My job is not the worst, in fact objectively I struggle to think of any way my job could be better, other than by paying more.
10 years is non-trivial but so is the knowledge for the rest of my life that I am financially very sound, and I am able to splurge pretty heavily.
This seems to be a consistent theme with those who argue for a more conservative withdrawal rate. It's not just a fear of failure at 4%, it's the increased chance of being able to spend more later in life. Those who argue for 4%+ withdrawal rates typically seem to really believe the idea that additional spending doesn't bring additional happiness. To them working longer is purely a way to increase the chance of success, but to the former group it's a way to increase the chance of success AND spend more. I think this is true for a lot of people but not everyone admits it like BloopBloop.
I wonder how often the 3% vs 4% argument is just a failure of communication. Mr 4% says I'm happy my $1M stash will throw off $40k and not worried about SOR, etc because really I'd be perfectly happy living on $30k so cutting back wouldn't be an issue. Mr 3% says his $1M stash will only reliably throw off $30k as that's the amount I need to be happy and I wouldn't be able to face cutting below it.
The only real difference between the two is that Mr 4% is giving himself permission to spend some of that probable extra fat now if markets look okay, Mr 3% is deferring that until some future date.
This is what I come back to over and over and over again.
People can debate these little percentage differences all they want, but the variability in the outcome of the simulation is peanuts compared to the variability inherent in the inputs.
That's why I find it all so laughable. It's real math done with made up numbers. The outputs are nonsense beyond the vaguest of relevance to actually future outcomes.
If a "100% success" output from a simulator makes someone feel better, then that's cool, good for them, but since they'll never ever actually live according to the reality of their inputs, it's all gibberish and about as accurate as a BuzzFeed quiz about which Kardashian is my soulmate.
You can save to the exact dollar amount that will give you that exact 3.37875% WR that you calculated a million times, and that's cool, but no matter what, if you are inflexible in your spend, you are at substantially more risk of failure.
That's not reality though, no one is going to sit there with the global markets collapsing around them, look at their mangled 'stache, and say "nope nope nope, an online calculator on the internet that I used 30 years ago told me I can spend exactly $67K+estimated inflation, so goddammit I'm gonna spend that this year! Get packed kids! We're going on a cruise!"
If anything, these remarkably small impacts of WR reductions should reassure people that saving enormous sums more is almost irrelevant. Instead of freaking people out, it should really reassure people that over saving is nowhere near as powerful as common sense flexibility.
A very low WR is really great for one specific, highly probable scenario: dying with A LOT more money than you retired with.
Over saving is fine. I see no fundamental merit in saving only exactly what one anticipates needing. Pete has plenty more than he needs, I'll have plenty more than I need.
What's absurd is not feeling "safe" to start really living until some online simulation spits out "100%" and concluding that that actually has any bearing on predictability of the future.
That's just patently insane.