Perhaps I am confusing the issue....
500,000 seems to be a common denominator with the lead element of ER in the past. I am not saying ER is not desirable or possible. I guess it depends on the desired standard of living.
I have been on this board for over a year and there are people who retire with a bare minimum because they are dissatisfied with work (life). You hear about people retiring to early in the news or on bare bones budgets so I would suppose that there are some on this board who are contemplating a bare bones retirement on this board. I can assure you not everyone is as rich as they state on this board.
We can debate all we want but I expect there are people retiring with substantially less than 500,000 but who don't fess up. My exact point is “the bare bones retirement could very well turn into poverty at the back end”.
Turn the numbers any way you want. I plan to ER but I won’t sacrifice my future or my standard of life because work is an evil word. I think I have a valid point so I don’t see why the push back. I am not challenging the ER lifestyle.
I think you are confusing the issue. You started out challenging the premise of a 4% safe withdrawal rate (or any other rate it seems since you have not suggested a different rate). Then you challenge the notion that a 50+ year retirement can be fairly safely provided for with a portfolio of adequate size.
Now you have backed down to challenging those that are just plain old undercapitalized and seeking to ER without a portfolio that is close to big enough to survive during a retirement of many decades. I don't see hardly any folks on here seeking to retire in their late 30's or early 40's with "only" $500,000. Not saying it can't be done, as the perpetual traveler lifestyle could be fairly easily supported by this size portfolio, particularly for a single person.
So you are really saying "make sure your nest egg is of a sufficient size to support your desired income" it seems.
The "typical" 30's or early 40's ER on here seems to be either a small business owner, a young professional, and/or a recipient of large stock options. Common among most is typically keeping spending to a minimum, thereby allowing significant savings to occur (particularly the young professional-type). Most have carefully considered their future goals, budgets, and portfolio sufficiently well to know how and when to pull the plug. It may not all work out in the end, but their is something unquantifiable yet very desirable about being able to enjoy freedom for a few decades while you're still "young". Maybe they want to travel the world. Maybe they want to spend more time with their wife and their young kids. Maybe they are devoted to a hobby that they have neglected over the years.
Canadian Grunt, you still haven't really admitted that ER-ing in your late 30's or early 40's could work out ok in most cases with a sufficiently well capitalized portfolio. Do you think this is true or not? These days it isn't that uncommon to have a family earning over $200,000 if both spouses are professionals and they both work. Save a good chunk of this from age 25 when you finish grad/professional school until you ER in your late 30's or early 40's and you're going to have a multi-million dollar portfolio. If you are used to living on $40000-$60000 per year, this size of portfolio should prove adequately capitalized to support someone for a 50+ year retirement period.