How much money would change your life?

Caporegime
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Erm Helicopters have more places to land than a plane, you can literally cut the engines in a helicopter and just let it drop down to the ground - the blades will still spin and slow the descent.

If you cut the engines of a plane you’d best find a big flat field or a clear stretch of road.

They may still spin but not to create any uplift. Slow the descent from being 100 mph to 99.9 mph maybe but that won't save you unless you are superman.
 
Permabanned
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Honestly, I'd settle for 5-6K at the moment. Get rid of the few debts I have and move into a decent flat with nothing other then the usual provisions to worry about. I'd obviously not turn down more, but that small amount would genuinely enough to make me feel a little better about a lot of things atm.
 
Soldato
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Life changing sums of money is purely subjective based upon an individual's own financial situation and what they view as 'life changing'.

Life changing for me, is not about removing ambition or challenge, its about providing a safety net of paying off my mortgages in their entirety. This would give me a fantastic platform to stretch out and perhaps take even more risk because I have a comfortable crash mat if it all goes wrong.

Life changing for me isnt about buying a ferrari, nice things dont fundamentally change my life, they are just a cherry on top.

However to have some element of financial freedom from necessities (a mortgage being one) does change things drastically.

Agreed, I think it's interesting that other than the 'huge jackpot' kind of figures, most people are saying around £500k or under.
 
Associate
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As per the poster above, even £5K would probably improve my life fairly nicely, by clearing debts.

Being a little more ambitious, £250,000 would completely and massively improve my life beyond belief. I would still have to work, yes, but I could buy a house and be mortgage free, and still have enough for a nice car, a few new toys, a couple of holidays and some money in the bank for a rainy day, and I could then use all of my earnings to enjoy myself. I would likely come across as fairly rich to most people as I don't have kids or pets either.

I think £1m would see me able to retire - I'm 40 and earning the UK average wage so assuming I was mortgage free, I would have £750,000 to last me until I died. Obviously I couldn't go out and buy supercars and yachts but I could still have a massive increase in living standards.
 
Caporegime
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Looooooool
They may still spin but not to create any uplift. Slow the descent from being 100 mph to 99.9 mph maybe but that won't save you unless you are superman.

Since you guys are seemingly completely oblivious to how helicopters work - pilots literally train for this, they deliberately cut the engines off and land safely without any power... the rotor blades provide lift:


 
Soldato
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Erm Helicopters have more places to land than a plane, you can literally cut the engines in a helicopter and just let it drop down to the ground - the blades will still spin and slow the descent.

You can land a chopper slowly if the engine cuts out. It’s called autorotation.

Just to clarify the accuracy of your statement Dowie -

Autorotation requires a combination of height and/or forward velocity, it's impossible in a low hover such as landing/take-off. So saying "you can literally cut the engines in a helicopter and just let it drop down to the ground" isn't quite the full story. For example, you can be a low level (<100ft) but going 100kts and you can autorotate, or you can be at 4000ft and doing 0kts and still autorotate but there are many situations where saying "you can literally cut the engines in a helicopter and just let it drop down to the ground" will still result in a fatal crash no matter what so it's not a very accurate statement.

"in some circumstances you can literally cut the engines in a helicopter and just let it drop down to the ground" is more accurate.

In the same way, the people who think helicopters are death-traps aren't being accurate in their statements either due to their lack of understanding.
 
Caporegime
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I didn't claim you could in all circumstances, the thread is about how much money would change your life, the reply was just a short response to this point: "They aren't designed to float or land safely in the event something goes wrong. At least a plane can glide along." seemingly the poster was unaware that helicopters have an equivalent of gliding. Rather than checking the fact for himself though he then replied again and then I've provided evidence and then you've added some clarification... which all has little to do with the thread topic itself.
 
Caporegime
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Just to clarify the accuracy of your statement Dowie -

Autorotation requires a combination of height and/or forward velocity, it's impossible in a low hover such as landing/take-off. So saying "you can literally cut the engines in a helicopter and just let it drop down to the ground" isn't quite the full story. For example, you can be a low level (<100ft) but going 100kts and you can autorotate, or you can be at 4000ft and doing 0kts and still autorotate but there are many situations where saying "you can literally cut the engines in a helicopter and just let it drop down to the ground" will still result in a fatal crash no matter what so it's not a very accurate statement.

