Uhh, say, 20k? My sister died and I've been taking care of her 18-year-old cat with health issues. It's my only living link to my sister - and aside from a couple cousins I don't see much, she was my last living relative. I'm not ready for another loss right now, and it also kinda feels like letting go of the cat is also kinda letting go of my sister, so I'm trying to keep the cat as healthy and happy as she can be for as long as possible - it's just really expensive (extra special diet, multiple medications, periodic tests). But today the cat raced me down the stairs, then yelled at me for making it cold and wet outside, then complained that her food was late, then snuggled up next to me at the computer. It's all worth it.
Edit: I'm estimating it's been at least 10k so far, just for emergency treatments, getting her stabilized, then diagnosed, and then coming up with a set of food and medications that work. And then I'm estimating another 10k to care for the cat in the future. She's a good cat, even if she yells at me for letting her see the bottom of her food bowl ...
She's got appetite, that's awesome!
It really is!
$40,000 would pay off all debts for me and my wife, and allow us finally catch our breath. The monthly payments have been annihilating us for years, and neither of our careers have recovered since COVID.
It feels like an endless tunnel.
- £80 would pay for a Steam page for my little indie game thus fulfilling a lifelong dream
- £200 would pay for Christmas which is always a big money stress
- £500 would let me get some much needed dentistry done and remove that worry
- £1000 would give me a decent emergency fund to reduce stress in general
- £10,000 would be the point where I could feel more independent, maybe even get a car
- £100,000 would let us move somewhere that isn't totally isolated from civilization
Fuck man, if I had more money I'd buy you the steam page :(
Hope you can get that soon! Maybe your indie might just be what you need to get your financial freedom :) good luck!
Hah, thanks, appreciate that! It's all good, I'm saving up bit by bit. Just can't quite justify the whole cost at once, you know? But I'll get there, same as with everything else.
Tell us about your game? What type? Story? Tech details? Etc.
It's really not very exciting, it's just a minimalist little city builder thing. More of a "prove I can make and release a game" type project than anything that's gonna make me famous! Learning Godot engine at the same time which has been half fun, half frustrating as hell :D
(recently started a devlog channel so if you really are interested, this is me, but there's not much there yet)
About 250k. That pays off the house and all other remaining debt.
Ditto. Eliminating monthly debt payments would totally change the household finances.
Yep, having the house paid off would be huge!
A couple of years ago, an extra $10 would've made my week, or an extra $83.70 would've made my month.
Now, it's closer to $10K, and it wouldn't really significantly improve my life, it would just let me get a new roof faster.
Maybe a lot or maybe none. I am really struggling with depression. I can afford therapy and I have all the money I need. I only wish living wasn’t so painful. Maybe having someone in my life who cares would go a long way.
That’s such a rough spot to be in, I’m sorry.
My current girlfriend went through therapy and it really shows in her and how she is and has always been this way since our first date. I’d highly recommend it based on the transformation she’s told me about and she says the same about herself.
Take care of yourself!
Probably something like... €400.000 to €450.000. Then I could buy an apartment or small house when I graduate and pay off my student loans in full. It depends on the city I can find work in and want to live though. There are 3 I'm seriously considering and it varies about a €100.000 for a house between the cheapest and most expensive of the three.
$208,063.88
This would pay off our mortgage and we could dump that monthly payment into saving for retirement.
However, if the question was how much do we need then it would be $0. We are far more fortunate than many.
If there was a line of all the people in this comment section waiting to get whatever amount they need I’d be one of those continuously moving to the back to let others go first.
I hope you all find improved quality of life, even if it’s not through some financial windfall!
You'd be better off keeping the mortgage, since it's about the cheapest leverage your average person has access to, and investing the lump sum. Net present value, baby.
No thanks! I’ll take housing that only costs me property taxes. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed so I’d take that certainty today.
Enough to buy a house.
That seems like a lot for this question but it's honestly the only thing that significantly would. Cars and goods are great but just materialistic and I can live without them just fine. But give me a place for my family and I to live and our lives would be significantly improved, because we'd not have to deal with landlords, renting, we could modify the house to our needs, have pets and not stress about constant rent hikes and the possibility of being evicted.
I think everyone should have the opportunity to own their own house and politicians are betraying society and entire generations of people by doing things that work heavily against it.
I have a Habitat for Humanity mortgage and it changed my financial life like nothing ever has or likely will. AMA.
However much an island is, I guess? Actually I'm not sure how that would improve my life.
What an interesting question.
I think I'm good.
Or maybe however much it would take to set up a sustainable food pantry?
That would do it.
625k would be more than enough.
Right now? Literally just about anything. My fiance left me last week to "figure herself out" after 9 years together and soon I might be homeless and my credit cards I took out to help her over the years are months behind on payments. So yeah, anything.
Okay, that sucks. Might want to get in touch with as many companies as you can, explain the situation and see if you can work something out.
If you can communicate that you'll need more time, I think they would prefer that over not getting any money at all.
When you are in deep shit like this, speak about it. Let everyone who you still own money know that you want to, but cannot pay right now and you want to work out an arrangement.
