Major Tom
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
My conclusion after reading this thread is that most people (at least those willing to share their WR) are quite conservative in their withdrawals. Either your portfolios are fairly small and the WR not that material to your overall spending, or you are planning on leaving a large legacy by foregoing spending now?
My portfolio is indeed rather small. The WR actually is material to my overall spending in that it constitutes 95% or more of it (and I sure would like a bit more money to spend), but it's more important to me to attempt to conserve my portfolio as much as possible in the early years of ER.
I'm something of an outlier here, in both my NW, spending level, and overall lifestyle. I began withdrawals 5 years ago. At that point, my portfolio, which constitutes my entire NW (I don't own any property) was just 600K. (I have previously stated it was 640K, but a quick check of the facts reveals that it was lower than my memory indicates.) Ever since then, I have been withdrawing $15,600/year, which represents 2.6% of the starting portfolio value. The portfolio now stands at 780K, so those same withdrawals represent 2% if I were to "reset" and start again.
Early SS comes online for me in 10 years, and I could use that to justify withdrawing more from the portfolio now, but due to the relatively low portfolio value, I'm keeping myself disciplined for the time being. I'm a renter, enjoying fantastically low rent in a high COL area, and it's very possible that my housing expenses will go up quite significantly in the future. This is one big reason I'm doing all I can to ensure a higher income in the future. That, and the fact that I'd like to buy a Chinook or a Lazy Daze to live in
Hope that explains, and that I didn't ramble too much. My situation is not the norm for folks here, but perhaps my presence will help paint a broader overall picture of the many different situations that ER folk find themselves in.