Query: How can I live outside of the rat race of American life with 300k?

Relevant passages:
 <=SEP=> "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."

 <=SEP=> "The title of your question is quite different then the content.  The term ""Rat Race"" was coined in the 70's and refers to the endless cycle of working hard to consume more.  Fortunately it is very easy not to participate in the cycle and probably will lead to more happiness.  Just because one ""works"" does not mean they are participating in the ""rat race"", and I would recommend the following: When I think of ""rat race"" I picture a a bumper-to-bumper freeway of people struggling to get to work.  For others it might be different, but that kind of rat race is easily avoided by the multitude of remote work opportunities.  Some jobs allow you to work anywhere in the world. Avoiding the rugged consumerism also helps avoid the feelings of being a rat on the wheel.  Sure one can like nice things, but do we have to have everything that Madison Ave is trying to sell us?  No.  Pick some nice things and pay cash. Debt, especially consumer debt, causes a person (in effect) to work for a bank.  Avoiding debt will remove those feelings. Saving and investing also helps avoid those feelings.  There is profound satisfaction in watching ones account balances grow.  Once you see that your investment earnings can outpace your expenses, and then your salary you really feel like you are getting ahead.      Above all else giving is a paramount and often overlooked part of a person's financial life.  It causes one to be humble and recognize that most people, in this world, are less fortunate that us.  It avoids runaway provide that justifies purchases that we cannot afford.   So yea you can avoid the ""Rat Race"" and still work."

 <=SEP=> "An endowment is a large chunk of capital (i.e. money) held by  a university or other nonprofit.  It is meant to hold its value forever against inflation, and invested to generate income: from interest, dividends and appreciation.   They seem like a contradiction: closely scrutinized by Boards of Directors, managed to a high and accountable standard, closely regulated -- and yet, invested aggressively for growth: ignoring short-term volatility to get the highest growth long-term.  The law, UPMIFA (P for Prudent), requires growth investment, and says taking up to 7% of current value per year is prudent, even in down times when total value is shrinking.  On average, this lets the endowment grow with inflation.  7% is the high end of ""prudent"".  An endowment is watched, and the taken income is adjusted to keep the endowment healthy. 5% is very safe, assuming the endowment must pace inflation until the heat death of the universe. If you plan to die someday, drawing an extra 1-2% is appropriate.  There you go.  Invest like a university endowment, and count on up to 7% per year of income.  That's $21,000 a year. There'll be taxes, but the long-term capital gain rate at $21,000/year is pretty low.  That's pretty tight, but possible if your idea of entertaining is Netflix.  It would work very effectively for #VanLife, or the British version, living on a Narrowboat."

 <=SEP=> Even with a good investment strategy, you cannot expect more than 8-10% per year in average. Reducing this by a 3% inflation ratio leaves you with 5 - 7%, which means 15k$ - 21k$. Consider seriously if you could live from that amount as annual income, longterm. If you think so, there is a second hurdle - the words in average. A good year could increase your capital a bit, but a bad year can devastate it, and you would not have the time to wait for the good years to average it out. For example, if your second year gives you a 10% loss, and you still draw 15k$ (and inflation eats another 3%), you have only 247k$ left effectively, and future years will have to go with 12k$ - 17k$. Imagine a second bad year. As a consequence, you either need to be prepared to go back to work in that situation (tough after being without job for years), or you can live on less to begin with: if you can make it on 10k$ to begin with (and do, even in good years), you have a pretty good chance to get through your life with it. Note that 'make it with x' always includes taxes, health care, etc. - nothing is free. I think it's possible, as people live on 10k$ a year. But you need to be sure you can trust yourself to stay within the limit and not give in and spent more - not easy for many people.

 <=SEP=> "the short answer: yes. The long answer depends on what you mean by modest living. As others have noted, living off a $300k principle involves risks, but the entire future has risk. By ""getting out of the rat race"" I hope you don't mean become a slug on the couch. Peruse mr. Money Mustache at https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/. One can live very frugally yet very well in some parts of the US."

 <=SEP=> "Consider buying a legal ""mother daughter"" property, rent out the top part, and live in the ""mother"" component."