There was a radio commentator who used to use the term “critical mass” to refer to the chunk of capital large enough to obviate the need to work for a living.

A friend of mine, who had been trained to operate nuclear reactors, suggested the term “subcritical mass” for a chunk of capital that could be expected to cover your eventual retirement needs. Once you got that much, you might still have to work for a living, but you no longer needed to earn enough to produce a surplus—you could earn just enough to cover the costs of daily living and know that your future would nevertheless be secure. Thus you would be free to focus on the most important work, rather than feel pressured toward the most remunerative work.

The “critical mass” term is fairly common in startup/VC circles, though there it’s called “FU money”.

I prefer the latter. =)

Jacob, what or who would you leave your money to if you left an estate (other than your wife)?

I’m too lazy to Google today, what is the “$969799 (super dork alert!)” figure?

I assume the plain old dork alert figure is Pi?

I like F/U money, or an F/U Fund.

We hit a pretty significant net worth goal last year, which was exciting for us since it happened faster than we thought it would – especially factoring in the market crash. I guess our next big goal is to pay off our last debt – the mortgage. But that will be awhile, so I’m setting interim goals that will gauge our progress.

@Kevin M.
Obviously it is a “Flawless 18th C. Chinese Export Teapot.” =P

http://www.trocadero.com/stores/EastWest/items/969799/item969799.html

@AJ “Jacob, what or who would you leave your money to if you left an estate (other than your wife)?”

An ultra low withdrawal rate has other advantages: it further reduces your need to take risk, you can sacrifice return in order to hedge against catastrophes that are unlikely but not impossible, you won’t run out of funds in case spectacular life extension becomes possible in our lifetime, you have a growing stash of money that you can dip into if one day you want something really expensive (moon base, death ray, robot army, etc.)

I track my net portfolio in EUR, USD, GBP and gold. Sometimes it’s good for morale, sometimes not.

Dang, I am not that creative.

I think I started with a percentage, working my way up to 10% of my income going toward charitable causes.

Then when the Roth IRA was invented, I starting working on keeping up with the new maximums so I could stay maxed out.

Then I picked a number that was the amount of savings I need to be financially independent if my pension goes bad. This number is still high and depressing! I love how a friend of mine recalculates how well he could live on his current savings. Last I heard, he was still working his way up through third-world countries.

Oh, another one is watching the day of my last mortgage payment move back in time as I add extra payments.

I guess I like watching my net worth cross 100K barriers, but it feels more like “watching” than working toward a goal because I have very little control over the markets (stocks, real estate valuations).

Quote Jacob: “I wrote another post (but forgot the title) about replacing specific expenses like insurance, food, … with capital income one at a time.”
That’s also how I look at it. But I admit that numbers, although meaningless, have their charm too.

I like working with numbers too! I call my goals milestones.

Like George above, I’m going to use yearly dividends payouts measured against the poverty levels in the U.S. as my milestone markers.

If your interested, I blogged about it, see
my alternative milestones!

Seriously, I can’t figure out the 969799 amount!

I listed my average monthly expenses from most critical to least, then to future wants. My financial goals are (assuming a withdraw rate, I use 4%) the amounts of savings it would require to fund that next need/want. Numbers don’t mean much to me, but knowing I can cover food, electric and health insurance, but I’m not yet to clothing and entertainment. THis gives me a meaningful yardstick and makes it very clear how much work/money it takes to cover each expense, at which point I really can make a educated decision over whether its worth it.

Is it something to do with this?
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/986960

This link seems like a very ‘Jacoby’ document, but i’m not quite willing to bet money on it:)

Call yourself an Astronaught at the $250,000 mark, because now you can afford a commerical seat aboard a Privatized Spaceship.

Money Goals
$10,000 Young Adult

$25,000 Kitty

$50,000 Cat

$100,000 Fat Cat

$150,000 Average House Owner

$200,000 Renter

$250,000 Astronaught

$314159 (dork alert!)

$500,000 Family Rescuer

$750,000 Apartment Manager

$986960 (super dork alert!)

$1,000,000 Millionaire

$1,500,000 A League Team Owner

$2,000,000 Multi-Millionaire

Great post Jacob. The transition from viewing wealth in terms of dollars to a percentage of expenses is an important one, and one that I wish more people grasped.