looking for the rare people...

[noborisno]

...who would continue to do the job they do now if they received a tax-free, obligation-free two million pounds.

If you had that money in your bank (in whatever circumstances make it believable for you) do you quit your job, just reduce your hours, or carry on doing exactly what you're doing now work-wise.

So, you have 2 million, do you:

1. Reduce your hours - you like your job but wouldn't do it all the time/as much as you do now to maintain an income
2. Walk right out - you're literally only there to make a living
3. You continue as you are - you love the work you do each day and enjoy every day of your life

2 million pounds wouldn’t actually go that far and in terms of producing an income wouldn’t last that long. After I’d paid off my mortgages and done some renovations, I’d stay working half-time or perhaps 75% because even not working, I’d still do the work I do.

I loved my job so much I retired at 46 and lived abroad for nearly a decade. Back now but nothing could tempt me back to work. I'll take the 2 mill, we'll enough to keep me in the manner in which I'm accustomed at my time of life!

1. I quite like my job but I can't say I'd be very motivated if I was a millionaire

I'm A SAHM so I'd just carry on but with more Starbucks

I idealise 2 but would probably do 1. I do wish I could get off the hamster wheel completely, but I think I’d get bored once I’d got all the things on my ‘things I’d do if I had time and money’ list done.

I'd keep doing it but be super selective about my clients. I'm freelance. I have several clients I adore and look forward to our scheduled work each year. They have become friends and we respect each other a lot. But I'd be away a lot, seeing the world...

I have thought (or rather dreamt 😂) many times about what I may do if I won the lotto.

I deduced, that in order to safely and comfortably quit my job, I’d need more than a couple of million. More like £4 or £5 million to really be financially secure. Because the cost of things now, I don’t think that £2m would go very far once I’d bought a house, paid off debts, bought a new car etc. I’d still have prob £1.5m left, but would that be enough to pay all my household bills every year until I die? Highly unlikely.

What I may do with an amount of £2m however, is continue working for my employer whilst I set up my own business instead. And once that was up and running, then leave. Because at least if I had to work, I could work for myself rather than someone else!

Agreed!

I’m 44, so still a way off retirement yet. But £2m just wouldn’t cut it for me to up and leave my job straight away.

The other thing I may do is at least change careers and do something I’ve always wanted to work in, but couldn’t afford the pay drop to the level I’d be going in at. I’ve always wanted to work in conservation (I’m a wildlife and nature lover). So maybe I’d look at a career change into that if I didn’t set up my own business.

I'd stay at work, I don't love my job, I barely even like it, but it's not the worst job, £2 million sounds like a lot until you've bought and renovated a nice family home, put so much into savings for DC and nieces and nephews, and helped our parents a little.

I can't understand people saying 30k a year isnt enough to live on! I mean a 30k salary isnt enormous but when it's tax free winnings, it's loads! My essentially come to 1k a month, without a mortgage even less so I have nearly 20k a year to piss up the wall, I think that's enough to live to a decent standard.
But to answer the question, I would quit my current job but finally have the money to retrain into what I actually want to do and would be self employed maybe 3 days a week. And probably bugger off on holiday for a long weekend near enough every week 😂

🤣🤣

I'd buy a decent property and enjoy life.

But as a previous poster pointed out year on year it's not a huge amount - especially if say half goes onto property and new car etc.

I'd definitely carry on working my job but I'd likely ask to cut my hours!

However I love my job!

I would drop my hours but stay in work. For all that it's sometimes incredibly hard and stressful (I'm a social worker) I absolutely love my job, and the people I work with and for.

I had to take 18 months off due to I'll health and I missed work a lot. I'm now chronically ill/disabled and although working saps my energy and is hard sometimes, I can't imagine not doing it. I sacrifice a lot to be able to work.

Because it depends very much on where you live. I live in a place just south of London where living costs are high and property is almost as expensive as London. I've got two children and a car to run, along with other financial commitments and 30k wont really be worth 30k in 10-20 years, it will be worth much less so its not like its 30k forever, it will decrease in value in terms of what you can purchase with it every single year as costs rise.

It’s not that it isn’t enough to live on, it’s not enough to live on comfortably or enjoy any kind of luxurious lifestyle with.

