semiERE: exploring semi-retirement

[lillo9546]

Hey everyone,

Let's talk about a different approach to FIRE and ERE that goes beyond just hitting a specific "FIRE number" based on a 3% or 4% SWR or lowering your COL too drastically.
Instead of aiming to have investments cover 100% of our COL, what if we considered a "semi-retirement" model?

The traditional FIRE approach often involves aggressively saving until your investments can generate enough income to completely cover your expenses, allowing you to quit your job entirely. But what if we continued to work, but at a reduced capacity?

Imagine this: You're currently working full-time (let's say 10 hours a day) and saving a significant portion of your income. After a few years of building up your investments, you reduce your work hours drastically – maybe down to just 2 hours a day. While you might not be saving much at that point, that part-time income covers a significant portion of your COL – perhaps 50% to 80%.

The key here is that your target FIRE number is now significantly lower.


This approach can be especially appealing for self-employed individuals or those with flexible career options. Instead of grinding away at long hours to maximize savings, you can transition to working fewer hours in a role you enjoy, primarily to cover ongoing expenses. For example, that 2 hours of work per day could cover a substantial portion of your COL, providing financial security and more free time.

Estimating "Semi-FIRE"

So, how do we figure out how many hours you need to work each day to achieve this "semi-independence"? Think of it as a gradual transition:

Example:
- 2025: 10 hours/day
- 2027: 8 hours/day
- 2029: 4 hours/day
- 2031: 3 hours/day
- 2033: 2 hours/day



As @AxelHeyst pointed out, the hardest part is figuring out what your ideal life and work style look like, and when you want to achieve FI/RE (or in this case, semi-FIRE).

To help with this, it might be useful to create a spreadsheet to help you plan and set realistic goals. We need to consider these unknowns:

Lifestyle: What activities and experiences bring you joy and define your desired daily life? This directly impacts your annual COL. See more about ERE wheaton levels in this image
Career: What kind of work generates income and aligns with your values? This determines your annual INCOME and the flexibility you have to reduce hours.
Target FI and FI Date: How much capital do you need, and by when, to reach a point where your assets, combined with part-time income, can comfortably cover your annual COL? Remember, we're not necessarily aiming for a SWR that covers 100% of our COL in this scenario, but more in the 50 to 80% range.

A recap: semi-ERE concept is that instead of relying solely on investments, we supplement our savings with income from a reduced workload. For instance, working just 2 hours a day might cover 50% (or more) of your COL.

The next thing is about creating a spreadsheet to help visualize these factors, but I'd love to hear your thoughts and insights first.
What do you think are the key unknowns to consider when planning for semi-retirement?

Your FIRE Journey it's personalized: many of us here share the belief that ERE and FIRE are excellent paths, but they aren't one-size-fits-all. I appreciate the simplicity of some FIRE lifestyles, but a tiny house, van life, or living on a boat isn't for me.
For example: in my particular case, focus is on finding one or two satisfying careers I could still do later in life, and a fulfilling lifestyle. It's not only about minimizing COL, but about creating a life that allows you to be in that wellbeing state, while being "financially secure".

[AxelHeyst]

I did a search and was surprised to find no threads with semiERE as an explicit topic in the title, despite the topic threading through the entire forum for years. I'll start dropping links to semiERE discussion in here when I come across them.

Deliberately coasting to FI.
JnG post about 'the shockingly more complicated math', particularly for people who might be closer to median income.
Decentering FI.

The point of this is I think I'm actually safe using a lower number to calculate my FIRE number.

^Maybe the 'right' spot in JnGs journal where his semiERE posts start? They're kind of peppered through his journal - best to just read the whole thing.

[AxelHeyst]

What do you think are the key unknowns to consider when planning for semi-retirement?

For how many years you'll remain committed to and psyched on the position of *having* to work to pay the bills. This was my greatest uncertainty during my semiERE phase. Once I got the opportunity to earn a higher income doing something I enjoy reasonably enough, it was an instant "hell with this, let's accumulate to FI ASAP" decision.

