
Ask HN: How do I get $2.2M dollars? - gallerdude
I&#x27;ve decided that the optimal path I want in life is $2.2 million dollars, and then to live the rest of my life off of the interest generated from an index fund (approx $80K&#x2F;year after tax).<p>Right now I&#x27;m in college studying Computer Science, and in my free time I write (I&#x27;m not any good at either yet, but now&#x27;s the time to get good, so I&#x27;m not worried).<p>I&#x27;ve thought about a start-up, but the risk and reward are both too high. A successful startup is around the $10 million to $1 billion, depending on what you create. This is way over my goal. I&#x27;m sure the risk is proportional to the potential money earned, so it&#x27;d be inefficient to overshoot my target.
======
sillysaurus3
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this, but if you want to attain your goal,
you're basically swearing off having a serious relationship.

It's very rare for you to meet someone serious about saving money. Before you
know it, they're complaining that you never do anything even though you have
plenty of money (relatively).

Are you sure you won't want a relationship? You're young enough that within a
decade you'll be a completely different person. It doesn't seem that way now,
but a decade is a massive force.

There are other things you'll be giving up: Pets, for example, are quite
expensive. Sinking $3k into an electronics hobby is also rewarding. You'll
also be buying everything second-hand if you're really serious about saving,
and it's hard not to become frustrated with all of the poor-quality things in
your life.

And then before you know it, your youth will be gone. Time is more valuable
than money.

Just think carefully about your goals. It's easy to set a lofty aim, like
becoming a doctor, and then set yourself on a trajectory you may regret.

~~~
edent
> you're basically swearing off having a serious relationship.

Ha! What nonsense. It is cheaper for two people to live together, to cook
together, to go on holiday together, to travel together, to game together, to
invest together...

I'm struggling to think of anything that isn't cheaper when done as a couple.
Even if you find the cheapest living space possible - it becomes a lot cheaper
if someone else is contributing 50% of the costs.

~~~
bshimmin
Couples have this tendency to produce children, which tend to come with
additional costs.

~~~
tabeth
Couples also have a tendency to use something called a contraceptive.

------
itamarst
1\. Get a programming job with decent salary.

2\. Live far below your means, saving most of your salary.

If you can live with less than 80K you will (A) save faster (B) need to save
less money.

See [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-
sim...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-
behind-early-retirement/)

Also, you're young, so you may find you have different life choices in the
end. Saving money is always a good plan, but there's other paths to having a
life and a job (I cover them all in my book:
[https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/](https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/)).

------
daSn0wie
Build something:

2,200,000 = Delivering $1 of value to 2.2mi people. Just play with that
numbers until you can figure out something that you can build that fits into
that model....

$1 of value to 2.4mi people (in a year) // (i fudged the number to make the
math easier)

$1 of value to 200k people a month

$2 of value to 100k people a month

$3 of value to 75k people a month

$4 of value to 50k people a month

$8 of value to 25k people a month

$16 of value to 12.5k people a month

$32 of value to 6.25k people a month

...

The tricky part is figuring out what people want to pay for.

There are also abstractions to this... like advertising... An average cpm is
$2.80. So you'd have to get ~$3 of value from 75k people a month (if they
viewed 1000 pages/mo each).. or 75mi page views a month would get you 2.2mi a
year.

~~~
acconrad
Building something actually drastically reduces the requirements. OP stated
$2.2MM to live off of the interest ($80k/yr); put it another way, OP wants a
passive income stream of $80k/yr, which can come from $2.2MM invested via the
4% withdrawal rule.

In the case of building something, that replaces the need for $2.2M in
capital, which means the 75mm page views/mo reduces down to 2.7mm views/mo, or
in the case of the SaaS business, looks something like:

$1 of value to 80,000 people / year

$1 of value to 6,667 people / mo

$5 of value to 1,334 people / mo

$6.67 of value to 1,000 people / mo

$10 of value to 666 people / mo

The key insight is that $7/mo (in perpetuity) from your "1,000 true fans"
gives OP the lifestyle he/she is hoping for.

~~~
sn9
The problem with this is that no service is likely to maintain that level of
profit indefinitely in the way that $2.2m of capital will.

In fact, it might be easier to build one product that millions of users pay
$1/year for a few years than it would to get $1/year from 80,000 till one's
death.

------
stale2002
The best way to get a ton of money, really quickly, with little risk is to go
work for one of the big 5 tech companies.

Google, FB, ect pay 150k+ total compensation to new graduates and can quickly
rise to 300k+ for "senior developers" with 4-5 years of experience.

I'm not really sure how much higher it goes after that, once your are promoted
higher than a "senior developer". But it is probably a lot. And I am NOT
exaggerating on those previously mentioned salary numbers.

------
maerF0x0
The simplest advice* people can give you without predicting the future can be
found here :
[https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/01/08/46...](https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/01/08/462250239/when-
an-index-card-of-financial-tips-isnt-enough-this-book-is-there)

Basically: Get awesome grades, get a top offer, jump ship when you can earn
15% more elsewhere (and its not a down step job), Save at least 20% of your
gross salary into some kind of index ETF/fund, live way below your means, wait
10+ yrs.

* Assuming you're in the USA

~~~
AstralStorm
You also need to graduate from a recognized top university or have to get
really lucky.

Whoops, now you have some hundreds thousand of student loan.

Unless you studied abroad in a country with free education.

------
yongelee
start and sell a million dollar business 2.2 times

------
edent
I'll tell you what my plan is. It will vary from your plan because we're
different people and I'm in the UK.

1\. Don't have children. They're probably the biggest expense that you'll ever
have.

2\. Find a partner who also doesn't want kids. Everything is cheaper when
you're a couple.

3\. Loyalty doesn't pay the bills. Whether it is your phone supplier or your
employer - if someone is offering a better deal, take it.

4\. Your equity in a start-up is worthless. Even on the chance that it does
take off, there are some very clever accountants out there who will make sure
you don't get much.

5\. Remember Citizen Kane. "Well, it's no trick to make a lot of money...if
all you want is to make a lot of money." At some point the quest for riches
will be harmful to you. Make sure you have a release valve.

Good luck!

------
tpae
You can find inspiration here:
[https://www.indiehackers.com/](https://www.indiehackers.com/)

------
superdex
You forgot a key variable in your equation: WHEN?

When do you want to retire with this $2.2M? That might guide your investment
choices. Sounds like you might want to take some financial/econ classes as
well ;P

------
eagsalazar2
Don't get sucked into the idea that "startup" means VC funded startup with
high risk, multi-year investment of your time. Consider bootstrapping many
"utility" startups with the aim of getting 1-2 that have an aggregate value of
$2.2M and that, as assets, will provide > $80K in revenue versus $80K in
interest, which amounts to the same thing practically speaking.

I think the math in valuing these things is tricky but just for the sake of
this conv let's say you want to create assets that produce $160K in
income/year (to offset for the fact that these assets might only produce value
for a few years or require additional investment down the road). That means
you need assets that produce $13K/mo. Which, honestly, is not much.

So ask yourself this, what is more fun, easier, and more likely, making $2.2M
from a single big gamble? Scrimping your dev salary for 20 years working on
someone else's dream? Or making 2-3 bets (apps/products) year for a 2-3 years
where 1 or 2 turn into actual money makers? I think by following a strategy
like this, by the time you are in your mid 20's you easily should be basically
retired. There are a million little needs and still backward industries where
people are willing to pay for some automation and/or convenience. Finding and
scratching those itches is pretty satisfying IMO.

It is a very personal thing and obviously you need the few years of space to
build these things without also worrying about how you are going to eat.

------
JonFish85
Others have mentioned similar things, but there are a few things to consider.

Remember, $80k/year now may seem fine, but you have no idea what the future
holds. First, you may average $80k/yr, but remember that volatility can be
rough. If you got your $2.2m in 2007, you'd see losses for several years, and
a decade before it recovered -- can you afford not to draw down on principle
for a decade?

And then if you're aiming to live off of $80k/year, that's today's dollars. It
sounds like you're pretty young (college), so if you're expecting to live
another 60-80 years, you have to account for inflation. For example, if you
had $100 in 1937, you'd need $1,666 today to have the same purchasing
power[1]. If you do the same math going forward, you'll need $1.3m/year in 80
years to have the same purchasing power.

On top of that, there are other things to consider: having kids, unexpected
costs, health care, rising taxes, etc. As has been posted even here on HN
recently, a wealth tax would almost certainly blow your plans up in a big way.
And if you have kids, they're not going to qualify for financial aid, because
you're a multi-millionaire! So you'll be in an interesting pickle there.

This isn't to say that you shouldn't aim for this goal, just wanted to mention
some things to at least consider...

