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.

In fairness I am partly playing devils advocate a bit. I don’t think I will give up work. But it would be nice to have it there in the back of my mind as an option

So the mortgage is / will be paid off. There is also another property which will be owned outright which brings in (after tax) £550 p/m.

Then this lump sum. Two primary aged children.

I feel like an absolute dinosaur at work. Despite the fact I’ve been doing it forever I have no idea what I’m doing. Being part time is actually contributing to this as I miss things, have no base in the school (so am constantly moving around and feeling very disorganised) feel as if everything that everyone is insisting is the new way of doing things is just stressful. I think I am reaching or have nearly reached the point where I’ve burned out.

But what else is on the cards when you’re (almost) in your fifties!

Yes however I would cut back my hours during the school hols and just do 2 days a week whilst the kids are off

I've already retired, but it would enable DH to quit work a few years early (ie, now). We have no kids or other family, so I think we'd spend it on a one or two room extension to the house (1 room for storage, 1 as a dining room off the kitchen). I'd hope to plan a 3 month world cruise in January 2028 - in a suite, of course, and then we'd just sit back and enjoy a stress-free life, and stop being concerned about the price of heating fuel!

Depends how old you are.

If you’re 60, then hand your notice in. If you’re 40 then hold your horses.

Yes - I suppose that’s not young either. It’s middle aged. We had a training session at work and I can’t remember the exact figures but I was surprised how many people retrained in their mid 40s.

Would I bollocks they’d never see me again. 😂

I’d be in my fifties when I qualified for something else and I do wonder how realistic employment is at that stage.

Absolutely not.

Do you need to be employed? Do you have an interest you could make into a business? Pilates instructor or something like that? You could retrain and then lead classes locally.

Or if you enjoy teaching but hate your job, could you tutor? Work at a different school?

Yes as I already have more than that. But if I had another million on top of what I have then I probably would.

A million doesn't really go that far these days. An amount of money you couldn't spend it all I would.

I would but in a different job. If I had the freedom of no mortgage and a nice bit of savings I would swap my £74k for a nice part time role as something like a librarian.

I'd shout "BYE LOSERS" 🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼
Exit swiftly.
Wheel spin out of the carpark.
And never be seen again.

Same!

I always wonder whether it would be better to give them the cash equivalent for buying a house than doing private school (if it was one or the other)

30k a year for a decade for education, vs 300k after school to buy a house. I would argue that the benefit of the fully paid house would be better. That’s why I would only pay for private school if I was ACTUALLY wealthy and could afford to give substantial sums towards a home in addition.

Anyway, to answer the question, I could stop working with 1m but I probably wouldn’t, I’m not quite in my 40s yet and I think that working to 50 whilst letting that money work for me in other ways would probably be better. Plus I feel like I would be more inclined to end up using it to buy a holiday home (Florida) which would mean that between clearing my mortgage on mine and my in-laws home (I own it), and getting a big villa, I wouldn’t have much of it left.

Theoretically I could stop working maybe…possibly, but the lifestyle loss would be very significant given my age and the time over which I would have to make it spread.

Nope. There is absolutely no way I would still work. I know a million pounds isn't massive to some (you wouldn't get any change from a medium sized semi in the south of England) but I could do a lot with that amount. I'd travel, mainly.

@Boreded i haven’t decided yet … I would like to as my eldest may need some support; he’s only in y1 so hard to say but he’s not massively academic yet!

There's 120k left on my mortgage and maybe 30k of stuff I'd like to do to my house, so if I spent that, that'd leave me with 850k.

I like my life and have no interest in a flashier one, so I could live very happily on the same money - my salary is 45k, so in theory 850k would pay for 18 years of my current salary. Not counting interest earned, and not accounting for inflation, but also I wouldn't have a mortgage. 18 years would take me to early 50s, so not quite retirement age, and I would want to shove some of that 850k into a pension. So no, probably wouldn't retire, but I'd go down to 3 days at work.

I'm retired but my daughter wouldn't have a University debt and there would be some nice holidays.

I’d retire.

But I’m early 50s so I’ve got enough in pension pot to retire now if £1m dropped.

I did.

Yes it wouldn’t be enough for me to give up work. I’d pay off debts, buy a house and do some fun stuff. I would reduce my hours, supplement my income and have a better standard of living but if you’re in your 30s/40s it’s not really never work again level of money.

Considering I took early retirement with an awful lot less than that, the answer has to be no!

Yes. But I’d give DH ill health retirement. 1mill invested should give an ok annual income which added to mine would be a decent living. Our home is paid off.

I think just consider whether the better results he might get, and potentially better job (it may not actually be significantly better) with higher earnings will actually outweigh the benefits of a lower/zero mortgage, or even the uses you could have for that money (holidays etc that build memories and experiences).

For me, maaaaaybe I could just about afford private school, but I wouldn’t have anything left for holidays etc. Instead I’ve chosen travel and memories and my son loves that. He asked me the other day about how much private school cost (long story but basically we were chatting about the kids he would meet at uni) and when I told him he was happy we had used that money to enjoy life, and to give him a house deposit for the future. He said he would likely do the same thing. So from a young persons perspective I wouldn’t worry too much about them missing out.

I think that private school (in the majority of cases but not all) is best for families who can still afford the life they want, and who don’t have to sacrifice to pay for it. Sacrificing is fine, but you need to work out where the line is, and whether how hard you are cutting is worth it for something that could be provided for free, allowing that money to be used on other things.