83% found the article helpful, I guess they were happy to have someone tell them they didn't need 25x their spending.
If you are 65 you have an estimate average life expectancy of 14 years-ish (sure, swing it up 5 years for premature deaths) than 25x might be (or probably is?) a inefficient target to shoot for. Just a reminder as the OP implied, 25x is if you have the 4% rule as your cashflow in perpetuity philosophy.
If you have no interest in leaving $ behind, the older you get the less xxx's you need. Because money is death is pretty useless, amIright?
On the flip side, if you are 65+ in bad health, you might need more than 25x to sustain a medically challenged lifestyle where something costs you a bajillion dollars a year just to keep you alive (note, bajillion is a made up number and exaggeration).
Now, just calculate exactly WHEN you are going to die and you can easily have an optimized number of xs (taking into account sequence of returns risk, which you also have to calculate precisely) to shoot for.
Conclusion: use 25x and 4%, as a guide not a dogma. Because on both ends of the savings spectrum above you made an inefficient decision for different reasons. Maybe a truly optimized decision (that I assume 83% of people dream about) is just that, a dream.
Oh, throw in part-time wages for a younger person into that argument too (or maybe pushing hand-made bird feeders on the side in your Florida trailer park). Because those make 25x really bunk. Oh, but does doing some work make you live longer??