If the dynamic of needing to earn income is causing me to fail to notice or fail to imagine opportunities, projects, or ventures that are incompatible with semi-work. Related to my first point.

[7Wannabe5]

I think at this point there are at least 3 or 4 fairly significantly different paths or sub-values-systems or personality-type X circumstances that we refer to as semiERE on the forum. It might be worthwhile at this juncture to ferret out some underlying common factors or it might be worthwhile to start referring to these variations by different names. Dunno.

It's not only about minimizing COL, but about creating a life that allows you to be in that wellbeing state, while being "financially secure".

Alternatively, I would describe my own current personal take on semiERE as more akin to: "It's mostly about economic explorations of the spaces not occupied or paths not bounded by financial transactions or contracts in order to maximize optionality, access, and the resiliency of overall flow of well-being within complex social and ecological systems from my perspective." So, I might identify my first step on my semiERE path as being my exploration at age 12 of the storm drain system underneath the recently constructed upper-middle-middle-class suburban subdivision where I resided. However, I would also note that the exploration of the spaces not occupied or bounded is also necessarily and simultaneously an exploration of the binding grid and it's creation. Therefore, for example, my curious friendship with my poor-farm-boy-to-mega-millionaire friend was also revealing of the limits and spaces within the rapid growth of a financially focused specimen.

One problem with FIRE is that it kind of like happily choosing celibacy. I mean, even if you no longer need/want to get any more sex, you may also risk losing sight of the optionality and access beyond the financial available on the relationship market. Interacting with an organizational market that largely involves financial transactions and contracts only as a volunteer is kind of like setting your dating profile description to "Cuddle Buddy." I think this might be the least clear as an analogy to a human who has only functioned in one gender role in dating/relationship market or only functioned in one role employer vs employee in the employment market. IOW, I think that financial savings would more likely be regarded as "optionality" rather than "security" if more humans had the experience of starting their own businesses or similar entrepreneurial or creative endeavors. I'm probably being a clear as mud, but what I'm attempting to communicate is roughly analogous to why having money is often pretty useless to women on the dating market, but men generally need at least just a little as initial catalyst. Or why the line from "Drive My Car" that goes, "I got no car and it's breaking my heart, But I've found a driver and that's a start" is rather funny. IOW, the task of "keeping yourself employable" is rather like the task of "keeping yourself attractive" and the task of "asking somebody on a date" is rather like the task of "entrepreneurial venture" and the optionality inherent in either of these types of tasks is more widely tranferable or fungible.

IOW, if I'm living in the 21st century, where every possible sort of market have come to resemble each other, and I'm currently not bound by a significant load of ongoing contract or obligations, and I'm sitting in front of the internet contemplating my options on any or all of these markets, from relationship to creator space to employment to entrepreneurial to gaming to philanthropy, everything I have to bring will always apply over the entire space, so it's fairly irrelevant whether I can entirely remove all the options towards creating a flow of money.

Or another way to look at it is the difference between regarding your lifestyle as one big permaculture project which you own and have firmly boundaried within your control vs. a revolving collection of permaculture projects of various sizes and types in which you take on a variety of roles. From the first perspective, getting "water on tap with estimated flow rate Y from tank of size X" might logically be a first task to be accomplished and check-marked, but from the second perspective, the problems and projects related to "water" also become more varied and complex. IOW, it's not having solved already problems that gives you wide optionality and access as much as your continuing ability to solve problems.

[Lemur]

Everytime I do the math on this stuff it just seems like its easier to get the job done instead of coasting strategies or anything else. However, I guess you theoretically could quit much sooner and ride off on minimum wage income combined with a 4% SWR. True coasting would require that you don't make any withdrawals while you're working the minimum wage job*. That way the option of full-fi is eventaully achieved anyway through market returns.