[1] [http://www.in2013dollars.com/1937-dollars-
in-2016](http://www.in2013dollars.com/1937-dollars-in-2016)

------
tomaha
Start doing interships at companies that look good on your cv and pay well
enough (Google, Facebook, etc). Get hired at one of these companies after you
finished studying (or if you can see it catch one of the up and comming
companies at the time). Invest as much as you can into stocks (and if you're
adventurous a small fraction into the main crypto currencies). After 10-15
years you will have a pretty high chance of having $2M+ in your accounts (just
401k at e.g. Google will give you 416250 without any returns and after 15
years it's ~800k with 7% returns). Even if you enjoy your live you'll be able
to have no problem getting there if you don't spend your money on stupid
things like leasing/new cars or overly expensive vacations. Everything you
save in the early years compounds so much that you'll likely have no problems
spending much more after 5-10 years when really your investments start to
bring in the same or more as your salary.

Startups are for lottery. So if you have saved a nice amount you can start
playing it and see if you can get to the next level and get to 10M+. But
otherwise big (and better companies on the way to get there) will be a much
much safer bet.

------
the-dude
Start with a billion and create an airline.

------
davelnewton
You work, you save, you make safe investments, and you wait.

Seems mostly like common sense, really. Regarding "over-shooting"\--the risk
of startup-like-entities is manageable, particularly if it's a low-input
resource.

Lower-risk passive-income projects don't necessarily bring in a lot of money,
but they're largely no-input once the initial investment is made, and every
little bit helps.

------
tiplus
If I got hit by a bus tomorrow - dying in the streets - I would not want to
think about how I put 2.2 M$ in my savings account.

To get you started... you could try to think about the cliche "how to be the
person selling shovels in the gold rush".

Write an online course on how you parametrized RNNs to predict Bitcoin
markets. I got it to work well on predicting a certain low frequency event
well with not too much effort. This resulted in 2~3 trade opportunities per
day, making only very few $ each trade. So no luck in the gold rush but maybe
not a bad shovel to sell?

Switch professions, maybe? 2.2M$ are not uncommon if you can wait a few
years... Become a medical doctor and freelance across the country? Enter the
middle management in any 200+ B$ company? Marry into a rich family? Low tier
drug dealer in Europe (short prison times)? All of the above require working
long/stressful hours over years. This brings me back to my first point: forget
about the 2.2M and do s.th. you enjoy doing.

------
throway8675309
Adding to what everyone else is saying, remember that $80k/year will be great
for now, but if you're not letting the principal grow at all, you'll still
only be getting $80k/year in 40 years, at which point it'll be a lot less
useful

~~~
gallerdude
Yeah, I’ve considered this. Maybe in years where return exceeds 4%, you invest
the excess.

~~~
TwiztidK
I'm going to assume you mean 'in years when 4% exceeds $80k, leave the excess
invested'. As the whole point of using 4% as a safe withdrawal rate is that it
allows the good years to balance out the bad years.

------
ryeguy_24
"live the rest of my life off of the interest"

You are still young but the people who live the longest and happiest are the
ones with purpose.

