- The more you are used to saving, the less you spend. Trite, but also important. The fastest way to speed up FIRE time is to slash your required withdrawal, not by saving more. Lucky for us, increasing savings does both.
That is true, but still the collective benefit of saving more, yields less and less earlier months/years of ER as you increase contributions, esp when the tax sheltered savings vehicles are exhausted.
- 401k plus Roth is great, but having some additional savings set aside in a taxable account offers you a lot more flexibility. Taxable accounts can be tapped any time without jumping through penalty hoops and can be invested in things that will not qualify for retirement accounts. If all your assets are sheltered and you are offered the real estate (art, gold, whatever) deal of a lifetime, you are SOL.
Two points i'd counter with here:
>I'm not against taxable savings, per se. You do need them for emergency funds, long-term savings (but not necessarily as long term as retirement), etc. Case in point: i have a taxable utility fund i'm using to save up to buy my next car with cash, for example.
>Its easy to forget and/or not realize that all Roth contributions can be withdrawn at any time, for any reason, without penality (because the IRS got their share initially). Furthermore, the interest can be withdrawn for a variety of qualifying reasons.
- Finally, extra savings may not dramatically slash time to FIRE, but it does speed things up.
I indirectly acknowledged that with my first response; saving more = earlier retirement, obviously.
What i'm suggesting though is that what are we all after here? In a narrow sense, yes I know, retiring early. But why? To maximum pleasure of life and/or minimizing pains of life, right? My point was that I think you can get to the point that maybe you can save so much that you're causing yourself more pain now than will be balanced out with the pleasures of retiring that much earlier later for having done so. So.... the trick is finding that right point for you. My guess is, that for most people (except for those that really hate their job), they'll find a sweet spot within the realm of the allowable tax-advantaged savings. Granted, this doesnt apply if you make so much, you dont qualify for Roths.