My excel gymnastics makes a lot of assumptions but that is what I was trying to show:
Median income + $24,000 spending a year is achievable for most frugal people without extreme measures...



If I adjust salary raise to 2% as well (to match spending inflation) it takes just one extra year.

Semi-ERE might be something totally different then coast-FI so I will have to leave it up to the ones that did the thinking on that but seems to me if you can achieve median salary+ , and keep spending reasonable, its almost too easy to just stick it out a few years unless you find yourself in a situation where working really really sucks.

* technically I'm making another assumption that all part-time work is minimum wage which is not true; consulting and specialized trades can command larger $ per hour and may be worthwhile if this is a strategy you're looking into.

[Scott 2]

IMO the point of semi-ERE isn't settling in as barista for 20 more years. It's stepping onto a new runway, so you can launch into a values aligned identity. The minimum wage thing is transitory only. A motivated and capable person will find themselves with greater opportunity, especially once operating in a values algined paradigm.

[IlliniDave]

There are probably about as many strategies to have a good life as there are living people who take the time to think about it.

I don't know that it matters all that much if you gather resources up front, or incrementally along the way, front-loaded or uniformly, other than how it suits a person's goals, preferences, and circumstances.

No matter what road a person takes to Dublin, I think the most important thing is to invest time and effort understanding what brings contentedness and fulfillment. Once you understand that you can generally use any of the techniques to move in that direction. Circumstances will often illuminate a subset of strategies that are more pragmatic, but being pragmatic doesn't make them mandatory.

In terms of the scenario laid out by the OP, the main consideration would be how long the part-time work phase is expected to last, and what are the probability of continuing to earn money over that time frame. For a long time I kept an option to augment post-career life with part-time income earning, but assumed that at some point due to age that would cease to be a possibility. So that is something I considered when trading between plug pulling dates (if I even had a say in that) and it encouraged building some downward flexibility in my planned lifestyle spending. In the end I concluded I was never going to have an opportunity that matched the combined resource inflow rate and satisfaction of the job I had at the time. Life wasn't at all bad when I was working. So I just stuck it our until I was done. It was the most pragmatic thing due to circumstances and wasn't the only alternative I considered. Semi-ere as you describe it is perfectly viable, and if it suits you, that's great. It's not a one-size-fits-all venture.

[Ego]

Semi-ERE might be something totally different then coast-FI so I will have to leave it up to the ones that did the thinking on that but seems to me if you can achieve median salary+ , and keep spending reasonable, its almost too easy to just stick it out a few years unless you find yourself in a situation where working really really sucks.

I agree that from a purely financial perspective it makes sense to stick it out for a few more years. The financial perspective is not the only perspective.

Early retirees differ from trad retirees in many ways. An obvious way they differ is in the number of years they expect to spent in retirement. If they live well, it is not unreasonable for an early retiree to live 2x (or more) the number of post-retirement years than their pre-retirement years. That is a long time.

Warren Buffett famously said, “Leave your children enough money so they can do anything, but not enough that they don’t have to do anything.” All those post-retirement years means that early retirees should treat future-them as thoughtfully as they would their own children. While someone may early-retire and hit the ground running, future-them will experience year after year of temptations to "not do anything". Their 4%SWR offers them the luxury to enjoy this chronic ease. An ease that ensures chronic disease.

TLDR: SemiERE can be a good way to treat future-you as you would your own child.

[jacob]

Ultimately, the "laziness"-argument boils down to a whip/carrot argument.

It's not like being FI prevents you from getting a job or more generally working-for-money. Rather, it's a matter of motivation. With semiFI, the motivation for the job is that of the whip, because you need to make money. With FI, the motivation for getting a job is that of the carrot, so somehow that job has to be innately attractive to you for other reasons than money---you should be willing to work for a salary of $1, like Steve Jobs famously did at Apple.