While you didn't ask for an opinion on this, if I were you, I would first
identify your true purpose. Maybe that purpose is playing tennis 5 times a
week and reading books (I know I'd like that) and which case, your question
above makes total sense. But maybe it's helping improve the life of others via
biotechnology innovation. Who knows. Don't discount having purpose in this
mystical thing we call life. I've seen what happens when people retire early
and have no purpose - it can lead to the unhappiest time of your life.

~~~
gallerdude
Thanks for the advice! There are a lot of things I kind of like, so I’m
pursuing them more, hoping that one will stand out. We’ll see how it goes!

------
kangnkodos
After you get 2.2 million, you say you can take $80K per year. So you're
saying that you'll be able make 3.6% interest per year. I think that rate of
return (after taxes and inflation) is reasonable. In my opinion, the best way
to get this is to invest in the S&P 500 via a low cost ETF such as SPY. There
are many different opinions on this point.

Assume you can get the same 3.6% rate of return while you are saving. Assume
you save the same amount every year. How long will it take to get to $2.2M?

Save $10K per year - 62 years Save $20K per year - 45 years Save $30K per year
- 37 years Save $40K per year - 31 years Save $50K per year - 27 years Save
$60K per year - 24 years Save $70K per year - 22 years Save $80K per year - 20
years Save $90K per year - 18 years Save $100K per year - 17 years

But I suggest you look at the whole thing a different way. Start with your
estimated salary. How can you have about the same amount of spending money
while you are working and after you retire? (A lot of people say you need a
little bit less money in retirement, so you can adjust for this.)

For example, assume you get a job with take home pay of $100K per year. If you
save $20K per year, and work 45 years, you'll have $80K per year while you're
working, and $80K per year in retirement. If you are able to save $30K per
year for 34 years, you'll have $70K per year while you're working, and $70K
per year in retirement.

I made a little spreadsheet, and came up with all the above numbers. It's not
too hard to set up a small spreadsheet and play with these numbers yourself. I
have some constants at the top - A1 has amount saved per year and B1 has
interest rate, as a fraction, not a percent, 0.036. After that, each row of
the spreadsheet has a different year, starting with year 0, balance 0. The
first column is the year, for easy reference. The second column is the new
balance. Old balance + (Old balance * interest rate) + Amount saved per year.
Use $A$1 and $B$1 to refer to the constants at the top.

I ignore inflation to simplify things. Instead I use an after-inflation
interest rate. These are all very rough estimates, after all. Who can really
predict investment returns 20 years from now?

------
brudgers
[Random Remarks from the Internet]...because this sort of thought experiment
is intoxicating.

\+ The scenario is based on applying the wrong capital allocation strategy at
the wrong time. When you have 2200k dollars and you want to make it last, the
important thing is capital preservation, not growth. Because growth can be
negative and even positive average growth can be locally negative.

\+ Once you have 2200k dollars keeping it in your mattress rather than
investing it will for growth provide 80k dollars/year for more than twenty-
five years. Twenty-five years is a long time even if you're old.

\+ Assume the plan is to get to 2200k dollars in five years. This requires an
after tax income of 484k dollars/year. And the discipline of living on 80k
dollars/year while earning 6x that amount. In ten years it is 282k
dollars/year with a 3x discipline. In twenty years it is 181k dollars per year
with 2x discipline. That's still tough.

\+ The proposed plan does not reflect a discipline of spending only a small
fraction of available yearly income. The proposed plan is 80k dollars/year in
and 80k dollars/year out.

\+ More broadly the proposed plan's 80k per year does not strongly imply
holding frugality as a principle virtue. It's about the top 1/8th of US
incomes (before not after taxes). This suggests that status is playing a role
alongside financial independence.

\+ 2200k dollars is an abstract X in an X -> Y problem if the goal is 80k
dollars/year of passive income. There are more concrete X's in the X -> Y
problem. For example twenty years US military service as an officer could come
close to providing 80k dollars/year in retirement. It would still require
discipline but not the 2x spending discipline.

\+ Not that I am suggesting a military career, only that it is a concrete plan
with a reasonable chance of producing 80k dollars/year in twenty years. The
downside of concrete plans is that they are less intoxicating.

\+ There's an old joke that the easiest way to make a small fortune is to
start with a large fortune. That's why most people don't have a small fortune.

Good luck.

------
saluki
I recommend a goal of creating a product and/or SaaS.

Listen to this for inspiration: @DHH Start Up School Talk
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY)

Great advice here: StartUpsForTheRestOfUs.com Listen to the archive you'll
follow Rob from drop shipping beach towels to selling his SaaS for $XXM exit.

Since you're in college you have plenty of time to make this work and build a
'lifestyle' business that will allow you to get to $2.2M and maybe even have
ongoing recurring revenue on top of that.

~~~
gallerdude
A lot of people on HN talk about SaaS - why this route? It _seems_ passive,
but then you have to maintain it and update it to the current needs of the
market. Furthermore, unless you’re a really technical mind and can do straight
CS work, you have to completely understand the needs of a different field. Is
this really the best way forward?

------
vannevar
Assuming you want to do this with low risk by the time you're in your 40s, and
that you're starting with a net worth of around $10K, you'll have to invest
over $5K/month and generate an average rate of return of at least 5%/year. If
you want to play around with the numbers, there are lots of investment
calculators like this one:
[http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/retirement/investment-
go...](http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/retirement/investment-goal-
calculator.aspx)

------
fpisfun
Haha nice, I always like when people think this way because I've realized I
only need so much money also and killing myself working to get more than that
is pointless because I already know very well that money doesn't bring
happiness by itself but having too little also leads to unhappiness. I have no
idea what the answer is to your question but I'm going to be reading the
comments.

~~~
gallerdude
Yeah, it’s quite freeing in a way, knowing that I don’t want a billion
dollars. Everyone wants to be rich, but by knowing _how rich_ , you can plan a
lot better.

