Perhaps I did not make myself clear because I'm thinking the point I was making has been missed. If you need the additional safety blanket, fine, that's ok*. I'm not focussed on the stash size, I'm focussed on the income it generates to support your spending.
This thread is a sign of times ... so many FIRE numbers above $1.5m excluding a paid off house!
This is enough to basically have a FIRED income of $60,000 forever and still keep growing your stash under literally all conditions.
I am a hypocrite because I will want to do this too, but damn, can any of us really call ourselves mustachian anymore?
We are in very uncertain times. All the social crash nets are under the threat of possible bankruptcy. In a not so distant future we could lose Social Security and Medicare. If not lost completely it could drastically change where benefits aren't available till 70 or even 75 years old. We could lose the ACA and see health insurance costs skyrocket for those with preexisting conditions. The firehose of employment income and employers benefits are difficult to give up. The party in charge has come right out and told you they intend to make cuts. You have to take them serious.
Ok further up people were talking about Pete and IRP and him having buckets loads more money now and all that shit.
Forget about all that. The original premise of the blog is "MMM and Mrs MMM FIRED with a spending budget of $24,000 a year, this is how we did it"
Net worth is irrelevant since net worth includes my home.
My stash is currently and will hopefully continue to be in the $1.3M to $1.4M range a year from now when I plan to FIRE.
Single, own my home, living alone. That should be enough to cover ~$1600/mo bare bones expenses and over $2400/mo discretionary spending.
@DreamFIRE I'm going to pick on you by quoting this** because you seem typical of this thread in needing $1.4m which supports spending of $56,000 a year (not the $48,000 you mention, and is well excess of the <$20,000 bare bones FIRE stash you need).
Now are you all saying that $24,000 is impossible to do in this day and age? You need $1.4 x 4% = $56,000 a year to make this work and feel comfortable to leave the corporate cubicles? Is it no longer possible to optimise, to hack, to minimise expenses? Is it no longer desirable to do so? Do you not want to do so in order to bring FIRE forward, or provide you with additional margin of safety?
If $56,000 is your number, then fine. But if MMM were reading this he'd be telling you $56,000 is an exploding volcano of wastefulness worth of spending.
* & ** Note I already called myself a hypocrite by needing more so this applies to me too.