If you had a million pounds, would you carry on working?

[theveryveryhungrycaterpillar]

I know a lot of people will reply they love their jobs and would no matter how much money they have but if I’m honest I don’t enjoy mine at all (teaching, if that’s relevant!)

Interested to know.

No I don't think so. I'd probably buy a bigger house and enjoy some nice holidays, put some away for my kids but I enjoy working and the mental stimulation, and also the social side. I have no intention to stop working until I really have to!

I guess the thing is, the money could give you the freedom to find something you love.

No,I would leave work straight away😊

I wouldn't do my current job. I would use it to step back.

I am a teacher. What you reckon?

We have paid off our house, no other debt, got reasonable pensions (but still working on that). No we wouldn’t retire. £1m extra wouldn’t be enough to live off the interest after tax if you simply invested it. If we lived off the capital, then the risk is something awful happens and you’ve not much to fall back on

I don’t want to be a landlord.

Isn’t that kind of assuming that everyone has something they love that is lucrative or at least pays something?

I am not sure that’s the case!

I’m getting sums of around £2200 a month after tax. That seems enough to me in the sense that it’s enough to live on. But I accept it isn’t a life of luxury.

Let’s be honest in this day and age if you are late 30s (like myself) a million pounds wouldn’t last very long… so I would have to regardless on how much I love my job (or not) 😂

@Yogafiend i am a decade on from you and I think that it could … but that you would live a fairly unexciting life.

A million pounds, invested properly, would give you an annual income higher than average wages so for most workers, it would easily exceed your "take home" wage as an average worker.

Hell no

Especially not the week I’ve had

Answer could depend on when you ask though - some weeks are not so bad but I’d like to retire next year

Yes, I think that’s what’s puzzling me slightly with the ‘of course you can’t live off that’ answers.

You could; of course you’d have more money if you worked as well. But you could.

I would likely stop working. I’d need to work out what income I’d get from the money left if I paid off my mortgage. And work out if I needed to work another year or two. Im coming up to 50 so don’t need it to last super long.

Not straight away no as when I retire I want to holiday a lot with my husband but kids still at school so I'd work 8 ish more years then quit.

Plenty of ways to reduce/mitigate/minimise the income tax. And you wouldn't just bung it in a bank savings account for average interest, you'd invest it in a stocks/shares/securities/bonds portfolio to get both income and capital gains, and "drip feed" into ISAs/Pensions to build up the tax-free element, get tax relief, etc. If particularly brave, you could also re-invest some of the income in SEIS/EIS/VCT investments to get income tax relief to zeroise the income tax due on interest/dividends outside ISAs etc. Plenty of IFAs (and self investors who do their own research) can do good things with a million!

It isn’t much, and you are ignoring the time value of money. Even if £2200 was enough now, in 20 years time the cost of everything will have doubled and you still only have £2200 a month

No, but Im 61 and my mortgage is paid off.

I have no desire to move but my house could do with some work.
£500 k would pay my son's student loan, get him a car and house and do the work my house.
I'd be quite happy with £50k a year income till its run out.

Yes, none of which is guaranteed. Given it is your only source of income I wouldn’t want to risk it to fluctuating investments.

But interest rates will have gone up too?

I get that. But that’s not my current situation. And I have 3 kids (13,11 and 10) in private school and I live somewhere where the cost of living is very high.

The fact you only get 5% for your £1m would seem to indicate otherwise.

I think people just look at paltry interest rates of say 3%, do a simple calculation, and think that's it, comparing it to current "take home" net wage.

Paying off debt/mortgage/loans/credit cards would immediately reduce people's outgoings, so they'd need less income! Not working would immediately reduce peoples' commuting costs, need to buy work clothes, need to buy expensive coffees/lunches whilst at work, etc., so again, they'd need less income, likewise no childcare costs as you'd be at home to look after your children, again meaning less income needed, and so it goes on.

It's similar to that other thread on here about how little people "need" to live on in retirement, with the same aspects, i.e. no work/commuting costs, no mortgage repayments, etc.

At the end of the day, it's expensive being a worker, especially a middle aged worker with children and a mortgage! Take the work commitment out of it, take the mortgage away, and suddenly your outgoings are a lot lower, hence you don't need anywhere near as much income.

its a hell no from me. I should have retired at 60 so wouldn’t hesitate to not go back.

But you’d also potentially have pension and state pension to come to bridge the gap.