There is also work that pays little to nothing (volunteering, non-profit, art, philosophy, ...) as well as work where the payoff is rockstar-level asymmetric (athlete, music, writing, innovation,...). These often require a fulltime focus if you're ever going to get anywhere with them. semiFI excludes these or at least makes them rather risky.

I see three benefits to semiFI.

1. It's available much faster because it requires less savings.
2. It provides a whip for those who need external motivation.
3. It practically forces a closer connection to people who work for a living.

and three benefits to FI

1. It allows a full time focus on work/projects/adventures that don't pay any money.
2. It removes the whip from any form of creative expression. (You do not have evaluate expected profitability. You can take bigger chances.)
3. It practically forces a closer connection to people who don't work for a living.

This also means that it comes down to personal fit. If someone is not internally motivated or lack creativity, then FI could turn into the equivalent of "Rat City" with days just spent idling away. OTOH, if someone has a creative idea that requires a fulltime dedication to express and yet they're stuck going to work because their past self didn't provide enough money for them, going to work will feel like serving prison time.

I think it is possible to some degree to know-oneself well enough to know which option is personally better. However, keep in mind that people can change over time. A semiFI type with semiFI desires who turns into a FI type with FI desires will have to ramp up their earnings. Conversely, A FI type who turns into a semiFI type could just give away some of their savings or not.

[guitarplayer]

I think semi retirement is not semi ere. The way I think of ERE is that it is going to systems thinking level and there is no point being stuck part way there. Perspectives taking, theory of mind, yellow, you name it.

In terms of retirement from earning income, or in particular in terms of ‘the number’, obviously the number is a function of expenses. Lower your expenses to not need to earn income. Get them higher and tada you are semi-retired, or in accumulation stage.

I may be in a minority thinking it is fairly easy to tweak the spending side of things.

I was retired once in the sense of having multiples of my annual spending, more than 25 times annual expenses, because my cost of life was very low. That I had to work to maintain that situation was a separate matter and a curiosity, because ‘in order not to need to work for money’ I had to choose to work, for things other than money. Looking through financial lens only, one could try to monetise the situation itself.

Then I moved to a different situation where my expenses were higher and suddenly I was semi-retired, or in accumulation stage. Soon I will pass ‘the number’ again.

I now think more or less along the lines of ‘have a reasonable stack of hay vis-a-vis the lifestyle you have or are heading towards, and get on with life.’

That said, I would never ‘not think about money’. I am a slippery slope proponent.

[jacob]

Compared to semiFI, semiERE offers more pathways than money-for-work and stuff-for-money. The added complexity makes it easier to harvest efficiencies by up to about a factor 4x (in my experience, that's as far as I've been able to push it).

However, one should notice that semiERE does suffer the problem of Liebig's Law of the minimum. I can, for example, not pay my RE tax with carrots and nor can I work it off by watering the law of city hall when they're on vacation. While I might be able to find a doctor who will heal me in exchange for tutoring their children in math, that's not going to work when dealing with the hospital.

Going completely w/o money for semiERE would require some kind of "special arrangement". It would require living with or for someone else who pays all the bills for whatever reasons. There are examples but they tend to fall within a narrow range of arrangements, e.g. "moneyless" commune, monk, kept woman (or man), ...

[7Wannabe5]

There is also work that pays little to nothing (volunteering, non-profit, art, philosophy, ...) as well as work where the payoff is rockstar-level asymmetric (athlete, music, writing, innovation,...). These often require a fulltime focus if you're ever going to get anywhere with them. semiFI excludes these or at least makes them rather risky.

