Depends on where in the world you are. I wouldn't call $250k life-changing-money anywhere developed.
It's "I can probably stop worrying about money for a while" kind of money, not "life-changing" money. Not a whole lot you can buy for $250k. After taxes, that probably doesn't even buy a house.
Can somebody help me understand why these obviously very stupid takes keep popping up on HN? Is it rich people who genuinely have no idea what anything costs? Is it rich people intentionally being cruel to everybody else? Is it people trying to appear rich by pretending they have no idea what anything costs? Is it a bay area thing, are people just blowing through a literal fortune every year and unaware of their spending problems? Is it children whose ideas about money come from “influencers”?
> Is it rich people intentionally being cruel to everybody else?
If you got a $240,000 bonus in the mid-2000s in tech, that very likely means you were living in one of the tech metros (SF, NYC) and you could expect nearly 50% of that to be paid in taxes (CA/Fed, NY/NYC/Fed). So you take home about $120,000.
It's a windfall of money to be sure. But being in an employment situation where even such a bonus is possible likely means you already have significantly higher costs than the average person. Maybe you'll pay down some student loans and bolster your savings. But this is far from being "rich". High-earners also tend to have high costs of living.
tech salaries in the US are high enough that this is approximately 1-3 years of income as a lump sum. more than that, if you got this amount as a bonus you already have stupid money.
of course $140k would be life changing for most people. but OP, and i suspect most of the other commenters, are not in that situation.
For the simple reason that it didn’t change my life. Before I received it I thought it would. After I received it, paid taxes , etc. My life didn’t change at all.
It’s a fact that my life didn’t change so it wasn’t a life changing amount of money for me.
Maybe it would be life changing for others. tho at least in sf/nyc/la I suspect it wouldn’t for most people. If I had given it to my sister she’d have used it to pay down her mortgage. her life wouldn’t change. she’d have still had a mortgage and her day to day life wouldn’t have changed at all. My nephew could have used it to pay off his student loans. That would be great but again his daily life wouldn’t have changed
What would you change in your life with that kind of windfall?
Definitely not going to quit my job.
Definitely not going to go back to school.
Sure, I could spend it on a vacations over the next decade but I could already do that so not life changing.
I like my car already.
Maybe a renovation?
At the end of the day, I'm already doing things I like to do so additional money mostly is just going to be saved which isn't life changing. It's nice but not life _changing_.
this is just US people culture, its all about money and taxes they should worrying their budget when they have 1 trillion to fund war machine
In Sweden, assuming that $125k of that disappears in taxes, it’d leave you with 1.2M SEK. There are currently ~650 properties on Hemnet between 1M and 1.25M. I’d suggest maybe this one in Ödeshög at 1.1M SEK? https://www.hemnet.se/bostad/villa-3rum-odeshog-odeshogs-kom... Not the biggest, but it’s reasonably well done up, comes with 2/3rds of an acre of land, is near a main motorway to get to places, and near the shore of the biggest lake in the country. If you want to take a train then it’s 30 minutes drive to the nearest station on the Stockholm-Copenhagen line.
Ödeshög is like “Abandoned Pile”, not inspiring.
Still cool that you can get a house so cheap in Sweden.
I mean, take your pick! Here’s the listing page for all 1M-1.25M SEK houses: https://www.hemnet.se/bostader?price_max=1250000&price_min=1...
This price level won’t get you close to a major city, but being within a quick drive or a bus of a reasonably sized town should be doable. (And now I’ve just seen this slice of the late 60s, wow: https://www.hemnet.se/bostad/villa-5rum-centralt-hedemora-he...)