1 million is a lot of cash. period. Anything above 3 million starts for a single male, becomes big pimpin lifestyle. Anything above 6 million starts to get wasted because one guy can't really spend that much money unless he's throwing free parties.
You have a paid off House and no kids in college....5 million is good... Otherwise 7.5 mil would do the trick I am taking donations if anyone is feeling generous
These rules of thumb are just that- first of all, there's no guarantee that you can get 10% per year. Secondly, of course you have to factor in taxes- we have to pay them, right? That takes a huge chunk out. Also have to factor in inflation. The net $ you can make off of $1MM isn't as much as it seems. I beg to differ about $6MM+ being more than you can spend, by the way. You can blow through that pretty darn easily if you wanted too. Of course you could live off of it forever if you did it right, but not even close to being more than you can spend, IMO.
"Narrowing our search to "salary," we found that the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the average annual wages in the U.S. as $36,764." so considering that a risk free rate of return right now is around 5%. that means a nestegg of 800k could be enough if your lifestyle was average.
$1 million is just a start, but it certainly is not enough, at least not in the NY area. Trust me I know. Like some have said maybe in some parts of the country it would be enough. I wouldn't know about middle America or what things cost out there. I think for myself, I would need to be in the $5 million+ range to feel like I'm set.