Regarding mathematics as a career and his outlook on the financial issue -

"I have a bright career ahead of me in mathematics. Beyond that, I have the means to make a good living and provide for my family, without playing football. I have no desire to try to accumulate $10 million in the bank; I already have more money in my bank account than I know what to do with. I drive a used hatchback Nissan Versa and live on less than $25k a year. It’s not because I’m frugal or trying to save for some big purchase, it’s because the things I love the most in this world (reading math, doing research, playing chess) are very, very inexpensive."

Interesting to know about the retirement 'vest' of 3 years. If he lives another 60 years that is a bit more than $1.25M.

That is a beautiful quote.

Yet the vast majority of the time, this sentiment comes from people who are well-off, e.g. someone with an MIT PhD and an almost impossible-to-screw-up future.

There are at least two possibilities. Either people who aren't well-off are just sour grapes, or they deal with a lot more than a lack of proper mindset.

The secret to happiness is no secret: if you have more money than you know what to do with, you can cover the vast majority of cases that will make you unhappy. If you, your children, or your pets get ill, you can get them proper medical care. For someone who lives on $25k/yr, that will almost always end in disaster.

I think it's not productive to pretend like money doesn't equate to happiness. The lust for money can do a lot of damage, but simply realizing that money is incredibly important to happiness is a realization that most people don't make. They spend extravagantly when Christmas comes around; they eat out because they want to "feel like a normal person," i.e. someone who can afford to eat out; they get expensive birthday gifts for family members. And why? Then when a financial disaster comes around, like someone getting ill with no insurance in the US, there are no resources left to deal with it.

I don't know. It's just far too easy to feel like there's a key to happiness waiting to be discovered. It's a multi-faceted and complex issue.

Yet people still like to complain about how everything is too expensive and how they have no money. People here are miserable and we have one of the highest alcohol consumption and suicide rates in Europe.

I'm not really sure what point I'm trying to make, but as you say happiness is complicated. Giving everyone $X/year more isn't suddenly going to make them happier.

Why is that ?

Starting in the middle:

   > I think it's not productive to pretend like 
   > money doesn't equate to happiness.

   > Yet the vast majority of the time, this sentiment
   > comes from people who are well-off

It would be great if it were that simple, but it isn't. All of the studies show that once your basic needs are met The correlation between money and happiness essentially goes away. And part of the problem is being imprecise in our language, because their is 'money' which is to say "gee you're pulling in $10,000 a month!" and there is 'wealth' "gee it only takes 10% of your take home pay to cover your rent!"

Many people who work in the STEM sector of the market, will have their basic needs met. They will all have individually varying levels of happiness that are not well correlated with their individually varying levels of wealth. You'll meet them, people who are "rich" and miserable, people who consider themselves "middle class" and are totally happy.

And I assert there is a key to happiness in this uncorrelated range of wealth.[1] That key is to define your happiness in something you have complete control over, rather than something that is externally influenced. Everyone I've ever met who does that is happier, more consistently, than people who don't do that. It doesn't have to be learning like it is for me, I know people who are very happy and measure their days by how many people they have helped.

It is my thesis that everyone has some internal notion of their "score" in life, and once their survival needs are well met (food & shelter) their happiness is entirely a function of how much they are 'scoring' versus an arbitrary benchmark of what a good 'score' should be.

[1] For the literally minded we'll define this uncorrelated region as that level of wealth that starts just above 'I have enough incoming capital to keep from struggling to meet financial obligations' and below 'I have so much capital I don't have to work to meet my financial obligations.'

Beyond that level of income, whatever it is, people don't necessarily get happier, but they at least have more resources to work with. Depending on the person, and depending on whatever tradeoffs are made to get that higher income, they might figure out how to turn more money into more happiness, or they might not. That's more dependent on what makes an individual happy.

Unless he kept playing football.

The rest I agree with - not having to worry about money is a quantifiable bonus in the happiness department.

Maybe there's some causation here going the other way?

Old rich people can't spend money to cure all their ailments and be young again. Maybe someday, but not today. And it's not a gamble if there's no chance of success.

Over $7 million if he can get 5% annually.

Sure as long as your needs remain stable, prices don't rise and most importantly someone else is paying for your healthcare.

there's no way i can believe that. my rent alone is $24,000.

Whether they should depends a lot on context.

I can definitely believe that as a football player he can get by on less than $25k of his own money.

[1]: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/01/16/exposed-the-mmm-fa...

> my rent alone is $24,000.

That's a massively expensive and large house for the stereotypical American family in the majority of the country.

(They're also not going to be paying 2K to rent a house in the suburb, they're much more likely to be paying off a 200K mortgage, looking at the median US home price as well as the median in areas like Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte...)

If you're paying a lot more than that you're either abnormal in terms of "spending way more than most / you have to" way or abnormal in the "you live in a super expensive area" way.

Speaking from another side of the ocean, it's really true.

