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).
But that's not what I said. I said I
currently have in the range of $1.3 to $1.4 and hope to continue to have that when I FIRE. That basically means that's where I already am, and I hope I don't lose money over the next year. That seems reasonable. That's not the same as "need", and I gave that full range, not specifically $1.4M. If the stock market returns zero over the next year, my contributions alone should get to the upper half of that range. Again, that doesn't mean I "need". And I should mention my FIRE date of next year is not related so much to a stash target since I've already hit that, but to other things, just as Bateaux mentioned as well as personal things.
On the expense side, I didn't say $48,000 would be the total income I would need. I said my stash should cover ~$1600/mo bare bones (notice the ~, which means it could be more or less, not exactly $1600 as you implied) and OVER $2400/mo discretionary (note the word "over", not exactly $2400 as you were implying that I stated.) And when I add over $2400/mo discretionary spending to my budget, my tax rate will increase, so I'll also have to withdraw more to pay taxes as well. Factor in a slightly lower WR of 3.9% due to investment expenses, and $1.3M is a reasonable stash figure using the 4% rule, but I could cut back some on the discretionary spending if needed, so I don't feel I need a big cushion beyond the option of cutting back if needed, despite all the talk about today's high stock valuations, CAPE10, and calls of the pending recession that some may use to justify a larger stash.
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?
With ACA subsidies, $24K would be fairly easy for me, as that's about $4K more than I estimate my bare bones FIRE expenses to be. Fortunately, I've got a big enough stash that I can do some travel and explore more entertainment options during FIRE that I didn't have time to do during my career. I've done very little traveling in my life, and maintained a very high savings rate during my career well before I ever heard of MMM, so when I FIRE, I will finally have the chance to do things I've had little opportunity to do over my working careeer.
Note - I do not work in a corporate or any other type of cubicle. I used to work in a shared office with one or two others over the years, but last year, I finally got my own office, the type with real walls to the ceiling and a door. It's quite peaceful. My overtime is way down, my workload is better than it's ever been, I'm not having to train any other staff, and I work with very little supervision. It's by far the best I've had it in 17 years on this job, so it feels like exactly the worst time to leave in that respect. If I was stuck in a cubicle, chained to my desk, pushing papers, operating as a corporate drone, running the hamster wheel, or bored out of my mind, then I would certainly feel more of an urgency to leave. I don't have a family at home waiting for me, so there's that, too.
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.
I'm actually planning about $50K/yr spending during FIRE, but then taxes and investment expenses bring that up closer to $52K/yr that needs to be funded from the stash. So, $1.3M at the low end of my stash range is just right, while $1.4M is just an added cushion, but I don't plan to draw extra from the stash beyond what I just mentioned. It would just be a cushion. Also, I have no pensions in my future, although I hope to get SS benefits after 15 years of FIRE.
I'm not FIRED yet, and my actual spending through the first 6 months of this year is averaging less than $1400/mo. I have very low cost healthcare costs while working. I haven't done any traveling in years. I'm not sure how that compares with MMM.
Edit: Besides the uncertainty of ACA/healthcare, another big wild card for me is the potential of relocating sometime after I FIRE, which would involve selling my house in my somewhat LCOL area and relocating to another area, which may be not be as LCOL, or I might actually be able to cut my living costs by scaling down in another LCOL area. A smaller wild card is working part time for a while will not be out of the question, although I wouldn't want to do it long term - maybe a year.