There are probably people out there who would win $1 million and decide to throw in the towel at work, but financial planner James Wrigley said you should put a bit more thought into it if you want to be able to live off your winnings.

Video transcript

- This is how much money you'd have to win in the lottery to actually quit your job. There's probably people out there who would win $1 million and decide to throw in the towel at work. But financial planner James Wrigley said he should put a bit more thought into it if you want to be able to live off your winnings.

Wrigley told Yahoo Finance the rule of thumb is to multiply your living expenses by 20. And for this to work, you'd need to own your own home. Wrigley said, assuming you won enough money to clear your mortgage and you're not having to pay rent, times your annual living expenses by 20, and that would roughly put you in the range of being able to afford not to work again and maintain your lifestyle for the remainder of your years, regardless of how old you are.

These expenses could include food, bills, transport, health care, utilities like energy and water, plus your taxes. A single person's estimated cost of living per month is $4,544. So for a single person, that's $1,090,560. But it's likely that you wouldn't want to just be getting by. The average Australian said they'd need to be earning $345,819 to feel rich. That's almost five times greater than the average personal income of $72,753, according to the Bureau of statistics.

So by that calculation to feel rich and live off your winnings, you'd need to win closer to $7 million.