Cost of living is very different. Maybe it’s just that coastal housing is more expensive, that’s end of the story.
Your million dollar shack is not as comfortable as the 150k new house in Florida
Adjusted for inflation and dilution of wealth by undocumented immigrants?
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Court Reporter, can you go back to the original statement from @BAGB…
I believe my source material (honestly didn’t read all of it) is from the venerable Washington Post, not Penthouse magazine. Although, truth be told, I used to buy Penthouse for the articles too…
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Not really… it’s more because rich people are the ones who know how to accumulate more money. Winner takes all!
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Sh-t. that’s a lot of dough. I don’t think you really need that much. Maybe if you cut out the monthly trip the Bahamas…
Seriously though–if that number is for real, what’s your analysis? At 5% back, that/s $1M a year. Why would you need that much?
Compared with 150 years ago, today’s wealth gap is very small.
20M is a fluctuating number since stock and house price changes. Maybe 20M at the peak and $8M at the valley?
I think passive income figure is more important for FIRE. Passive income may fluctuate less than networth.
$200k (pre-tax?) is the number threw around for a family of four to be FIRE at this point of time (would change through time because of inflation and deflation 
).
To generate $200k p.a. with AAPLs, you would need ~79,500 shares.
At $173 per share, capital required = $13.8 million 
less than $20 million.
Good thing with AAPL dividends is its annual pay rise > 10% which is higher than inflation.
Passive income satisfied BAGB too.
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5M/Head is my definition of “rich”. For FIRE you need far less.
There is no good definition of RE. Some guys claim they are retired but turns out their wives are working. Even for the samurai he’s still running his blog business and has a few side hustles. That’s not really retired.
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200k annual with REIT returning 7% you only need 2.8M capital. If you use leverage you need even less.
Retired is a state of mind for some people. They see their jobs as hobbies because they love it.
You’re right about the wife thing though. If you’d be working if the wife isn’t, then you’re not retired.
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Mustache’s wife is working, right? So is that phony RB40 guy up in Portland. I hate that guy.
Yes. MMM’s wife is working BUT, I’ll give him FIRE/retirement. The question is whether his wife HAS to work, and I suspect the answer is no. MMM also rehabs houses to rent out.
My bigger issue is that his followers wants to keep each other to the insanely frugal standards that MMM doesn’t have to–and often doesn’t-- live with anymore.
I think it’s easier to grow top line than cutting bottom line. Increase income: get a second job, start a business, buy a rental property… rather than cutting costs. We often have to save money to invest. But to me investing should be the end goal, not the saving.
Econ 101, Saving = Investment 
The general principle is it is more financially efficient to spend time in increasing income than to try to cut cost/ saving. Theoretically, increasing income is unlimited while max savings is current income. Someone here (sorry can’t remember blogger’s name) mentioned this too.
If you believe that then either you aren’t looking very hard, or you already optimized.
Money=Time=Resources.
Getting a second job can actually be a loss monetarily if you don’t have the time to cook and you have to pay for childcare.
You have to attack on all fronts and optimize overall. Cut the fat, work extra–whatever works. I’m not a fan of MMM, BUT he’s got a point about the $5 latte’s. And if you’re healthy and need $200K/yr to retire on without college costs and house paid off, you’ve got fat in your budget. Just saying.
It’s also the thesis of the Millionaire Next Door–the guys who make $700K and spends it on country clubs, lavish trips, and luxury cars isn’t saving enough.
Just work 5-6 years for public sector jobs before your intended retirement. In Federal, you carry the health insurance with you. I have a feeling that other public agencies are the same.
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What age is your early retirement age?
Realized this won’t work. I think the min time for retirement with Fed is 20 years.
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