Also check if the government has a program to assist with debt. Be proactive, people are more willing to work with someone that is taking action to change things up.
The worst thing you can do is stop opening mail and just ignore it. It will only make the problems bigger. Get help, anywhere you can.
Good luck.
Edit: depending on your country and relationship with your employer, consider informing your employer too. Some employers are willing to work something out with you if you explain how it happened and how you want to get out of it.
About two million euro, so I could retire.
The least amount? 20k US would halve my credit card debt and give me a leg up on getting the rest paid off. 40k would give me a jump start on finally rebuilding. Given I'm in my 50s though and with the state of the world, I'm likely to be making credit card payments until the day I die.
52 here, much the same story. Started getting paid for the first time in life, went a little nuts with credit. $20K would knock most of it out.
OTOH, I got most of the things I've wanted in life before inflation exploded, so I got that going for me.
Also, about to get no less than $50K for the last of my inheritance. That damn well pays of Habitat for Humanity on our home.
Do the Dave Ramsey thing! Focus on your smallest debt, pay it off. Go for the next one. And the next.
I can dig out in the next 2 years. My wife just took a second job, and while that sucks, she's happy to do it so she can contribute more to the household.
£1000. I could pay for my entire ADHD treatment programme from start to finish, without having to wait YEARS in a waiting list for the free treatment. It would absolutely change literally everything in my entire life, giving me a life instead of circling the drain waiting to die.
But I'll never be able to save that kind of money, I'm an idiot and my ADHD is crippling.
I considered gofundme, but it's already full of people who need money for ADHD treatment, and I don't want to drown them out with yet another plea, you know?
If you're already diagnosed then go through the NHS. I went private for my diagnosis then took the results to my GP who referred me for treatment almost immediately. The diagnosis was the most expensive part for me. (£1200)
I'm not sure about the requirements that NHS has but a potentially cheaper way of doing it is having a psychologist run a few tests out of the DSM 5 and doing a report about it. Once you're in the door with funding you can use that for a full specialist diagnosis instead.
Again, not sure if that'll work with NHS and if it will it'll take some research on their behalf to make it happen but that's how I got around the same requirements for our local system without paying though the arse for a specialist.
It's really sad that wherever you live this is the case. A thousand bucks is nothing to most well off societies compared to the benefit that treatment for your condition has in helping you become a more productive member of society.
€12000 so I could afford the surgery I need.
1k USD. Should be enough to leave my shithole of a country, if I'm lucky.
Which country?
probably america
I mean, anything over about 1000 USD would be a big help, I had to make an unexpected visit to a sick parent that really set back my short term goals.
10k would be a nice emergency fund and I could start focusing again on things like moving to a better place (moving is expensive).
100k would mean freedom to get any transition-related surgeries I want without hassling with insurance. Or it could be rolled into a home purchase or retirement.
Currently my income isn't great, but I can pay my bills with savings to spare, even in a nicer apartment or home.
This is a super interesting question!
For me IDK if any amount of money would significantly improve my life. I'm not terribly materialistic and I'm happy with what I have/don't feel like I immediately want or am missing something. I make good money and stash as much as possible while still enjoying nights out with friends and buying whatever I want.
I'm currently saving up a quarter million for a house down payment, and while it's a lot of money my quality of life/overall happiness would be the same so I wouldn't call the change significant. Things are really good in my life for once, and it's nice to be able to recognize that. Thanks for the question it actually made me really happy to think about how lucky I am.
I hope others in this thread who need it can find some fortune in their future.
Probably £100k. £80k would be a huge help though. Would buy the house we are living in outright, that our landlord has been selling for over a year, ans the extra 20k would pay off our debt and give a few house repairs.
I love this house, I'm not ready to leave if someone buys it for themselves or if our landlord kicks us out before then.
3 mil so I can retire. Working toward it and I will achieve it eventually. A few decades earlier would change everything though.
All I need is $1,000 a month to completely survive.
No amount of money would significantly improve my life.
Is it because your life is amazing as is? :')
Unfortunately not. :p
~2000€ would be an absolute game changer for me.
What would you do with it?
It would allow me to pay for the training and licensing for my dream job a year earlier than I had planned (since it would take me roughly about a year to save up these last €2k that I'm still missing), which would not only massively improve my standard of living, but also turn me into a happier, more balanced and less gloomy person in general.
20K would change my life. I could pay off a couple of pressing debts and be at even again.
However much for a house, so at least 750k, but probably more like 1.2 million if you want to home that is near a rail station. I'm not moving back to a rural state that hates me and people like me.
Probably 20k? We're not hurting, but my partner is off work for disability and 20k would help extend how long they can recover for.
Probably a million. I got two kids and a mortgage. Sure I could pay off some bills with less, but what difference does that really make. I guess I could take a nice vacation for less, but thats just temporary. Gotta work for the medical insurance so, maybe a million would cover us until the kids get thier own.
$50K. With that, I could either buy the lot next door or quit work for a year and go back to school.
Buy the lot, slap some tents on it and rent them out for $1,000/months because of “market rate” 😎
Kidding….
