Ice9, I think TG is in the ballpark with 75K with a very modest mortgage. 50K could do it but I don’t buy expensive cigars and porn or bet on the chargers. The obvious consensus is that you have to work some, or the rate of bleeding is going to get you.Then there are the other fairly normal expectations like saving for college etc.
If you are mortgage free with a not so inexpensive home property tax base, 30k in net income might do it with super smooth sailing and on a very strict lifestyle, but that would be lots of work too, just different, like doing all your own car repairs, one car family would be good, growing some food perhaps and managing the kitchen a super low budget, very little going out. You can get pretty frugal,and work hard and stress being “semi-retired” trust me. There are good reasons not many are interested without a lot more savings and passive income.
We have our mortgage and property taxes paid from rental cash flow and could do with annual subsistence outflow numbers of 50k – 35K , depending on choices we would make. There is mandatory child care, which is necessary when my wife and I work on the same day. We also wanted some preschool for socialization. In reality there has always been part time child care,averaged about 8k per year for us with 3 kids juggling various care circumstances, but in theory it could be omitted in some scenario. The most we ever spent on one kid in a year for childcare is about 4K. Figure at least two birthday party invitations per child per month(or some equivalent social expense for them) . I think at least $500 per year,per kid, for sport,hobbies (could easily be a lot more or could be ommitted).
Annual consumer consumption doesn’t vary much with us regardless of what we make. But you have to worry about inflation and confiscation, as well as growing appetites, ramping up the bleed rate. Bleeding savings as a back up plan is not reassuring. Again, I am not the poster boy for semi-retirement but we have managed. We are very healthy and have medical and dental coverage from my wife’s fairly established half time employment. We both carry term life insurance which is pretty cheap.