According to the statistics about energy used per capita, it's some oil producing lands and the US. And that even doesn't count all the stuff that ends on the US landfills.

FYI I live in a fairly major US city and my rent is a quarter of yours. Your life experience is not normal.

even in my previous city (a major US city), my rent was only 50% less than it is now. and in that market it would be equally as hard to find one at 50% of that price.

if you live for a quarter of what i currently rent, then you must undoubtedly live with roommates or live in a not so great place (which is fine) or both, all of which i consider being frugal, which he stated he wasn't. or you simply live in a completely different market.

So ok say he owns his house. You still have property taxes (in some places can run from 1 to 4% of property value) upkeep family costs and so on.

> and you can live well on $25,000 per year

Not with a family. Not in a safe area or what most would consider a 'nice' area.

Not fun, but doable.

Also, this is Baltimore we're talking about. The only places you can reasonably spend that much in rent in Baltimore is luxury developments on the waterfront and around Patterson Park.

For a lot of us this would be FU money if you don't have the desire to live big. Plus he gets the pension.

Good scenario modeling tool: cFIREsim: http://www.cfiresim.com/#

You can login as HNHN : HNHNHN and look at the scenario I modeled using the information in this thread. That has a 100% success rate from now until 2080, assuming a 3.5% annual spend ($35K to start) AND ignoring any new money being added (from his mathematics or other work).

It's not Maserati money perhaps, but it's absolutely a secure retirement for someone currently living on $25K/yr.

The original poster calculated the value off the $1.8MM (not the tax-deductible number), and simultaneously made a place value error ($12k/year is 0.7%, not 7%, of $1.8MM).

What exactly is "a lot of money" (and how much do you think MIT professors are paid)?

I think point #6 is more relevant than point #5.

Depends a lot on department and situation. Course 18 (math) doesn't pay that great while course 6 does. If you have a chair you can pay yourself more; if you take a non-academic role (dean, provost, department head etc) you can get more. Even when you have tenure you get reviews and raises just like any other job.

Point of reference: my gf's ex is a tenured prof in a non-engineering field. B/c child support etc I know what he earns. Adjusted for inflation, my summer consulting gigs (before the 1980s AI winter) earned me over 50% of what he makes all annually including his own summer consulting. I'm sure if he were in computer science he'd make more in a month than I would have made all year.

[1] http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N18/salary.html

[2] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/MIT-Assistant-Professor-Sal...

0: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim...

1: https://networthify.com/calculator/earlyretirement

This is the one thing that has always struck me as odd abut the FIRE community. FIRE is a good goal but it's highly abnormal for people to retire early with these very low annual salaries for themselves. Sure, it works if you're a single childless 30 year old. But you also generally have to be comfortable staying single and childless if you're going to "retire" to $25k/year.

Also, even if people budget a $25K/year retirement there is always the possibility of needing long term nursing home care in the last years of life. (Say, if you're a football player that suffers dementia later in life.) Depending on the quality of care, that can wipe out even a $1M nest egg. It's a big financial concern at that age. It's not covered by insurance the way that, say, a heart attack or stroke is.

Doesn't the average NFL player have a life expectancy of 53-59, and you can only collect the pension after 55? They can move it foward starting at age 35.

Cynical me says it's a political nothing burger.

I would sort of expect that the NFL Players Association had something to do with establishing it.

http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/rankings/average/offensive-line/

$1M is not even close to that, especially not for a young guy who has to pay for the next 60 years of his and his family's existence.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good starting point, and you can definitely be reasonably secure on it if you invest wisely and continue to work (e.g., buying a reasonably-priced house in a stable neighborhood and staying in it long term; this will take about 1/3 of that $1M, btw), but it's not enough to be truly independent. A single serious lawsuit will easily drain $1M, for example.

I imagine this guy can, given his uncomplicated expectations of life.

We live in an interconnected world and there isn't enough money in the world to make your actions consequence proof.

An independent person does not need the goodwill or approval of any other person or small group for their well-being or prosperity. If you are ever going to need a paycheck again, this is by definition not you.

Independence ("fuck you money") is about being able to be honest with anyone, even if it means giving a measured, well-deserved "fuck you", without having to worry that your ability to feed and clothe your kids will be jeopardized. It's not about being above the law or anything like that.

Also, how much professors make varies quite a bit. An engineering professor might make $100k from the university. If they are particularly motivated, you have professors who write books, play key roles at companies, consult, or give expert testimony. They can make quite a bit off those secondary activities but it isn't automatic.

https://twitter.com/JohnCUrschel/status/628306625753911297

http://blog.futureadvisor.com/nfl-players-must-go-long-on-re...

The lifetime pension really helps, but if I were him, I would have stuck it out to see what I could get for my new contract. The rookie contract is low because of the changes made in the last CBA. His post-rookie contract could have netted him tens of millions.

But I'm greedy and would gladly sacrifice my health for a $40 million contract.

https://twitter.com/JohnCUrschel/status/887703140652523520

This guys is not going to be struggling financially.