Never give up - As you rightly say, each of us is solving for different personalities, amount and budgets. That said, I think this forum is great for discussing ideas.
For me I know I almost certainly won't have the ability to come back to this career and never want to work for someone else again. I suppose the property management is a 'side gig' of sorts, but I don't really want to be forced into something else. As I say, I am also a worrier. Put all that together and my plan needs lots of safeguards. Luckily I am a high earner so I can earn these safeguards over a relatively short period of time, so I am exchanging relatively small amounts of 'life' for a lot of buffer.
One of my unknowns is how much our lifestyle cost will come down when I FIRE. Presently my life is absurdly expensive as I live in Devon but weekly commute to London. This means trains, rent, fuel and a bunch of other costs (all after 40% tax) which will disappear. Further, my wife is on her own with the kids in the week so fairly stretched with looking after them and running the properties so not living as efficiently as we probably can when we both have more time.
We have been very conservative in our FIRE journey in that we 1) already moved to a lower COL place 2) already made the property investments we think will finance our life. The quid pro quo of that has been high lifestyle costs presently due to our slightly crazy life (4.30 am alarms on Monday morning - sorry but I am going to buy a coffee at the station!).
So I struggle with knowing what my 'lowest budget' is. I am hoping for a big 'dividend' to come from having more time to live life more efficiency, remove all the commuting costs, and pay WAY less tax.... the spreadsheet says these things will happen but I cannot presently live my post FIRE life so cannot bank all those gains.