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What's the smallest amount of money that would change your life?
I'm rather curious - for me, about a fiver. It's all I need to be able to smash an egg at someone - legally. It'd probably be pretty fun - probably not 'life changing', though.
~£40 is probably the least for something more 'life changing'. I could buy a Pi, storage, and a charger. Then I can set up a pi-hole, and never have to worry about ads. It'd also make browsing on my weak laptop that liittle bit better.
I had a similar experience about a year and a half ago. Getting that nest egg changed my life. While the egg is gone due to an accident with my wife, the emotional change it did to my life is still here. I don’t mind living paycheck to paycheck because I know it’s okay with $10k in the bank the same as with -$2k. But that brief time with $10k showed me how good life can be when not depressed or constantly anxious. I doubt I’ll ever not live paycheck to paycheck again, but I am now okay with it.
I used to. I was always stressed and anxious. But after my wife broke her skull, my world changed. I no longer care as long as I have a roof over our heads, food on the table and my wife and kids are healthy.
I used to miss payments on credit cards or student loans all the time. All that happens is my bad credit stays bad. It’s not worth the stress anymore to me. I do what I can to keep my bank account positive, but sometimes it goes to zero or negative. I get calls from debt collectors wanting to get paid on the medical bills they bought, but I can’t give them what I don’t have and they can’t take her life away so the rest doesn’t matter.
Would your life be better without the medical debt?
Spouse is trying to figure out how to sponsor a fundraiser for this group.
Heck, $5000 just to put in my retirement fund would be a wonderful thing for me, too. Right now I'm working with a company where I enjoy working, but it doesn't give me enough pay to be able to afford a retirement fund, and that's starting to stress me out.
The $500/month I throw at my student loan debt. That's a ton to me. I could use that to save up for a cheap-ish car, then get said car and be able to afford the gas, insurance, and occasional maintenance on it. I wouldn't have to rely on public transit. I could go visit friends whenever I want. I could go hiking. I could go camping. I could do my grocery shopping at a store with food that isn't overpriced bullshit. I wouldn't have to walk home with bags full of heavy groceries. I wouldn't have to risk what happened to me a month ago where rain turned my grocery bags to mush half way home and forced me to walk, humiliated and exhausted, the rest of the way with the groceries in my arms.
I would have more energy, more time, more accessibility, more options for entertainment, a better social life, and better physical and mental health. My quality of life would increase significantly.
8.5 years of payments to go.
8.5 x 12 x $500 = $51,000. That's a ton of money to most people!
Here in Australia they don't make students pay back their fees until their income has reached a certain minimum threshold (about $50,000 p.a.), and then it's only a small percentage of their income (2% to start with, then scaling up). The payments start at about $85/month.
$500/month is just ridiculous.
Yeah, last time I checked I was something like $38k in debt. That's the principle, and interest keeps building up. It's ridiculous how much you're expected to pay for a college education in the U.S. Would've been even worse if I went to an out-of-state university. Skyrocketing rent costs don't help much, either.
Adulthood sucks sometimes :)
Changing my life means paying off my mortgage, being able to buy outright a new vehicle for myself and my wife, paying off the small amount of cc balances and then having enough money to pay for property taxes on my home for the next 20 years.
So, after tax that would be $250,000. I would still need to work, but I would go nuts not working.
To not have to work AND not go nuts from boredom, I would need enough money to make retirement age. For me that's another 18 years. My family typically lives to be about 86 years old, so a total of 37 years. For all that, I would need after tax now of about $1,000,000.
At that figure I would not need to live off interest, but I also would not need to worry about investments crashing or banks going under. $1,000,000 cash would last the rest of my life and cover everything.
6 months salary. That would be enough to relocate and either pay living expenses and tuition to refresh my credentials for a better-looking resume', or switch from the private sector to non-profit work.
I earn exactly enough now that I can meet my material needs with some comforts, but not enough to get off a treadmill that's pointed in a direction which makes me hate myself.
That's fantastic news, and I hope you're getting some of the better winter days right now - clear skies and sparkling snow ready for skis, sleds, and skates.
We're still getting the Florida place ready for sale. It's seemed like every renovation reveals more work to be done, but once the bathrooms are fixed up, I think we'll have reached the point of diminishing returns, and be heading into the highest real estate sale season.
We're somewhat concerned about recent economic jitters, but the local market isn't showing signs of weakness yet.
I've also got a new boss, and we'll see what comes of that; there's still the potential for remote work or transfer to Minneapolis.
Right now I could really do with about £80. I really need a good quality warm coat because mine is falling apart and going outside is getting increasingly uncomfortable.
Anything more than that and I have a load of stuff I could improve in my life..
I know what you mean! My coat looks nice and has good utility, but to be frank, it's more of a windbreaker. I'm mainly staying indoors, and as the heater works, I don't mind so much.
Right now it'd be $10k. That would pay off a large enough chunk of debt to free up the payments for it to allow the other debts to be paid off much quicker, getting me debt-free by the end of the year. That would be life changing.
Pretty much exactly the same for me.
Half a million I guess, so I would stop my job and do something with it.
The round-trip price for me to visit boyfriend (or vice versa) is about $115. Even though it would be temporary, the memories would stick with me long enough for me to call it life changing.
Once I've calculated (something I'm very bad at, but still) that with $1m--$3m I could live th rest of my life, as a 20 somehting, quite comfortably and w/o working.
Right now, I'd appreciate some €25k. That'd pay my university loans easily, and pay for two years of master's in say Belgium, France, Germany, or maybe Portugal, both tuition and life expenses. I wouldn't have to wait for my PhD to leave for another country. That's the ultimate goal of my life these days.
Edit: grammar.
Good luck!
Thanks!
Because I’m unemployed I’d need a lot of money, otherwise I would just save it. So I’d need enough to support me for at least one year job hunting on my own apartment. Which amounts to about 25 thousand dollars, or 92 thousand Brazilian reais.
Short term, a decent holiday fund - so like AU$5-10k? Long term, I'd say enough to move out of small time investment properties and into the money makers, so like AU$2m.
Depends on what the floor for life-changing is, I guess. If you give me $1 I could use that money to buy a soda. If you give me a couple hundred dollars I could buy some of the retro musical equipment I've always wanted, so I could play around and maybe get serious about developing my musical skills.
If you want to get a figure of how much money it would take to make signifigant changes in my life, there is no way to quantify it. What I would really need is continual funds so I can securely leave my job so I would have time to do the work that would change my trajectory. For example, I am working on an associate degree right now, and can only afford the time to take one class per semester. That means that a simple two-year degree is looking like it will actually take six years to complete. And an associate degree is practically useless professionally.