I think this depends very much on whether you are a "full-time focus" type of person (serial master) vs. a ball-juggling generalist. The reason I don't like full-time employment (in part, lack of autonomy and/or learning curve is also pretty huge for me) is because I don't want to be full-time focused on anything. Not even some of my very generalist pursuits such as self-employed-rare/used-book-dealer OR permaculture project developer OR hippie Mom homemaker., etc. I always feel like I am closing down options and giving up parts of my identity towards lack of balance when I weight any pursuit too heavily. So, if it is my ideal to be simultaneously engaged in a variety of pursuits or projects, once ERE level frugality gets me down to level of only needing to work for my very easy-to-obtain marginal wage of around $20/hr for around 1 day per week, the whip has become so tiny it pales in comparison to many other constraints I might suffer under. For example, in my experience being married or similar is much more of a constraint to "doing whatever in the heck I want to do" than having to work one day/week for money. Keeping myself in shape and going to dental appointments and shaving my legs requires much larger whip than making myself work for money one day per week. Dull maintenance duties related to ownership of home/garden/clothing/stuff might occupy as much of my life-energy as working 8 hrs/week for money. Paying bills, doing taxes, filing papers, ignoring texts, deleting e-mail, all a total suck on my freedom to spend all of my life-energy engaged in doing exactly what I want with all of my time. Owning a dog or some chickens might even be more of a hassle than having to work 1 day/week for money; in an affluent realm a pet sitter might cost $160/week. Etc. etc. etc.

That said, I agree that there can be aspects of working just 8 hrs/week for money that might feel like a significant lock-down. For instance, if the work wasn't flexible. Even when I am considering the distribution of my work-for-money hours/commitment over the course of a single year, I do not necessarily prefer to work 10 hours/day starting on Jan 1st, so that I can declare myself done for the year by Valentine's Day. If that was my preference, then it would also likely be my preference to work full-time until FIRE and/or just take a large dose of Metamucil in the morning rather than having some high fiber foods in the mix of my meals throughout the day and/or have sex with online acquired partners 3X/day from January 1 to Valentine's and then relax contented in a celibate state for the rest of the year, etc. etc. etc.

Going completely w/o money for semiERE would require some kind of "special arrangement". It would require living with or for someone else who pays all the bills for whatever reasons. There are examples but they tend to fall within a narrow range of arrangements, e.g. "moneyless" commune, monk, kept woman (or man), ...

Yes, but up until quite recently in human history, around half of all adult humans did not work for money outside of the domestic realm. Ergo, since more than 10% of the U.S. population already has wealth greater than that necessary to provide ERE level income flow for 2 or more humans, at this level such an arrangement instantly makes best use of human resources. IOW, if you hold wealth greater than $500,000, then adding an already existing human or two to your household would be the most ERE efficient way to proceed. Although, obviously, quality of life tasks performed within the domestic realm would overtake basic tasks performed within the domestic realm at some juncture of adding humans to the household. For example, if you had $2,000,000 in wealth, you might even consider adding somebody simply on the basis of finding them amusing company.

[jacob]

That said, I agree that there can be aspects of working just 8 hrs/week for money that might feel like a significant lock-down. For instance, if the work wasn't flexible. Even when I am considering the distribution of my work-for-money hours/commitment over the course of a single year, I do not necessarily prefer to work 10 hours/day starting on Jan 1st, so that I can declare myself done for the year by Valentine's Day. If that was my preference, then it would also likely be my preference to work full-time until FIRE and/or just take a large dose of Metamucil in the morning rather than having some high fiber foods in the mix of my meals throughout the day and/or have sex with online acquired partners 3X/day from January 1 to Valentine's and then relax contented in a celibate state for the rest of the year, etc. etc. etc.

A lot of it comes down to: https://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

Task-switching is not a problem when on "manager schedule". If the job or interest allows one to quickly switch gears, then 1hr/day of working for money and then switching to something else for the rest of the day is not a problem.

Conversely, if one the maker's schedule and engaged in something that is hugely creative (e.g. requires "inspiration" or "flow"), then even a 15minute interruption much less a 1hr interruption costs much more than the 15 minutes it takes on the clock. Depending on how much mental tooling the project requires this can work on all scales. For example, it's pretty much impossible to do research grade innovation on project A for one week... and then switch to project B for the next week... and then back again. (Graham talks about half-days, which may be fine for a programmer. For a researcher, I think half-years is closer to the minimum if the goal is novel innovation or discovery.)

