If you have a million dollars invested, you can withdraw 6% to live off $60,000 a year, slightly more than the median income. If you can live off $23,000 and you have a million dollars in the bank, you’re done congratulations. In other words, you don’t want to end up like the CNET founder who blew $200 million in five years and is … According to the Census ACS survey, the median household income for the United States was $55,775 in 2015. But then you'd have to add in all the other factors that you consider to be part of the national debt. If not then it’s a nice start towards your retirement. There are 3 keys to building a large enough portfolio that pumps out enough passive income to live off: Live below your means; Save aggressively; Give it time; Let’s stick with the previous example of $60k yearly expenses. If your cost of living is low, you may be able to live off interest on a million dollars invested in certificates of deposit. At the time of our research, many of the top banks were paying just shy of 3% annually on 5-year CDs. You could use that money to invest in the stock market, real estate, or even start your own business. This means that you can earn close to $30,000 per year by locking up your money for a 5 year term. Let’s say you inherit a million dollars from your rich uncle or sell your internet startup, and you want to live off the interest for the next 30 years, without putting the principal at risk. Whatever you do enjoy your life and don’t let money be the reason you don’t. If I had 5 million, and I wanted to be secure financially, I would at least set up multiple bank accounts so that the amount I have can be insured properly. There are several ways to go broke from $25-30 million. Retiring at 50: With $3,000,000 in after-tax investments at age 50, you’re earning $120,000 in gross income before taxes or $85,000 after-tax. Can you live off the interest an investment principle of a million dollars provides or do you need more? First, to really stress test their plan, we'll want to see at least at 75% probability of success when running a … That is a very good sum of money, and yes, you could easily go broke. ... To have $60,000 in today’s dollars in 30 years, you would need to aim for an annual income of $125,900. FDIC ensures that 250,000 of your cash in an FDIC bank member's account is covered. Not bad! If you're saying that those people are part of the national debt, then the answer would be 50 million times 100,000 dollars per year. OK, it may not exactly be news that a debt-free couple with $2 million should be able to live on $80,000 a year for 30 or so years. I retired in 2001 at age 50 with x amount of dollars, have paid out close to 800,000 in living expenses and am 200,000 ahead of "x" when I retired.Stock trades, … I talk with a lot of millionaires in my travels and, for a long time, a $1 million nest egg was the measure of retirement planning success. That would reset your savings goal to $2.1 million, assuming an optimistic 6% interest rate. Figuring out How Much You Need to Save to Live off the Interest Alone. Let's push on this a bit and see what happens. In fact, if you had $1 million in dollar bills, it would literally weigh a ton and take you about 12 days to count it all. But you’ve got to live in a cheaper part of the country and stay frugal if you have kids and parents to care for. You have the potential to be a millionaire!