If we moved somewhere cheaper, could we live off principle?
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Anonymous
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We are a family of 3. Own a condo in DC worth $500 - $600K that is totally paid off. Gross annual rental income is $36k-$38k. We have a house in MD that we could sell for at least $1 mil, and have a $200k mortgage on it. We have combine student loans of $65K at a very low interest rate (less than 3%). Only about $100K in savings, and a combined total of $100k in 401ks. DH is starting business but isn;t earning income yet. I make about $80K a year with ok benefits at a nonprofit. DS is in preschool and can go to great public schools in MD. Sometimes I think we should cash out of our house, maybe keep condo for rental income, and live someplace cheaper where we both could work parttime (or in my fantasy not at all). DH is in early fifties, and I'm early 40s, so we hopefully have some years of living ahead of us. We'd like to be able to pay for kids college, etc.
I'm looking for inspiration of how to make this a go. Would it be possible to stop working, pay for affordable care act medical coverage and just piss around without bankrupting ourselves? Where could we move on the East Coast to live more cheaply? |
Anonymous
| There are many retirement calcators on the internet. Enter your age, current net worth, how much income you want and when you plan to quit work. I think the results will be eye-opening. The $1.5 million or so you have isn't nearly enough to last the rest of your life, unless you want to live at the poverty line (and maybe even then) and forget paying for college. Think after-tax and inflation (and interest rates for safe investments are nothing right now). |
Anonymous
| Not unless you want to die in a Medicaid nursing home |
Anonymous
| Easily. Read http://mrmoneymustache.com |
Anonymous
Awesome! Do you personally follow this type of lifestyle? |
Anonymous
| I live in Vermont and I suspect there are a lot of people here who have done precisely what you are talking about. |
Anonymous
| I wonder the same thing, although we have a net worth of around $8M with 3 young kids. Truthfully I worry I would get bored. |
Anonymous
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If you liquidate everything you'd have around 1.4? That's a draw of 42-56k/year, and you would have to pay for housing, health care, etc for a long time before SS kicks in. That would be tough. A little easier if you kept the rental property - your rent is well above the 3-4% you could make/take off the proceeds if you sold - so add another 15k/year. Easier if you are working at least part time, but your earning potential will be less in a lower cost of living area and jobs may be hard to come by.
If, however, you were the 8M poster? Absolutely, no question, and you would have the money to not get bored - you could take 3% and live off of 240k/year. That is plenty to live well almost anywhere and still have enough to travel, etc. |
Anonymous
| I think you mean live off your interest and earnings, not your principle. You don't touch the principle if you want to keep earning money from your investments. |
Anonymous
Nobody can live off principle. Some people can live off interest and earnings without touching the principAL. 
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Anonymous
Also, the principal is your PAL. |
Anonymous
Not true. Nuns and monks live off principle all the time. |
Anonymous
Because raising three young kids is boring? Now that's something I have not heard before. |
Anonymous
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I think the first problem is retirement. Given that you have the condo, I think you could get away with aiming for having $1.5M at retirement. You have $200K in savings. Assuming you sell the house and use $300K of the equity to buy something in a less expensive part of the country, that gives you another $500K towards retirement. I don't think $700K is going to grow to $1.5M in 15 years when your DH will be 65, so you're going to have to find a way to add at least several hundred thousand to your 401K over the next 15 years. If you set aside 30K in retirement per year for 15 years ($450K), you may be getting there. (I'm just doing off the cuff estimates here - you need to fiddle with calculators.)
The other issue is college. You didn't say if you have anything saved, or whether you're aiming for public or private. Let's say you want to do public - you probably should aim to have $150K set aside. Off the cuff again, I'd say that means saving $8K/year in a 529. So I think it can be done if you think you can pull in around $100K/year between the two of you, $40K to go towards savings, $40K for living expenses, and $20K for taxes. |
Anonymous
| I agree... but you could probably find a less stressful job elsewhere and live relatively comfortably on less income. |