To use a computer analogy, there's limited disk space for the mental tool box. Insofar one runs a bunch of smaller apps or tools that can be simultaneously installed, it's not a problem to switch because one can just keep them all installed. OTOH, if one runs large apps that take up 98% of the storage, then switching tasks requires uninstalling the "software" for the current task and (re)installing the software for the next task. At 98% even a "small" 5% task would be disruptive. This installing and uninstalling takes time even on a computer. For a brain it's rather slower and costs mental energy by itself.

These [big ones] are the "apps" that are lost or rather not available when one is doing semiERE or semiFI.

As such semi-ERE/FI is much more appealing to those who prefer to be on "manager schedule", whereas it's rather crimping for anyone on the "maker schedule".

[7Wannabe5]

@jacob:

I think "manager" vs. "maker" dichotomy only applies to narrow range of activities. I mean does having to cook your own dinner or take a run or sexually interact with a partner always interfere with your maker project flow? Aren't there also some activities with which you can break up your creative work that might even provide the pause or change of scene that inspires? For example, teaching nursery school one day/week would not significantly break up my "tooling" on another primarily intellectual project, but focusing on nothing but an intellectual project for months at a time would eventually make me feel cold and narrow in my lifestyle absent some time spent in warm human interaction. I often choose to take breaks from creative intellectual pursuits to make a pot of soup or take a hike in nature or similar.

[jacob]

@7wb5 - To make the computer analogy more accurate, it contains different drives or tools: a creative drive, a physical drive, ...

Task-switching works insofar the tasks don't overlap AT-ALL in terms of their requirements. E.g. if a researcher is working on a mentally demanding creative project, then meeting over lunch is fine ... but a meeting that requires any kind of thinking-input or mentally paying attention ruins the day.

It really depends on how hard you "burn". For example, before I landed the cushy sysadmin job, I was TAing for 2hrs per week for a couple of years in grad school. After a 2hr class, the rest of the day was pretty much gone, mentally zapped. It's not just the 2hrs of physically being there. It's also the hours spent reminding myself of the solutions and proofs, the best way to present, and thinking about what the students might ask. Note that if I taught the same class over and over this would become routine and not require the same effort. It's the switching that has costs!

Ultimately, it depends on how deeply one wants to go. Intellectually speaking, there's a difference between teaching 5th graders and teaching 15th graders. There's a difference between inventing/populating a new mental paradigm and drawing up a garden plan. This is what I meant in terms of how big a percentage a given app would require.

I suspect my argument [in favor of full-*] doesn't apply to anyone who doesn't recognize [this dynamical constraint] in the kinds of projects they do. In that case, semi-* will work just fine and won't curb any potential freedom-to.

[7Wannabe5]

Ultimately, it depends on how deeply one wants to go

Yes, I agree. So, if you know yourself to be somebody who never wants to go 40 hrs./week deep on anything for more than maybe 3 months max. before switching gears, then the cost of gear switching is already in your equation. For example, I am completely burnt out on IT/Data after obtaining my M.S. in the field. So, the last thing I would like to do now is even temporarily obtain a full-time job in that field. I have gone as long as 20 years before once again picking up an interest or project in my rotation. Not everything is like swimming or 2 digit multiplication, but is possible to keep switching gears, shaking of the rust, and over time make progress in a number of fields to some level of competency, if not expertise. And the Venn diagram overlap of competencies may approach arcane expertise. For example, there was virtually nobody to compete with me in the Venn diagram overlap of rare book dealer with math skills to the extent that they could value mid-20th century translations from the Russian on advanced math topics, and my experience in teaching young children and permaculture would allow me to create a course on permaculture for young children. etc. etc.