Around $3 trillion dollars so that I can buy Microsoft and shut them down, paving the way for the GNU/Linux desktop.
I’ll donate to that cause!
Better make that $100 trillion (a rough estimate of the world economy's nominal value) to make sure you don't cripple our whole civilisation, as it would allow you to pay for basically every single company on the planet, all of which would suddenly have to invest a lot of money to move at least some of their IT infrastructure over to a GNU/Linux equivalent, much of which may not even exist yet and would have to be built from scratch.
Fuck that shit. I'll release all Microsoft code under GPL so people can figure their own shit out. As for people who built their business on Azure? The will reap what they sowed.
Make me your king, and I will take us to the GNU-Slash-Linux holy land.
$300. I am on disability so my income is tiny. I've just moved into a shitty old house with a bunch of strangers and still spend more than half my income on rent, but I'm finally not losing money every month. $300 would give me just enough buffer to put my head above water and keep it there.
500 dollars would pay the bills I can't afford
4k so I could get a house
About 40000 CAD. Could start looking for a house now instead of in a few years.
35 grand would fund a lot of the deferred maintenance on my house and get me new energy efficient windows.
55 would get me solar panels to boot.
10k would be enough for me to leave my country and start again somewhere actually decent
60k student debt that I can't afford to lay
Probably about $12,000. That would get rid of my credit card debt, allow me to focus on my other debt and work on paying off my house.
...get rid of my credit card debt, allow me to focus on my other debt...
What world did I get born into...
$250k to pay my house off would be dope, no more mortgage payments
$250000, I'd purchase a small flat between the suburbs and the city and not rent any longer
Probably no amount.
We aren't crazy wealthy, but we have enough equity in a high value real estate market that if we sold our house and moved to many places I'm the world we could live well without being required to work. As a result we have asked ourselves many times: "where would we go and what would we do?" And don't have a better place then we are (near both our families) or our current jobs. Our kids are in school, so traveling is limited, since we don't want to make home schooling our job.
The only thing I wish we could afford is first class airfare when we do fly once a year or so, but I wouldn't call that life changing.
That’s awesome! I ask this question to myself every so often because I want to be able to answer like you can.
Congratulations!
38k uk pounds. Thats the amount of student debt which is slowly becoming crippling since the uk are raising the % higher and higher.
It can't go above 9% of salary though. Treat it like a tax unfortunately.
The saddest part about it is that although what you said is true, that doesn't guarantee that the sum won't grow. What I pay back is not even covering the interest, and it keeps growing. It may be that I'm going to pay that "tax" for my whole life, which is ironic because I dont even work in the same industry as the education I'm paying back for.
50k should be enough to get a mortgage and buy a house. Enough to buy a house outright would obviously be better.
10K€ would pay me some debts and allow me to buy a new(er) car than my old ass '93 corsa.
I love the thing to death since it has so much meaning for me. But I really wish it had AC and power steering. Parking on tight spots is hell, but on the upside gets me a quick workout :')
About $100k would be the delta to move where is rather be.
I guess it all depends on how significant significant is. Probably 10k so I don't have to worry so much about affording an upcoming surgery.
About $160k. That would be enough for me to graduate med school or a Masters program (which also offered me scholarships) debt free with my current savings!
About 100K euros.
About 100k. That would mean a downpayment for a house here.
$2.73 would buy lunch tomorrow
About a million euros to buy an apartment outright.
6k euro for an education that I could enjoy, find employment in and be happy. 12k for the education I really want, it's some obscure hyper specialist training on a European level (hence the cost)... I was close to finding an employer who was willing to help fund it. But I couldn't get enough money together to make it work. Anyway, hoping to start next year with a new job in the field and work my way up, until I can afford it. Money would mean a significant shortcut in my career.
I think about 1k USD would improve my life a lot at the moment and in the future. I'm in the process of moving countries for a job and I need to have my things shipped. I already live abroad, so I can't leave anything behind. Anything I cannot afford to ship I will have to give away or dispose. With all the moving expenses, I have no idea how much money I have left for shipping, but 1k would allow me to ship everything stress free.
45k€ to pay off my car and 250k€ for a downpayment for a house which is not near to any neighbors.
Pretty sure I would need a few million for any significant improvement, like being able to hire help around the house while still being able to afford life and save for later.
30k. I’ve got some car debt and other random things that need to get paid off. Having that extra monthly cash instead of payments and the pleasure of being 100% debt free would improve my overall happiness.
About 15k euro or so. I could go to a school program to learn how to code without my financial situation declining because of medical costs i have for a chronic condition.
You don't really need to go to a school to learn coding. You can also learn this using SaaS platforms or WSL. Besides, most universities are mediocre garbage. I didn't learn shit from a 4-year degree, and also, I'm jobless. Yes, I contribute to open-source projects regularly, and that still hasn't improved my situation. None of the recruiters have checked my profile, because it's a bunch of corporate bullshit to freeload on good-faith contributors while making bucks out of it. Right now, I'm working on my own projects, checking out a few open-source repo and checking out their design, as well as applying lazily, including unpaid jobs.
I need about tree fiddy
The amount that pops into my head is big enough that I'd say I don't need it.
