you could donate a hundred thousand a year to charities, use two hundred thousand each year inflation adjusted, and have it last until you die, probably.

[–] Didros@beehaw.org 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Assuming you put the money in a basic ass savings account at bank of America (average us savings account gives .46%apy) thar is a gain of 4.6 MILLION a year. So you would need to out spend that just to start losing money. High interest accounts can be up around ten times that at 5% so 50 million a year would need to be spent to lose money.

Stock market averages 10% yearly returns not including dividends. So a cool 100 million a year in play money.

Brought to you by math gang that knows how insane being a billionaire is.

[–] desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

money in a savings account generally looses value as it doesn't usually keep up with inflation or cost of living increases. Someone who invests in the stock market will probably do quit well on average, however the 1920s existed as did the recent fluctuations of 2008 and 2020-2021 which could lead to large losses. A billion is a huge amount of money, however can still be invested or spent irresponsibly.

[–] Didros@beehaw.org 3 points 1 month ago

Laws have changed since 1920, and even with 2008 and 2020 every ten year period will still see 10% growth from a diversified portfolio.
And even if 4.6 million doesn't buy what it did last year you can spend less than that for the compound interest to overtake inflation easily.