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Comment by tuna-piano | Hacker News Reader

Does the $1.5M earner not add up to anyone else? His expenses are $6K a month ($72k a year, but call it $100k). His after tax income, call $800k. That leaves $700k unaccounted for - and he's talking about saving $15k for his kids college, or not being able to retire for 15 more years? I don't get it.

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First thing that jumped at me.

He also says "I wish I could pay off the mortgage". From what he described, he should be able to pay it off in a year or two.

Doesn't add up.

We can't know what he is thinking, but I can imagine him feeling stressed if he want's to maintain his life style has a few children and wants to retire very early. It requires a big big nest egg to provide an income of around a million for the 50 or 60 years that either he or his wife will live after he stops working.

Retiring in 15 years requires quite a bit of investment every year if he wants to roughly maintain income at retirement, and many people would hope to be better off over time. Depending on how much risk he is willing to take, he might need to invest as much as $400,000 per year!

For such an early retirement he might be seeking an eventual portfolio of as much as $30,000,000 before he retires. Right now you can't count on much more than a couple of percent above inflation return on investments without taking risks that he might not be comfortable with.

I'm guessing that his income grew rapidly and this may be his current "run rate" if everything goes well (or of course he could be inflating the # for PR purposes).

I get this weird feeling that that is the revenue line of his PR firm and not his after tax income. After tax income of $1.5M is insane. He would be among the CEOs he references, working all the time. A passive income of $1.5M from a service business? He is a greater producer than me, or perhaps almost anyone. If it is true or close though, very impressive.

He didn't say how many kids. Or how many mothers.

He said he put away 15k in a tax advantaged account for his child (singular). But agree - his annual income doesn't square with his desire to save more, bring his family over from the UK, or pay off his mortgage.

Edit - actually his family status says getting married next year, and rereading the statement about the education savings he could be speaking in the future tense.

Also the part about not being able to pay off his 800k mortgage?

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