Meh. I saw that earlier and all I thought was: if he has 250k at 28 he should be able to retire well before 37.
I hope you're right!
No need to hope...I am assuming you are this person. All you need to do is a bit of math to see that even being very conservative you should be done before 37:
Assumptions:
- From article $80,000 salary
- From article 60% savings - assumed this was after tax salary (conservative)
- Contributing nothing to 401k (all income taxed) - hopefully not the case, but a conservative assumption
- Salary stays stagnant (no raises) - conservative
- 7% gains on 'stache - seems to be the standard inflation adjusted value used around here
- Contributions once a month, evenly distributed through the year
- No dual income ever - you bought a house with your girlfriend so I suspect this is also VERY conservative
- Your expenses never go down - conservative since your house will be paid off eventually
From this we can get:
- After tax income ~ $61,250 (effectively 16.92% federal tax & 6.51% MN tax)
- Yearly expenses ~ $24,500 (so, 4% SWR FIRE $612,500 or 3% SWR FIRE $816,666)
- Yearly additions to 'stache ~ $36,750 ($3,063/mo)
- Also, the 'Stache Growth chart attached
From the chart, with all of these (IMO very conservative) assumptions, you should be able to lean FIRE after approx. 5.5 years (when you are 33-34) or fat FIRE after approx. 8 years (when you are 36). So as long as the market doesn't tank, if you have not met your lean FIRE by 34 I am going to come up to MN and find you and kick your butt into shape for being a Spendy McSpenderpants! Frankly I feel I should do that if you haven't met lean FIRE by 32 since I was using very conservative assumptions!
Also, if you want to cut your restaurant/lunch budget, but still eat out, look into Mystery Shopping. This is what I have started doing to control it, and it works wonders for me.