I find this topic quite entertaining and motivating. Came across MMM a couple of years ago and love his attitude. Listen to a couple of podcasts and read random blogs as twitter feeds them to me.
Our situation is such that my “RE” will happen at 65, since I’m already 51 with twins about to start college and a non-working spouse with health issues so we need the good insurance if nothing else. And, I still like my job.
Spent most of my 26 year career so far at the regionals, with very little time even collecting left seat pay; so I’m not anywhere near where I thought I’d be net-worth-wise at this point, but I did start early and save to the company match, and it has served me well. With my ability now to (relatively easily) max the 401k, and stretching to also max Roth IRAs, we should be in good shape. Though I’ve been pretty money smart, I wish I’d had the mindset that 50% savings is a legitimate target before recently.
That doesn’t change the mindset now though. BUT... I’m far from what I would call frugal, though I generally don’t spend much on stuff (took many years for me to splurge on a 1080TV, and that was many years ago with no upgrade planned; newest car is a 2007 and I do the vast majority of reasonable auto and home maintenance; usually shop for clothes at Target, WM, even GW; etc.) but we do blow our money eating out since neither of us likes to cook. Though it is hard to resist finally spending for what I’ve long dreamed: a house on an acre with a huge shop now that I can now arguably afford.....
The gotcha here is that the young folks that think $1M is a lot of money are likely to find that they don’t have enough somewhere down the line. Trying to fund a 40+ year retirement on that will prove quite difficult, because even at 4% returns (I suspect this is a reasonable long term return moving forward, if invested somewhat conservatively as it should be to live off of, imo) the principal will only be worth today’s $250k in about 50 years. The movement is hot now due to a long, prosperous market, but that too shall ebb and flow and unless that $1M can throw off 4% AND grow by that much each year on average, then money will get tight. Stuff happens and expenses rise significantly; moreso if you have kids as they get older. Healthcare costs often increase, no matter how healthy your lifestyle. And so on.
Still a very worthy knowledge base to have and existence to aspire to imo. Time is finite (and means everything) and money is but a (renewable) tool to make living easy. This much I’ve learned.