I think that, somewhere north of $1 ~ $5 million is life-changing on its own. There’s no need for someone to have tens of millions or hundreds of millions. Tens of millions is like, changing multiple lives in a family with how much that can stretch.
Whenever someone has billions to their name, it is boggling to think about. That it becomes just ‘fuck you’ money at that point because more often than not, not a lot of billionaires out there being charitable. When they know they’re set for a few lifetimes just by a single billion alone.
No single person should ever have that amount of gross wealth.
My number is between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000. It’s enough to live off investment income in a 4% down market, and that’s all I will realistically need to have a comfortable life without having to touch the nest egg itself. Psychologically, there is no difference between having $10,000,000 and a billion, so it would seem to me that the upper limit of need is $10,000,000.
As soon as I hit 2-3 million I will retire, no matter how old I am.
As far as ‘life changing’ goes, I was fortunate to have a few thousand to invest when the market tanked in 2020. Those few thousand turned into $35,000 when the market recovered a few years later, which I used to pay off my student loans and put a down payment on a condo. It wasn’t fuck you money, but definitely life changing.