Even amassing 7 figures by your late 20s/30s (very difficult to do reliably, also implies no debt, no adverse life events, etc.), is not remotely enough to make a "comfortable" living for the next ~5 decades of your life.

That’s why my advice to young people is always to do what you have to in order to establish working credentials, then move somewhere cheap, buy a house and work remotely as much as you can. You’ll get it paid off in no time and that level of freedom cannot be overstated. Then you can start really saving.

On the downside, you’ll probably be living somewhere small and uncool and that may not be enough incentive to leave the bright lights of the city.

This seems like social life suicide. I'm in my 30s, single, and omitted dating much in my 20s (because -- surprise surprise -- I was working way too much). I can't really move to the middle of nowhere where the dating pool is non-existent.

Even if one overspends a little extra in those initial years paying a mortgage on a nicer place, much of that will be recouped upon sale, since places in cool areas tend to appreciate quit quickly and mortgages are highly leveraged.

How are you employing it?

[personal details removed]

"Where to get private health insurance?" Google it? I think pretty much every state has a BlueCross insurance company you can call up to ask. You'll probably spend between $500 and $1000/month, per person in your family, depending on state and age.

I despise employer-provided insurance - we have an entire culture of people who feel extra-dependent on 'employers' and who don't seem to know how to find out basic information.

You have a more than comfortable nest egg. Go pursue your passion before it's too late.

The GP was talking solely about dividends, but most funds will re-balance and distribute long-term capital gains to you if you wish. If, in 2020, you held $1.5MM in a mix of those funds and instead of reinvesting dividends, long-term, & short-term capital gains, and instead redirected them to your bank account. You'd have something like $80k distributed and your market value would have increased to like 1.7-1.8MM.

Not that 2020 was a typical year or anything. But the past 8 or so years have told a similar story.

Or you can date where you are, and then move somewhere cheap together

This is a dubious claim, but I don't want to get into it, because I've debated this on HN ad nauseum.

> Or you can date where you are, and then move somewhere cheap together

What attractive, educated, socially-active woman in her 20s will want to move to the middle of nowhere once you get together or marry? I want to be around friends, family, alumni, and I'd wager so would she.

If you're not "comfortable" spending every single penny you make while your nest egg grows, you have a spending problem.

I read that to mean "retire at 40". If you retire at 40, your $1M isn't going to grow to $4M at 50.

So, significantly less than what would be needed to hit $250K of pre-tax money ($6M or so), but rather a paid-off house (taxes and insurance only), no further college or retirement savings, tax-optimized withdrawals, and buying health insurance as the major effects. I’m guessing that it’s less than half of $6M (in today’s money) and probably under $2M to hit a 90th percentile spendable money figure.

If you are STUPID, you insist on living in hell-holes like California (LA or SF areas) and you lock yourself into foolish costs you can easily avoid. FOMO is an excellent and primary way to make you last statement a 100% certainty.

Guess what followed after that: Odd jobs. Yes, they pay the bills but they don't build career progression. You cannot sell yourself to someone to hire you for your 1 year experience in 8 different things. This is why considering the money alone isn't enough. And yes, you also need to be educated on personal finance because if you were born in a poor family chances are you'll be spending the money as soon as you touch them.

It heavily depends on what those things are. If you have one year of legitimate experience in cyber security right now, you've got a job almost anytime you want it. The same goes for many in-demand programming languages at present. That level of experience will not initially net you a very high paying tech job, however compared to the median it'll be a good paying job and you can work your way up from there.