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How can I live outside of the rat race of American life with 300k?
So my read on the question is "How do I invest 300k such that it earns me a 'living wage' without the ongoing grind inherent in most formal employment?"  Reading the other answers to date it looks like most of them are thinking in terms of investment accounts and trying to live off of the earnings from such.  I wanted to throw out a couple of alternative choices that may be worth considering... The first is real-estate investing.  $300k should allow you to pick up 2 or 3 single family dwellings with little or no mortgage.  Turning them into rentals placed with a good property management company should easily pay their expenses and provide a consistent income with minimal effort/attention from you.  Similar story with buying into multifamily housing or commercial real-estate. Your key concern here is picking the right market in which to buy and finding a reputable manager to handle the day to day issues on your behalf. Note that you are not overly concerned with the potential resale value of the property(s), but the probable rental income they can generate, these are separate concerns that may not align with each other. Second is buying/founding a business that has a general manager other than yourself.  Franchise ownership may be a potential option for you under the circumstances.  The key concern here is picking the business, location, and manager that make you comfortable in terms of the risk involved.  You need the place to make enough money to pay for itself and the salary of everyone working there, with enough left over for you to live on.  Sounds easy enough, but not so much in practice.  Generally you can expect at least a few years of being hands on and watching things very closely to make sure it is going the way you want it to.  Finding a mentor who has done this type of transition before to walk you through it would be strongly advised.  So would preparing yourself for a failure or two before you work out the exact combination of factors that work for you.