Also, it has been my experience that there can sometimes be a bit of a Coolidge Effect in terms of creative interests. Like when somebody has been married long enough that they start to feel like they are mating in captivity, so then they acquire a new partner and find themselves also more interested in having sex with their old spouse. This doesn't work for me at the level of simply sex, but as with creative interests, it does work for me at the level of lifestyle cross-pollination engagement with my partners (although, in terms of emotional engagement, I do sometimes have to tell myself "Be present with this man.") In terms of intellectually re-engaging with a project after a break or a distraction, I find that my practice of note-making makes a huge difference in picking up my train of thought, whether after a lunch break, a night's sleep, or a couple days working in the garden.

That said, I have lately had the experience of pushing myself a bit towards Ni to the extent that I can maybe grok a bit better that NiTe Visionary Strategist is going to need a large clean white space more than Ne Ti Exploratory Logician. There is a clear trade off between these modes of operation. NeTi is like being a quick ejaculator with a short refractory period or a roving robot with a short battery range but a quick recharge function. Since you have to stop fucking after you ejaculate while you wait through short refractory period, it doesn't matter so much which partner with whom you are having a threesome or more extensive orgy you hop on next. Similarly, since you have to go back to your base to recharge before continuing your exploration it doesn't matter so much whether you head straight due east again or cut fresh path due south. So, it also doesn't matter so much if you occasionally hop on a partner who provides you with money or head your roving robot self in the direction where you are most likely to also pick up some returnable cans.

[delay]

Median income + $24,000 spending a year is achievable for most frugal people without extreme measures...

Thanks for sharing the math. The assumptions are interesting, they seem a bit optimistic:

• Median income is $60,000 after tax
• Salary grows at 5% a year
• Market growth is 7% a year

I think median income is a household statistic, if that's right this is for a family, not an individual. In The Netherlands median income after tax is $38,000 a year. People will earn their personal maximum wage around the age of 30, and after that, it's hard to keep the 5% growth up. For the average person income starts to drop after age 45. Market growth of 7% is more than the average person's portfolio manages. There are investing costs and taxes. The Netherlands has a wealth tax of 2% over the sum of your invested money, the US has a tax on capital gains. Then there is inflation.

What do you think of the influence of age, taxes and inflation?

[Lemur]

@delay

Median income is based on U.S. persons and seems accurate (I was going off my memory) but a quick Google is about right:

For the year 2022, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the median annual earnings for all workers (people aged 15 and over with earnings) was $47,960; and more specifically estimates that median annual earnings for those who worked full-time, year round, was $60,070.

Another optimistic assumption of mine is that those pursuing financial independence and/or retiring early also tend to carry other traits like conscientiousness....and the ability to plan well. So median income will be achievable just about anywhere for these persons if that is what they pursue.

Regardless of age, taxes, inflation, (taxes and inflation being out of ones control anyway) the biggest factor I found in the chart I built was simply reducing spending as much as possible. That always sped up the timeline more then adjusting other variables like market growth.

Tax on capital gains is a nonissue in retirement if spending is kept low enough due to the standard deduction.

[jacob]

Another optimistic assumption of mine is that those pursuing financial independence and/or retiring early also tend to carry other traits like conscientiousness....and the ability to plan well.

I thought so too, so some years ago I asked the forum expecting everybody to score high on conscientiousness. This turned out not to be the case at all

I'm more familiar with MBTI and generally FIRE types tend to be heavily concentrated in INTJ, INTP, and ISTJ. Since J correlates with conscientiousness, it's probably the P-people who are screwing up the statistics.

Note that the statistics for the median earnings include people who have worked for 20-30-40 years often reaching management/supervisor levels. More realistic estimates for semiFIRE would be "starting salaries" plus a percentage. This would also avoid the tech bro bias.

[Jean]

I don't think median income is a safe assumption. Half people make less than that, and more than half people are more employable than a semi ere person.