"in some circumstances you can literally cut the engines in a helicopter and just let it drop down to the ground" is more accurate.

In the same way, the people who think helicopters are death-traps aren't being accurate in their statements either due to their lack of understanding.


It is the same with planes though, at low altitude and low speed such as take-off then you don't have a good chance of being able to land. Given enough potential energy you can convert that to lift and reduce gravitational acceleration.
 
Soldato
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£30k would make a huge difference, and that's being greedy. Clear my debts and would be my half of a deposit.

£20k would definitely change my life as well - that would be the deposit.

Even £5k would clear my debts and make me loads happier.

Some of the numbers here are unbelievable, talk about swimming in different circles.
 
Soldato
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I'm not sure if you're saying the jackpot numbers are silly or people's lives wouldn't be changed for £500k? That's 10-20 years wages to a lot of people. That's huge!
Neither.

The jackpot numbers would obviously be life changing but that’s not what was asked in the OP — so not silly, just not relevant.

£500k is clearly enough to be life changing (I said as much in my first post). It may be huge in relation to the average UK salary but, in the grand scheme of things, £500k isn’t really that much. It depends how you look at it.
 
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£200k would clear the mortgage and allow me to think about buying another house to let.
Remember the password klapaucius on the Sims? It was great for a few minutes then you got bored with life. I think too much money would make life boring as you could buy whatever you wanted on the spot without appreciation. Your kids would certainly end up ungrateful!
 
Soldato
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im mortgage free but i think a million would do the job ie provide an income at my age ,and let some trickle down to my grown up kids (who are better off than me anyway) obviously big chunks of money under this amount would have an impact but thats the figure that pops up in my head
 
Associate
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I know it’s only a TV show, but that makes me think of the only fools episode where they become rich. Del says to Rodney that it’s not like he thought it would be. The dreaming and the chasing was the fun part. Now he’s got it all, he feels like he has no purpose.

I can actually see that tbh. Dreaming about what you could have is the fun part. Actually having it probably isn’t as fun as you think. As evidenced by the many stories of lottery winners whose lives have turned sour after winning.

I completely agree with what you are saying, but my only gripe with it is today, house prices are so high, and wages are low so its really difficult for people to get on the property ladder, and once you are on, you're burdened with debt for most of your life.
 
Soldato
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Am guessing I would need 150k minimum for a mortgage deposit to be able to get myself a house , even then I don't think I could :(
As houses prices here start at around 350k to 400k and am 50 years old in 6 months time..

Would most likely be around 250k I would need for a deposit
 
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Soldato
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I was talking to my accountant recently about this and he said £5m probably wouldn't be enough to retire at 35/40 years old. Almost fell off my chair :eek:

You'd need to produce an net annual % return on your investments above inflation in order to make it out in top each year. Then he started going on about private/boarding school fees for three kids for ~10 years each, house in London, a second home in the country, etc. No wonder...

Retiring at 35 with £5m in the bank and maybe 50 years ahead of you... reckon I could just about make it work :cool:
 
Caporegime
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They may still spin but not to create any uplift. Slow the descent from being 100 mph to 99.9 mph maybe but that won't save you unless you are superman.


Here's a guide to not coming across as a bell end on the internet:

If you're not 100% sure what you're talking about you run the risk of looking a bit dim if you post your ideas as fact. But do not despair! Luckily for you there are ways of preventing this, and they often have the added bonus of teaching you something! I know right? Two for the price of one, I'm amazed Barry Scott isn't advertising this amazing technique! Anyway here's how you do it:

Start any post by clarifying you're not entirely sure about what you're saying. Nobody knows everything and there's no such thing as a stupid question, so ask away! In fact, people who present uninformed information as fact are often seen as idiots, whereas people who ask are invulnerable to insult. Ignorance truly is bliss. Here are a few examples:

"As far as I'm aware" <insert statement here>
"But isn't/ doesn't it" <insert statement here>
"How does that work then?" - no statement needed here, it's pretty self-explanatory.

Now your turn! See what ideas you can come up with, get creative, go nuts, the only limits are your imagination!
 
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