If I came into a huge sum of money like that, in order for me to just up and leave my job and never work again, I’d want it to be life changing enough that not only could I quit work forever, but I could do it without having to count/watch the pennies every month.

I currently rent. If I go off and buy a £400k barn conversion in the Shropshire countryside, I have to consider that I’ll be paying out more for council tax, gas, electric etc than I do in my current 1 bed flat! And also that I’d no longer have a pension when I retire.

Suddenly £30k a year/ £2k per month doesn’t seem that much, to enjoy a completely financially stress free lifestyle when you still have lots of monthly household bills to pay!

But that sort of money you can invest it to provide an income where you can take an amount out of it and the money will never run out or will take decades to run out.

It does depend on your lifestyle and type of property you'd want to live in, but it's absolutely not the case that you need to spend most of it to be able to buy somewhere nice to live unless you decide that living in an expensive part of the country is more important than not having to work again.

No way I'd give up work. When I look at how much I'll earn over the course of my career it wouldn't make sense, plus no/little pension. I might go part time though.

The issue isn't that you can't live on an income of thirty grand a year, (less income tax/inflation). It's that if by working thirty five hours a week in a job you don't hate you could increase that to fifty thousand (or more) and make your lifestyle a lot more comfortable then a lot of people would think that worth doing.

I’d definitely keep my job. Winning £2million would be great as it would allow me to continue my low paid but fulfilling job without feeling I should chase the money more.

I'm loving the folk who say 2 million isn't a lot of money. It feels like they come from a different planet to me....

I’d probably still do a day a week or so. I love the people I work with and love the job 90% of the time. Have even thought about what I’d do with the wages I wouldn’t need… I’d stick it all in a fund to pay for a banging staff party. 😂😂

After paying off debts, buying a house in the country, etc, I'd reassess my finances, invest somehow, and keep working with a more comfortable day to day life. My brain fizzes, pops and bangs without activity, I would go mad not working.

Might end up setting up a consultancy business eventually - the cushion of money makes it less personally risky.

Of course it is a lot of money, but it's also all relative - and probably depends on where you live. If I continued living in my crappy zone 4 outer London house I don't particularly like, then yes it would be lots of money. But if I bought a nice house (I don't even mean luxury!) anywhere else in London, that would be over a million gone already. I'm only in my thirties so if I live another 40 or so years, that would leave me with less than £25k per year at most if I just thought of it in cash terms (disregarding the potential to invest/earn interest on it). And no pension contributions for the rest of my working life.

Now obviously if I already had a house I like and could just pay off a mortgage of say £100k, and then live on the rest, that'd be a different situation.

I love my job and I would undoubtedly carry on - in between going on exotic holidays of course 😂

It's a shitload of money! Whether it would be enough to set you up for life to live comfortably without working again, all the while getting deskilled and losing your workplace pension is another matter. Depending where you live, if you're don't own a house outright now then accommodation will be a big chunk of it gone. Someone could just say 'invest it'. But if they know nothing about investments then that's highly risky to go into straight away without learning more.

I think that's what makes it an interesting question. It's a life changing amount, no doubt about it, and would earn interest if in an account, but not enough to let you live a millionaire's lifestyle forever.

Someone could just say 'invest it'. But if they know nothing about investments then that's highly risky to go into straight away without learning more

You could learn all you needed to know in under a day looking at the Meaningful Money website, or spend a sum in the low thousands on an IFA.

It would be something like. If you want this £2M to provide a comfortable standard of living for the rest of your life, don't spend most of it on property, so buy a house for say £4-500k max. Keep back enough for the next 2/3 years or so to give you some liquid cash, say £100k, put it in PBs, Chase account so you get some return.

£1.5M giving a modest average 3% return is £45k pa even without touching the capital. Most people could live on that with no rent/mortgage to pay and a lump sum to pay for cars/home improvements/maintenance etc.

Put the rest in tracker products with a variety of risk profiles that you can access in the medium to long term and use your S&S ISA allowance, put some you can live without before you're in your late 50s in pensions for the tax relief.

It's really not rocket science and you could make it provide an income that will never run out if you wanted to. Of course many might choose to spend it all on a run of the mill property in London and convince themselves that they're not rich and need to continue working, but that's their choice.