~~~
fpisfun
I think it can be a good way to size up a person too, I once was in talks with
an entrepreneur who was working on a business and wanted to eventually hire me
as a technical lead. He would keep mentioning how he wanted to make the
company into a billion dollar company (at the time I think it had like $30k in
revenue), of course it didn't work out. Setting realistic goals is very
important.

------
mtmail
Treat startups as lottery tickets. That investment risk class is way too high
for your goal. A high salary and saving will get you there.

------
drakenot
There is a subreddit dedicated to this idea [0]. There is lots of good content
there to go through.

[0] reddit.com/r/financialindepdence

------
fnord77
the problem with living on a fixed income is some big unexpected inflationary
event.

This happened to my parents in the 70s. They retired in the early 70s and then
BOOM inflation went nuts and what was a comfortable retirement turned into
subsistence.

doesn't seem likely anytime soon, but it is still a risk.

~~~
tabeth
I don't see why this would be an issue, as you still have the principal, and
such events can be amortized into the adjusted "income" you pay yourself out
with.

~~~
AstralStorm
Because say you remain with say 40k/y (instead of 80k/y) of value in the
principal in addition to reduced compounding.

------
jacknews
"interest generated from an index"

Who generates the interest? You're saying you want to live off other peoples
hard work and creativity for the rest of your days. To do that fairly, you
need to be thinking how you can contribute a lifetime of value in a short
period of time.

------
lee101
I created [https://bitbank.nz](https://bitbank.nz) providing live crypto
forecasts.

I havn't reached that amount but in terms of income... You don't need to build
a 10M+ business, just one with a 80k a year income rate, which is fairly
achievable.

I only just launched it, i have negligible traffic and we are already getting
about 1 customer every week, each customer pays .03 Bitcoin for 3 months ~300
usd perhaps the lifetime value may be 1000 usd if they continue, i'm sure
there will be some churn but its fairly achievable that in a few years we will
have atleast 80 paying customers.

I'm currently reinvesting the money that comes in into marketing/improving the
business and into trading the cryptocurrency markets with the product to
validate that its got value for our customers, its not too hard to double your
money every few weeks using a high leverage trading platform like bitmex, or
something like poloniex if you pick the right coins with our forecasts :)

I built the product in between my day job at Weta Digital.

You can do the same!

Also checkout our referral program where you can earn .003btc every paying
user :)

The Sooner you get your business/secondary income stream off the ground the
sooner you'll hit your financial freedom goals, with running a business you
build trust/authority and traffic over time through many sources and the
sooner you start the easier it will be, i started bitbank.nz as just a ghost
blog about cryptocurrency trading about a year ago to get something out and
eventually snowballed into doing things in a more advanced way, now the
company is benefiting from the odd blog post i writ a year ago,

Keep doing things that don't scale and hitting 80k year on year is very
reasonable, you don't need to have hockey stick growth or be unicorn level,
you should be happy to run a business that would never get funded because your
aiming for 80k and not the moon.

------
CodingGuy
Buy Bitcoin and wait a year...

~~~
nbarbettini
... a year ago.

~~~
fwdpropaganda
Or now.

~~~
AstralStorm
To get these returns, BTC would have to appreciate 100x in value and you would
still need those 200k$. While it has done this before, past returns are no
guarantee of future returns. If you want to finance the 200k$ with debts...
well... the percentage can kill you, or require you to or in a sizable chunk
of income to pay it off. (Mortgages in some cheaper places in US are this
size. )

------
tryingagainbro
_> >How do I get $2.2M dollars?_

Get $3.5m and give away $1.3m. You'll have exactly what you asked for.

If you get atop job, salary plus options you could do it. Of course, unless
you spend it.

------
SirLJ
The way for me is the stock market - building trading robots, this is the way
to get your FU money and believe me it is well worth it and it is the ultimate
freedom in life...

I would recommend starting with Interactive Brokers or similar API (it is
free), small linux VPS, some data for back testing and off you go, for around
$100 you can start + a lot of time of course... Start by testing any trading
strategy you can fin on the net for free, they will fail, but you'll observe
why and one day you will find your own edge...

