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- Oct 7, 2012
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For any high COL area aside from the heart of SF or NY, I would say this is the maximum, reasonable, high standard of living budget for a family of 4:
$100k mortgage
$80k tuitions
$30k top tier Obamacare
$30k home maintenance
$25k au pair
$25k luxury cars
$20k property taxes/insurance
$20k food
$20k vacations, clothes, subscriptions, utilities, other
So that’s about $350k for everything you could possibly want/need as a reasonable human being. Every single one of these items can be comfortably cut by 50-100%, of course. But even at $350k as the bare minimum to be happy for an asshole who will not compromise on any aspect of living, that would make about $9M as the magic number for early retirement using the 4% rule. If you want to live like an asshole, don’t retire on $3M.
$100k mortgage
$80k tuitions
$30k top tier Obamacare
$30k home maintenance
$25k au pair
$25k luxury cars
$20k property taxes/insurance
$20k food
$20k vacations, clothes, subscriptions, utilities, other
So that’s about $350k for everything you could possibly want/need as a reasonable human being. Every single one of these items can be comfortably cut by 50-100%, of course. But even at $350k as the bare minimum to be happy for an asshole who will not compromise on any aspect of living, that would make about $9M as the magic number for early retirement using the 4% rule. If you want to live like an asshole, don’t retire on $3M.