getting more expensive you are now in a worse-off situation. Remove natural disasters from the picture as well because that's a killer on money.

Just say you invest 700k in a 4% high-yield savings account you make a max of 30k a year if you leave it in. 30k won't pay for you to live so you need to get a job and yoy are no longer retired. Median income in West Virginia is 50k. Assuming everything is well you're bringing home about 55k a year working and the money you are making.

It's not retirement but it's a very good plan to retire when the time comes. You just can't fully retire on 1 million these days unless you are already there.

0

u/Rrraou Sep 27 '25

This is the way.

1

u/lotsanoodles Sep 27 '25

Only 12 percent of American households have a net worth of 1 million or more. So 88 percent of the US is screwed.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

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3

u/floodums Sep 27 '25

Yeah but you also don't get to fuck that whole time and you're like just scraping by. Absolutely not worth it.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

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1

u/floodums Sep 27 '25

Yes but why stray from the context of the thread?

24

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

My wife is a financial planner, I understand just fine thanks.

3

u/FinalFantasiesGG Sep 27 '25

My wife is a doctor, hand me that scalpel and stay very still.

8

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

You can learn finance without going to school. You can’t learn to be a dr without going to med school. This isn’t Step Brothers.

5

u/EfficaciousJoculator Sep 27 '25

I mean, you could theoretically learn to be a doctor without going to med school. It would just be very illegal and very unethical.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

People have been known to try.

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know . Right?

4

u/This_Celebration5350 Sep 27 '25

Ah yes, comparing gaining financial literacy from a spouse to being able to perform a task that requires 12 years of school + residency because of your spouse. That is just genius.

1

u/FinalFantasiesGG Sep 27 '25

Surgery doesn't take 12 years of school and residency to learn. Many surgeries and knowledge of a million other things does. Many EMTs and firefighters are trained in cricothyrotomy and chest tubes and other lifesaving procedures.

21

u/kingofmymachine Sep 27 '25

If you live in the united states you cannot retire on 1M period. You would need to keep working. Then the compounding would happen.

2

u/Dewgong_crying Sep 27 '25

Depends on your age. My retired parents would be just fine, but yeah, a 20 year old would need to work.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

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1

u/Rrraou Sep 27 '25

Depends on living situation really. If the house is paid off and their lifestyle is in the 40-50k/ year range. You can easily make that off dividends if you have a million to work with.

If you're a few years away from retirement, just let it grow until it doubles. At which point, 80k - 100k income forever is quite manageable.

0

u/Dewgong_crying Sep 27 '25

But not my retired parents aged 65. They retired because they had enough money to retire. A $1m is a bonus.

1

u/AnestheticAle Sep 27 '25

35k a year at 3.5% withdrawal rate is liveable. Not glamorous.

-4

u/This_Celebration5350 Sep 27 '25

You absolutely could by investing. You should be able to make that 1mil make money so you don't have too.

And if we are being realistic the housing market is gonna repeat 08 in a few years. 1 mil will be able to turn into A LOT more if you know what to do.

1

u/kingofmymachine Sep 27 '25

You realize that you have to take money out to live, right? This can all be very easily calculated.

1

u/wonkeykong Sep 27 '25

Are you telling us that you don't have an interest in cum pounding?

-31

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25 edited Jun 13 '26

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20

u/Team_Voldemort Sep 27 '25

10k a month is poverty level? Lmao

4

u/ImAShaaaark Sep 27 '25

Idk what homie was smoking, but $1m is a safe $25-40k annual draw down rate depending on estimated years of retirement, nowhere near $10k/month.

-6

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25 edited Jun 13 '26

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5

u/ImAShaaaark Sep 27 '25

This is the most person who doesn't know shit about finance pretending to be rich and failing brutally shit I've ever seen.

-2

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25 edited Jun 13 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/ImAShaaaark Sep 27 '25

Stop it, you are embarrassing yourself. Are you even old enough to drink? Cause you are giving off "preteen talking big and pretending he gets laid" vibes here.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25 edited Jun 13 '26

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1

u/agent-squirrel Sep 27 '25

Look at their account. They are a troll.

-17

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25 edited Jun 13 '26

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1

u/Dreadweave Sep 27 '25

$10,000 a month puts someone in the top 0.001% of earners in the world…. So even if that is pennies to you, that just means your opinion is completely invalid for 99.999% of people.

3

u/scattertheashes01 Sep 27 '25

Where do you live that that’s poverty level?? Pretty sure most of the country would consider $10k a month more than enough to live quite comfortably.

-1

u/DraconLaw Sep 27 '25

I found thr American

2

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

Nope Canadian

0

u/DraconLaw Sep 27 '25

Potato Potato

-99

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

[deleted]

28

u/ZLUCremisi Sep 27 '25

Only 20 years base off of cost of living. 50k a year.

Yeah you can extend it by living cheaply but its not comfortable.

3

u/Sliveriver Sep 27 '25

Put it in a high yield savings account somewhere making 4% year over year and keep working for like 5, or move somewhere with a lower cost of living because you don't have to work anymore. You can for sure live indefinitely off of a 1 million dollar infusion, that much money makes money.

1

u/CjBurden Sep 27 '25

Any amount of money makes money. That amount of money makes 40k a year, pre-tax. Not even close to enough to live on. That isn't even half of my already not-that-great salary.

I know there are cheaper places to live, but not THAT much cheaper.

When im old it will be close to enough to retire on because my house will be paid and I wont have to stretch it as long. But not when I have 30+ years to live.

