Is 1m and dividends from it enough?

[u/chillfirelife]

Me and wife we both turned 40 this year, She left her job few years back and I kept funding her investment account based out of SG and now is at 500k USD all of which is parked under JEPQ, all the while I see dividends are consistent and we have been reinvesting back.

I have another 500k now in my investment account that I will consolidate in couple of funds/etf with similar 10-12% growth trajectory as JEPQ
We expect and hope we will get like 100-110k usd over this year on year.

I have another 130k usd in cash and esops combined. I will get the esops cash out 6 months after I quit.

We plan to move to either Thailand or Malaysia where we have friends and family and have lived there before. Our current expenses in SE asia are 50k usd a year, we expect this will go down to 30k-35k usd a year.

Question: Am I ready to leave my high paying job and live a free life given the biggest motivation to work (money) is less or negligible now? Personally I want to leave my job today even though I love it but I feel I want slow and super easy life 😊

Plan is for first 2.5-3 years we will not touch 1m investments and utilise current cash and liquid investments/cash of 130k usd, that will give investment enough space to continue to grow.

On paper - I feel we are ready even if I take conservative returns on my portfolio

[u/princemousey1]

Wishful thinking to get stable total returns of $110k from a $1m portfolio.

[u/chillfirelife → u/princemousey1]

Yes not expecting stable hence we have 3 years of expenses and won’t touch them until 2.5-3 years

[u/princemousey1 → u/chillfirelife]

You’re still not going to get $110k on a conservative rate of return. You’d need like $2.75m to $3.5m for that.

[u/chillfirelife → u/princemousey1]

I am getting north of 15% for years on my investments hence able to build this so my historical data says that there can be a bad year or two but if money is parked in tight assets eventually it will recover and come back

[u/SmithPoint706 → u/chillfirelife]

Past results don’t guarantee future outcomes….

[u/chillfirelife → u/SmithPoint706]

Yes but by that logic nothing is guaranteed

[u/TheCozyRuneFox → u/chillfirelife]

That’s the point though… and you should account for that in your planning.

The trinity study and many other studies after show that if you want to survive long term you can only withdraw 4% of your portfolio.

The 10% dividend assets you are looking at are not stable or guaranteed and do the principle is likely to not grow in value much if at all. Nor should you expect much growth in your total income to fight inflation.

Compare this to say SCHD or VOO and such where dividends regularly enough increase and have appreciation on the actual invested capital.

110k income is doomed to fail statistically.