What would be a "life-changing" sum of money for you?

[mauvish]

Traitors s1 made me wonder this. The finalists all talked about the prize (somewhere betwen 35-40K each) being a "lifechanging" amount and I wondered, would it really change their lives? Or is it hyperbole?

So then I wondered what amount of money truly would change a person's life? Obviously it depends so heavily on which stage of life you're at, whether you're in debt, etc etc - but how much money would actually be LIFE-CHANGING for you, as opposed to just "nice to have and treat myself and family"?

Me - I am very lucky in that I'm older, I don't have any real "needs" that would be fixed by a particular sum of money, no desire to move house etc, so I don't really have a "life-changing" amount. (I can think of plenty of things I'd treat myself and family to if I won a million quid but that's different in that daily life wouldn't really change!) But in the past, it would utterly have changed my life if I'd suddenly got enough to be able to pay off the mortgage and work part-time instead of full time for the rest of my career. I suppose maybe now, if I were in that situation, somewhere between £250-500k? A lot more than 40K!

Really? You’d get £100k a year interest on 2 mil in a half decent savings account.

We're old enough to not need vast amounts for ourselves, but a bit extra for the DC would be good. Half a million or so would let DH at least take a job he'd like, rather than one he has to do as the sole earner.
Much less than that would be comforting for a short time, but as he's a bit of a spender with available funds, he'd probably run through it a bit too quickly for my liking. So it would be nice but not life-changing.

£350k would by me a really nice house outright and I'd only have to work to pay my bills

£35k would be nice, sure...but my life would essentially remain the same. I'd have to keep the same job, live in the same house and retire at the same age.

I got an inheritance from my grandfather (circa 200k) that allowed us to pay off mortgage a few years ago and have a good nest egg left over - it's not been life changing mainly meant we can now afford to go to opera and theatre more often, which were things I wanted to do, and also meant I could finally put 'real' money into my pension. It's as well as I might be about to be made redundant.

DH has been working for ages on a software project that he's nearly ready to take to market, and I'll admit I have daydreamed about what might happen if a bigger firm decided to buy it from him somewhere down the line for loads of money. Weirdly I realised a couple of million wouldn't be 'lifestyle' changing - as in I don't think we'd be living a jetset lifestyle on that, or would stop working.

It would mean being able to retire earlier and not worry about if either or us or any of our parents needed long term care later in life, and would allow us to give our kids a deposit to buy a home and finish uni without debt, which would of course be massive privileges and worries off our mind, rather than a very different life day-to-day.

Unless you hear your house by burning bank notes how the hell is £2mil not enough to stop working?!

£5000 would change my life. I could learn to drive, buy a little second hand car and that would open up so many opportunities.

£50,000 would mean I could stop working now, instead of in 4 years and 1 months time.
Yes i am counting down the years until I retire, and yes I don't earn much now anyway - already part time and with a private pension.

£500,000 I would move house.

£5 million - I would have a couple of houses, def one in Cornwall overlooking the sea near enough so i can actually hear the waves. And yes it is possible/doable - I have a couple on my ' wish list ' on Right Move etc. Could prob manage to view and have one under offer within the week :)

I think 30-40k lump sum can be live changing to many, it’s a house deposit that some may never hope of saving while paying high rental costs.

£100k would enable me to retire 5 years early and pay off my mortgage.

I think "life-changing" is an amount that lasts you for life. So it does depend on how old you are. I'm quite ancient, so £2 million would probably do it.

I think it would be millions. 1 or 2 million really wouldn't go very far. I'd want a nice but not extravagant country house and enough cash to live on and do some travelling. Then I'd need to help some close family members and I'd want to help my kids through Uni, weddings, house deposits etc. The reality is I'd probably need about 10million to be really life changing. Obviously, any money would be amazing but just paying off my mortgage wouldn't really change my life.

Well, 20k would pay off my unsecured debts. It would be life changing in small ways. No more worrying about it. £400 a month no long being spent on repayments which would make month to month more comfortable. That would literally change our life as it is now.

140k would pay off the mortgage. Would save us another £800 a month and provide more security.

So I definitely don't think for some a life changing amount has to be ££££.

Improve my life - anything over 100k would pay off the house, fund a second car and a family trip to Disney (kids wish).

change my life? A million plus. We could move (live in a shitty town), 500k would get us a fab 3/4 bed semi in a nice neighbourhood, plus fund dcs uni if they decide to go, and we could have some awesome holidays.

I wouldn't quit my job unless I won over 5mil.

Life changing would be 500,000 as it would enable me to make the move to a house on the coast which I would love to do.

If you are renting, aged 25 approx, 40k is your house deposit.

That is life changing.

At 25 yeah 40k would do.

250 grand would pay off the mortgage
so that would be a huge burden gone

I would be very happy with £20 or 30k to do what I need to on the house and be in a position to sell if I wish; £100k would also pay the remaining mortgage off. Not having that pressure would be life changing. I like my job and have lots I want to do, so I am not sure I would want so much I could stop work. It’s all hypothetical though, right now I will be just so happy to be paid on Wednesday. We were paid before Christmas for December. It’s been a very long month!

150k would pay off the mortgage.
300k would also cover Uni fees for the kids.
Half a million would be life changing in that we could enjoy life more, go on holiday etc without having to scrimp and save all the time to cover the things above.
2 million to quit work. I have 12 years till retirement, wish I could finish now. Love my job but so tired. I have a chronic illness and I am just knackered all the time. I would LOVE a year or two just to relax. I have never not worked since I was 21.

Life changing so that we could retire early and still have a nice life I reckon 1 million.

Life improving, pay off mortgage and loan, nice holiday, half decent car £100,000

I too am older and have enough for my needs plus a decent safety net of savings. So in order to induce me to actually change my life, I'm thinking it would have to be a very large amount. Maybe a couple of million would do it. £40k would just go into savings, I would use it to top up the ISAs next April.

4K would change my life as it would pay off all of our debts and free up money each month, which would then enable us to do other life changing things eg buying a house and seeing more of the world.

200K

£100,000 would pay off the mortgage and let us “do-up” the house as we’ve always wanted. We’d then have the monthly mortgage repayments to play with (put towards holidays etc that we’ve struggled to do)
so that would be a life changing amount for me as it would alleviate financial pressure.

I've answered before but, 500k

Buy house outright, some away in an account for repairs/remodelling/diy plus a chunk of what we pay in rent into that account every month to keep it topping up. Rest of what was rent into kids/our savings.

If any excess then some in savings for us and kids.

Owning outright would improve our lifestyle automatically purely through the security it would give us. This weird mentality MN had with renting being the be all and end all and "you all need to stop complaining because owning is worse because your boiler might stop working" needs to fuck off,

Half a million would do me nicely.