this post was submitted on 19 May 2026
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me_irl
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I didn't say rich, that's not having to work and living off investments.
I said the "no worries line". If you're making 100k and living paycheck to paycheck, it's not economic pressures that are keeping you down, it's your perceived required lifestyle. Leasing cars is stupid, instead of paying 1k/month for a showy BMW, go buy a civic outright. Living downtown is nice, but can you actually afford it or is it taking 2/3 of your income? That civic lets you move to a lower cost of living area. If I made 100k doing what I do now (landscaping business) I would be perfectly content having everything I need and most things I want.
lots of people choose to work because their investments don't provide enough income to live the life they want to live.
these threads just fail to understand, there is no human contentment. very few people are going to be like, be happy living off 60K from investmetns, living a simple life. The people who have those investments to live off of... want more, WAY more. They want boats, houses, cars, all luxury and all in plural. They want to travel as much as possible as poshly as possible, so on and so on.
I regularly interact with people who are multi-millionaires who could retire at 30/40, but they will tell you how they are poor and struggling and how unfair and cruel their life is that they don't have more. because no matter how many millions they have, they never will feel secure.
In that case, we agree. That largely depends on where in the country you are but 100k would alleviate a lot of your worry for sure.