€1M would not even cover the property tax to retire in the cheapest bay area home.

mminer237 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Uh, that's one of the most expensive places to live in the world. That's kind of the opposite of frugal. It's very doable in most of the US, as that's almost double what most retired people have, let alone the rest of the world.

	▲	bluGill 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Retired people generally are a lot older and get income from things like Social Security. They also get medicare taking care of health insurance. Between those two you need a lot more money to retire before you turn 65 vs after. Now I believe he is in Europe so different rules apply, but they have similar things there). I don't know the rules in his country (or even his country), some are more friendly than others, but still the money won't go as far when you retire before the system wants you to.

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Barrin92 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

thankfully nobody's forced to live in the Bay Area. With a million in the bank you could live off the interest in Portugal or an even cheaper city in Asia without touching the principal. Frankly on 40k you can even live here in Germany comfortably where Eugen hails from too.