What’s the minimum passive income in Bay Area to retire early and be financially independent?
FIRE is more important than trophy. So let’s leave trophy life out of discussion, but no super frugality as well.
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I think healthcare is becoming one of the more difficult parts A platinum healthcare plan for a family of 4 can run $3,200/mo. If you gamble on a high-deductible plan, then you risk having expensive years. Healthcare premiums are also increasing 10-25% a year. At least a mortgage stays flat and property tax can only increase 2% a year.
If you bought your home at the bottom, then it’s a lot easier. Your mortgage and property tax would be ~50% of what someone buying today would have. I still can’t see doing it with less than $200K/yr.
So according to Marcus, minimum passive annual income of 200k is required for BA FIRE for a typical household of 4.
Any other numbers?
Health care will bankrupt the whole country
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Which is a good reason to include it in your FIRE calculations. If you assume the gov’t will pay for it, you’re going to be in a world of hurt when you need it.
LOL. I know rich people, really rich. They are still going around the bushes when they should be retired. There’s this thing called greed, or lack of confidence on themselves, or the fear to lose it all on their gambling life style. The stock market can send them to poverty line in one shot.
By the way, If you were beaching about healthcare costs, wait, you will be in labor pretty soon.
Thanks to the Christianity in that MAGA.
Once you retire from being an employee, you will lose the group health plan which is subsidized by the young workers in your company. Also you’ll need to buy insurance from private market or ObamaCare exchanges. As you age, your health premium can be expected to increase as well.
I guess that ObamaCare coverage would be worse than a corporate health plan. How much worse is it? You don’t want to retire into a subpar health plan.
You can always buy a good health plan which is comparable to the corporate plan, probably in the private market.
Is there good health plan for realtors or other freelance worker associations? It’s easy to get a realtor license just to be eligible for the health plan, you can choose to never see a client.
I think most people will still do some work after FIRE, but probably not work a corporate job. At most a part time job at a corporation, but it might be hard to find part time jobs in BA, as terri has found out
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My plan is to go be a university professor or administrator.
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You have a PhD?
2 masters. It’s shocking how many administration roles there are and most don’t require a PhD. You only need the PhD if you want to be tenured faculty. Those positions are dying out anyway. Everyone is going the lecturer/adjunct faculty route.
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What kind of administration roles are there? In BA, there are Cal State universities which might be easier to get into. Stanford could be very hard to get in
Universities are roughly 1:1 administrator to faculty now, so there are tons of them. Honestly, I think a state school would be better in terms of pension and healthcare benefits.
I am seeing more and more adjunct faculty members with PhD degree, in STEM area. Most of adjunct faculty have PhD degrees in good 4 year colleges. Don’t know about community colleges or lower tiers of the 4 year colleges though.
Adjunct professor is not a full time employee. Not sure whether adjunct professors get healthcare benefit. Adjunct professor could be treated as an independent contractor
I have another 15-20 years before I have to worry about it. It definitely seems to be the best option though. It makes zero sense to do it until after peak earning years. If I did a PhD, it would be in economics. We need someone publishing economic stuff that actually understands business and isn’t a lifelong academic.
Maybe I’ll just retire to the EU and enjoy socialism 
3200 for a family of 4 is way too high. It’s more like 2k a month. Go on CA’s exchange to see the plans. No, it won’t bankrupt you.
Manch, are you buying the Obamacare from the exchange? Or other private insurance?
How does it compare with Intel’s insurance plan?
$3200 is the price for a platinum plan on covered CA. It all depends on what you can live with in terms of deductibles, co-pays, and out-of-pocket max. The platinum is closest to what I have through work.
Trump University was hiring. You missed the chance to defraud people. Dang!
Is Covered California the best route for insurance purchase? I heard someone mentioning insurance brokers before.
24k a year for medical insurance is pretty expensive, not much better than 36k. With a 200k passive income, you can handle it. But what if you live in Central Valley with a $50k passive income?