People with $5M+ NW, why do you still choose to work?

[Anonymous]

Use your money to live your life. Wild how different that looks for some. I personally am not worried about extended life care nor about leaving a large inheritance. I don't necessarily want to spend it all before I die, but if I do, that would be OK. My children will benefit from what I have provided for them throughout their lives. And by the time I croak I hope they are self sufficient and making their own path. Waiting on an inheritance is odd. Its most likely going to pass to the next generation anyway right?

[Anonymous]

Because $5M+ NW is not enough to maintain my lifestyle. I live large.

[Anonymous]

I’m 55 and probably at the peak of my career. I have launched a program that will take 3-5 years to be fully realized, after that I can pass it off to someone else and retire. Kids are still in high school annd I want to maintain great health benefits for one kid who has a lot of medical issues. Also, much of the wealth is new to us (dead parents) so it just doesn’t seem real. I still economize, despite our net worth being around 9m if I add it up.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I cant get over the fact that someone thinks its logical to need TWENTY YEARS of memory care housing. Dang. Youre going to go straight from your desk to full time care facility! How depressing to be that anxious.

I’m not “anxious” about it, I’ve just seen long periods of memory care or skilled nursing required for many friends and family, including my own grandparents. They burned through almost all of their estate on those costs.

Right. They had multigenerational family money and were extremely frugal and had almost nothing left after death. It’s an indication of the extraordinary costs of intensive elder care.

This is what the estate is for. It worked as designed.

Well, you are making a value judgment with that that it is okay to work to prepare for elder care costs but not to create generational wealth.

You do you. Who are you to judge other people’s reasons. Different people have different priorities, for the most part that is not your concern.

You misunderstand me. I am in no way saying that my grandparents or anyone else should be estate planning to create generational wealth. I am saying that even very large sums of saved money can be rapidly drained on elder care, and people severely underestimate cost in their retirement planning. I don’t give a hoot about whether you pass money to the next generation. I’m expressing concern about people’s high costs while they’re alive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cant get over the fact that someone thinks its logical to need TWENTY YEARS of memory care housing. Dang. Youre going to go straight from your desk to full time care facility! How depressing to be that anxious.

I’m not “anxious” about it, I’ve just seen long periods of memory care or skilled nursing required for many friends and family, including my own grandparents. They burned through almost all of their estate on those costs.

Right. They had multigenerational family money and were extremely frugal and had almost nothing left after death. It’s an indication of the extraordinary costs of intensive elder care.

This is what the estate is for. It worked as designed.

Well, you are making a value judgment with that that it is okay to work to prepare for elder care costs but not to create generational wealth.

You do you. Who are you to judge other people’s reasons. Different people have different priorities, for the most part that is not your concern.

You misunderstand me. I am in no way saying that my grandparents or anyone else should be estate planning to create generational wealth. I am saying that even very large sums of saved money can be rapidly drained on elder care, and people severely underestimate cost in their retirement planning. I don’t give a hoot about whether you pass money to the next generation. I’m expressing concern about people’s high costs while they’re alive.

The flip side of this is the amount we will inherit (from our Boomer parents with the fancy LTC policies for themselves) will more than cover our own LTC expenses. Even if our parents live to 100 (unlikely) we’ll have that money by 70.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your household net worth is at least $5M, what are the reasons that you continue working? Do you and your spouse both work or just one of you?

We stopped working and retired early with that net worth.

[Anonymous]

I'm curious- how is that working out for you? And what are your annual expenses?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some people just have that dog in them despite being worth $5M or $20M or $100M or whatever.

Yes. I am the first woman on either side of my family to have a graduate degree and I'd like to leave lots of money to future generations. It's a ego thing, I freely admit it.

How could that feed your ego? Your descendants won't care. They'll just take it. You'll be forgotten quicker than you can imagine.

[Anonymous]

I can see if you're making $600K+ to continue working into your late 50s and 60s, when there is this huge return to every additional hour worked. But once you are 50, continuing to work with incomes in the $150K to $400K range has very low net returns for remaining life years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because $5M+ NW is not enough to maintain my lifestyle. I live large.

This is true for me, too. I don't consider it living large, but the costs are high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can see if you're making $600K+ to continue working into your late 50s and 60s, when there is this huge return to every additional hour worked. But once you are 50, continuing to work with incomes in the $150K to $400K range has very low net returns for remaining life years.

This, plus there’s a long tail to $600K+ - I know a few people in their 60s making $5M+ as rainmakers. Hard to walk away from that even if you’re worth $50M+ or whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm curious- how is that working out for you? And what are your annual expenses?

Very well. Our yearly spending is 150k and it includes mortgage (we have a low mortgage amount at a low rate) and health care. The 150k might be low for DCUM but it’s plenty for us. We live very comfortably and have taken several trips already this year. The 150k is lower than 4% withdrawal for us and we’ll monitor that for SORR in these next few years.

[Anonymous]

I love my job. I love our team, I care deeply about our mission and we do good work. I’m proud of what we contribute and I’m proud to lead our group. It’s a lot of hours, so I may transition at some point in the next few years. But, I am very fortunate to spend my days doing something I feel is important with people I care about and who are dedicated and highly competent. That’s a great thing.

My take-home lesson is that I strongly encourage my kids to find careers that they are passionate about. We spend so much of our life at work, so if they have the ability, I hope they find careers that they find as enriching and impactful as I have (after much searching earlier in my career).

A few earlier posters seem to derive gaining identity through work. I have a different view. I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a friend, a community member, and I have my work. All of those things, the relationships and environments that I dedicate my time and energy to Help define me. So, yes, I am in part self defined by the work I choose. To me, that just means we should all choose our work, where we spend so many hours of our days, very carefully, and make sure we do something that we care about. I think that’s a great thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“You can’t do anything with 5, Greg. Five is a nightmare.”

Five will drive you un poco loco, OP.

Seriously, though, some people are motivated by wanting to leave as much as possible for their kids. Some want to ensure a healthy cushion in case they need a lot of care when they’re older. Some people want the option of higher-end retirement homes, which can cost a lot. Some people like their jobs, like to be busy, like to contribute, want to model good work ethic for their kids.

Do a mental experiment: how would you feel about going to your job every day if you knew that if you truly got fed up, you could just quit and walk away? That would make the experience of working a lot different.

It does make work a different animal. I am working for a private equity payout. Kids are grown and employed living on their own. Spouse is happily retired has his own life doesn’t need me to be retired to be happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some people just have that dog in them despite being worth $5M or $20M or $100M or whatever.

Yes. I am the first woman on either side of my family to have a graduate degree and I'd like to leave lots of money to future generations. It's a ego thing, I freely admit it.

How could that feed your ego? Your descendants won't care. They'll just take it. You'll be forgotten quicker than you can imagine.

It feeds my ego to be an executive rather than a retired old lady.