~~~
gallerdude
I’ve considered going into this with neural nets - given your bio it seems you
have some experience. But is this viable with a low amount of starting funds?
If I programmed a .51 optimal crypto trading bot, it’d take a long time for my
money to grow.

~~~
SirLJ
Crypto is too risky for me: the market is tiny, lot of hacks and crooks, not
regulated/no government protection and probably manipulated...

For the money, yes, to make money you need money, e.g. trading with less than
6 digits account is not going to make a difference and for sure it will take
time, this is not a get rich quick gimmick...

------
tmoullet
Read reddit.com/r/financialindependence for more ideas, but the gist of it is
what itamarst says.

------
seunosewa
Why do you wish to stop working once you reach your goal? How do you intend to
spend your time?

~~~
gallerdude
Um, I just like doing my own thing more than doing what other people want from
me. Maybe running my own business is the best foot forward.

This is a good question, and I’m going to keep thinking about it.

~~~
dakrootie
How would you describe your "own thing"? What does a day look like when you're
living off the 80k interest? Be as specific as possible.

I have a lot of experience in this area. (Obsessed about retirement from about
age 22, and set a goal for 30. Did it.) This is a very important question to
ponder at the beginning. :)

I should probably add why I'm asking this question. I thought all those years
I was working my ass off, missing out on so many things in life, and
destroying my marriage over this goal that I needed to have the money first
THEN realize my dreams. If your dreams are "freedom" and "doing my own thing"
you probably don't need $2.2 million to do them today. But I don't know what
they are, so that's why I asked. Sure, if your dream is to buy Ferraris and
pop expensive champagne every night, you really do need that money.

Mine or more simple: traveling practically full time, getting a farm and
building crazy inventions on it, etc. I really didn't need a lot of money to
do either of these things. For example there are sites like workaway.info
where you can go live and work on a farm, or on a beautiful vineyard in
France, or in a cool hotel in the tropics, etc. TODAY.

There are similar resources for travelers.

For anything I could imagine wanting back then, I could've easily achieved by
being a little resourceful, creative, and reaching out to those who could help
me in exchange for my skills/talents.

Bottom line is, you would be amazed at the life you can live outside the
mainstream economy. I think it's one of the best kept secrets in the world.

I don't regret how I did things entirely, but thinking about this very
carefully in the beginning would've saved me a whole lot of heartache and
distress.

I'm excited for you and wish you the very best.

~~~
gallerdude
I'm saving this under my important quotes folder, because it's something I'm
going to need to think about a lot. Thanks for the insight!

~~~
dakrootie
My pleasure. I'm here if you need to bounce some ideas around.

------
littleweep
In my very limited experience from what I have seen:

build a company and then sell it.

------
hkmurakami
Something like 15 years at one of the mjors should do the trick.

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tlackemann
Find a niche problem, solve it

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known
Don't marry :)

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gallerdude
Well, I think marriage helps give life some sort of meaning, and from a
pragmatic standpoint, two salaries and a permanent roommate for life. So it
might actually make more sense _to_ marry.

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fpisfun
You can do everything that a marriage entails without the legal contract that
gives someone else leverage over everything you own.

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Fifer82
This is why am not married. Signing a legally binding contact to say I will be
with someone forever is as ridiculous as it sounds. You can just live that way
and do 99.9% of what a married couple does.

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corporateslave3
Honestly? Just master data structures, get competing offers at FB and Google,
make 350-400k a year, invest heavily and aggressively, retire in 7 or 8 years

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gallerdude
Why data structures?

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stale2002
When he says "data structures" he actually means "interview questions".

Data structures and algorithms interview questions are the only thing that
Google and FB care about.

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pkaye
I can imagine an UI designer coming in for an interview. ...yeah I want you to
invert a binary tree.

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stale2002
You joke about that, but I had a friend who interviewed for a developer
Evangelist role at Google, and literally the only stuff that they were asked
was algorithms questions.

Yeah, it was a 50% technical role, but Google didn't care about the OTHER 50%
of the job at all...

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swarnie_
So you will need to generate 3.6% on your 2.2 million to take 80k a year. No
idea what your tax rate is so i cant comment on how far out i am here.

I doubt you can consistently make that kind of return year in, year out.
Accounting for 2% inflation its looking even worse.

There is a pretty good discussion here which expands further -
[https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/comments/5xmr3y/does_anyo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/comments/5xmr3y/does_anyone_live_off_their_dividends/)

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tarboreus
The S&P 500 has an inflation-adjusted yearly average return of about 7%. 4% is
a generally agreed-upon "safe" percentage if aiming to live off that amount.