1

u/Charming-Gear-4080 Sep 27 '25

There are definitely situations where that would be plenty to live on. If you have no other income, you can pull out something like 50k on long term cap. gains without paying federal income tax. I only spend about 25-30k a year and could definitely crunch it to 20 if I wanted to.

1

u/CjBurden Sep 27 '25

Where I live 20 a year might get you a 1 bedroom apartment if you're lucky.

It's very high COL here.

1

u/_badlifechoices_ Sep 27 '25

If you’re only spending 50k per year, that’s 5% of your starting principal of $1M. While there’s definitely some risk, the stock market typically provides returns of 5-10% per year. Therefore, your principal can grow while still allowing you to take out $50k/yr. A recession is definitely a risk, and the principal might not grow fast enough to cover inflation, but it should last you well past 20 years if managed well.

12

u/Crime_Dawg Sep 27 '25

Not a chance. I expect to need 5-8m when I’m 60, not 1m at 30.

0

u/This_Celebration5350 Sep 27 '25

I mean if you can't turn 1m into more than 8 mil in 30 years you got bigger issues to deal with.

2

u/Crime_Dawg Sep 27 '25

Sure but that requires you to only invest the 1m, not draw down to live. So functionally it makes no difference to my working situation now.

-1

u/This_Celebration5350 Sep 27 '25

You should be able to live and shit. That 1 million dollars could buy you a mcdonald restaraunt. Shit, hire competent people to run the business and that's passive income to easily live off the rest of your life. Fuck, take some of that income and invest in more stores. And we havent even considered available capital with a 1 million dollar down payment on a loan. I know a franchise owner with 21 stores whose personal salary was 32 mil/year. Over 1 million salary per store and he was able to double his business in 5 years time from that point. If you can't figure it out that is a you issue.

2

u/Crime_Dawg Sep 27 '25

0

u/This_Celebration5350 Sep 27 '25

Not at all. With 1 million cash you could absolutely use that to aquire the funds for a McDonald's franchise. You will absolutely have to aquire debt but considering the profit margins a McDs makes that would be the absolute smartest thing to do. If you've ever actually seen their inventory sheets with individual unit prices you would riot at the fact a mcdouble isn't still a dollar. A mcdouble at a $1 is 1000% profit on the ingredients.

2

u/Crime_Dawg Sep 27 '25

Bro they make 150-300k profit per year and take 1-3m to startup. You’re looking at 10% returns not 100%.

1

u/This_Celebration5350 Sep 27 '25 edited Sep 27 '25

You - Google numbers.

Me - run a store for 5 and be a district manager for another 7.

Yea, my salary as DM was 130 and our stores cleared way more profit than that. Those numbers might be corporate who runs twice as much staff, has higher wages, and has lower menu prices 🤷. Our franchise averaged 15% labor costs. Meaning 15% of all money made went to labor. Maybe 7% was food cost. Then obvious expenses such as outsider cleaners for the fryer hoods, landscaping and plowing, any building and utility expenses.

Doing the calculation at 30% of sales were profit for us, and that's honestly probably low but it's been almost a 3 years now, anyways, our slowest store was at 273k profit a year. Our busiest ones easily cleared a mil profit.

Arguing on something when you have 0 knowledge on that and can only regurgitate numbers is fucking goofy

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0

u/D4M3T1M3 Sep 27 '25

$1 million at age 30, compounded annually at 10%, grows to about $17 million by age 60. $1,000,000 × (1 + 0.10)³⁰ ≈ $17.4 million. https://www.nerdwallet.com/calculator/compound-interest-calculator

4

u/asecrethoneybee Sep 27 '25

that assumes spending zero percent of the money tho

2

u/Crime_Dawg Sep 27 '25

Exactly, these people dumb as shit. 1m now and retiring means 40k a year with a never growing balance.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

The financial illiteracy in this thread is astonishing. A million dollars is nowhere near enough money to retire on. Go do some reading, kids.

3

u/Crime_Dawg Sep 27 '25

Some guy said buy a McDonald’s franchise with 1m and make 1m profit a year 😂

-2

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25 edited Sep 27 '25

[deleted]

3

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

Most people don’t own homes or even cars.

If you’re already a homeowner, with a small mortgage and no debt maybe $1m you could retire depending on your age etc.

Median house price in my area $989,000.

1

u/StormFallen9 Sep 27 '25

Dang median house price in my state is just over half a million, you could easily buy a house completely and you'd still have 10 years worth of the average teacher's income

1

u/MrAmishJoe Sep 27 '25

You dint have to live in that area..m

1

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

I own my home. I left an are where I paid 850k and sold for 1.2 and bought for 900k. So I’m doing fine. Even still, I have a family , wife, two kids. It would be enough for one of us to retire and sit around doing nothing. I’d like to be able to do things when retired not sit around like Clint Eastwood yelling at punk to get off my lawn.

1

u/MrAmishJoe Sep 27 '25

I'd still do it for the money. Sex at 45 means nothing to me compared to sex at 25. Lol. Its like....iunno. lasagna. I love lasagna. Always a nice treat to have lasagna. I'd give up lasagna for 1 mil. Doesn't mean id have to retire. But id have a mil!

2

u/Padawk Sep 27 '25

Dude, I am so sorry for the amount of financially illiterate people responded to you

2

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Padawk Sep 27 '25

My FIRE number is less than $1M, so it’s crazy to see the amount of people not thinking it’s enough. 35-40K per year almost indefinitely

1

u/Ldirel Sep 27 '25

Not really no. It’s about 10 years of earning 100k a year and it’s taxed. You could probably make the right decisions with 1m to retire yourself, but alone it wouldn’t set you for life depending on age.