A month on current funds and maybe a couple more if I started selling off longer term assets.
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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Without cutting back at all, even my frivolous spending and holidays, about six months.
If i cut holidays and frivolous stuff, about twelve months.
If i cut back essentials, sold some stuff, eighteen to twenty four months. If on top i downsized the house, probably five years.
If i could make it to seven years then my private pension would kick in and I can retire. If the government hasn't already moved the age you can draw a private pension i could be retired already.
About 4 months before I have to sell any assets. Then about 144 months, not including future growth of those assets before they're sold. But then I'm broke at nearly 50.
3 months at the absolute most, likely significantly less, even after cutting out all "luxuries" like paying for internet/phone/electricity/water.
70% of that would go on rent for my 1-bed flat. And no - I don't live in a big city. I earn more than most. I spend less than most. I don't use any subscription services and I pirate everything. I don't drink, and I never go out to pubs, cinema, (insert paid activity here) because all of that is way too expensive.
The UK is fucked.
Literally the only thing that decides how long I can live is whether or not you rent - whatever you do or don't do as personal responsibility practically does not matter unless you own a house.
The small variations in rent price are also irrelevant, I used to pay more for less, in the grand scheme of things the variance only amounts to £100-200 per year and usually depends on how much you can tolerate free penicillin on the walls.
The blame is only on boomers who hoard property, jack up rents and collect benefits from the gov't off worker taxes. Virtually no one else is to blame apart from capitalism more generally.
The same boomers will also soon elect the alt-right and things will get a lot worse and everywhere else seems to be on the same general trajectory.
I used to dream of a utopia like Star Trek. Now 28 days later looks like a utopia.
Five months, but, three quibbles:
If I didn't have income I'd be cutting way back, and with only essential expenses it's more like eight.
I wouldn't plunder my retirement investments to keep spending at the current rate, so if I kept spending the same but didn't plunder, it's more like two months.
I started a good job recently after being underemployed for over a year, and am still financially recovering; normally my emergency budget covers ten months without any income.
I just ran the numbers for the first time ever, and it adds up to 34 months - which I realize is a pretty privileged place to be. However, I’m by no means rich; I just live well below my means and invest all my savings.
Dude, you are rich.
Depends on who I compare myself to and how one defines “rich.” To me, it means someone whose passive income exceeds their spending - and I’m nowhere even close to that… yet.
Yeah I think that's where the distinction between rich and wealthy comes in. You still have to work for a living and are closer to homelessness than renting out Venice for a wedding (for instance).
Nearly everybody who speaks English is rich. We just have no clue who poor other parts of the world are and so think of ourselves as poor.
I'm in my mid 40's.
It's not particularly uncommon for people in regional Australia to own their own house with no mortgage by my age.
It's pretty tough to find a family home that costs less than 10x average wage.
So, as a kind of line in the sand I'd say maybe a third of 45 year olds living in regional Australia could "survive" for 10 years with no income.
How do you know how to invest? Asking for a friend.
Buy into a broad market tracking ETF (something that tracks s&P 500 or 1000 or similar). That way you're not betting on individual companies, your betting on the collective largest companies in the world doing well. Over a long period of time, which for over a century has averaged ~7% inflation adjusted return yearly.
I don’t. I do it the boring way - buying cheap, highly diversified ETF index funds.
That's way more than most people know... Also, wtf is an ETF?
Mutual funds and ETFs are both types of investments that represent a group of individual stocks and are generally managed in some way, either by a person or by a fixed algorithm. Mutual funds have some tax implications that can by annoying for people so ETFs tend to be preferred for taxable accounts (in the US at least).
- Open a Vanguard account.
- Buy as much of the thing called VOO as you can each month.
- Come back at retirement age to oodles of money.
There are a load of resources online. The UKPersonalFinance subreddit is a good place to start, mainly their wiki and external website, and a lot of the advice is applicable outside of the UK too. If you don't want to read or think much, then just pick a broad index fund with 0.2% or below of fees and put your savings in there.
Thanks! Yes, I was wondering where would be a good place to start for absolute noobs, thanks for the tip. Investing is a mystery in my life I've been conditioned not to try to understand, perhaps it's time to do something about it.
Its pretty easy if you go with something like wealthfront, betterment, etc...
But using something like fidelity is also good too.
Many years technically, but I doubt the stability of… well, everything, too much to say that with much conviction.
I ran the numbers and got 19 months.
Although realistically if I stopped receiving any income my monthly spend would drop - I would certainly spend less on food and luxuries, which would buy me at least an extra 2-5 months.
I know you excluded it, but again if my income stopped then at some point I would sell my house. if I used the sale money to pay off the mortgage and then start renting a flat I could go without income for about 8-10 extra years (that surprised me!).
I'm 31. My salary is a bit above average for the uk but not by that much. I just barely ever spend money. It's quite cheap to be terminally online and stay indoors most of the year.
What do you do about housing/rent?
I'm one of the lucky few who have a pension. I do not have enough savings to last until the pension kicks in, and in any case the pension is less than my current income, but I could live off my pension and social security alone.
I’m still recovering from the mistakes I made 8 years ago, for another 3 years maximum, so no savings,
The rest of this month.
I could probably make it 6 months maybe slightly more, I don't spend a lot as it is and where I live has a relatively low cost of living.
If im lucky its about 2 months.
Next week.
A month, maybe. I'd probably get arrested for squatting at work sooner, tbh. If I cut and run to the woods tonight, I could probably make it further, but I'll run out of food money faster than I could get a reliable food source going before winter hits
Buddy I live deep in the Appalachia mountains. I don't need money at all. All this technology and civilization bullshit is just a bonus for me, not a need.
A month?
About 30 months without any cutback on spending. Pure living costs is about 60 months.
Around 4 months. But I could considerably decrease the rate of spending if that was an actual scenario, which would give me more like a year.
About a year.
If I'm frugal, about a year. But I own a small business and this would only occur if my business is bankrupt. In which case debtors might chase my personal assets.
Is it not a limited company?
We had to wager our houses to get the initial loans during startup. Loans are almost finished.
Maybe one year
No idea. Really.
Of course I would change my spending automatically, if the income went down to zero. But it is not likely at all that something like that happens.
About three fiddy.
Aye, me too. I can no longer work but I also don't get benefits because according to the rules I can actually work. I have post exertional malaise, chronic fatigue and chronic brain fog. I'm an editor and proofreader.