I wonder how many people have been too discouraged to FIRE because they thought that their SWR "had" to be a certain percentage. It seems to me that unless you are at a bare-bones budget already, there are plenty of ways to change your spending which in turn changes your SWR. The gummy approach and/or the high-medium-low budgets that have been mentioned.
I guess what I'm saying is that trying to nail down "the" SWR is fruitless and meaningless. Nobody has exactly the portfolios that are looked at when examining historical SWRs and nobody knows the future. "Switching" schemes or mountains of rhetoric aren't going to change the fact that the rational individual will develop her own analysis, factoring in personal risk, personal inflation rate, obligations, etc.
My take is that you get a ballpark idea of what your assets can churn out for you over a reasonable amount of time. Whether you look at history or do Monte Carlo simulations, the number you come up with will be inaccurate. It may be low or it may be high, but there is no way to know what it really is until your 30-40-50 years have passed by and you can look back (hindsight is always 100% ). So why waste time and bandwidth dithering about tenths of a percent?
Almost everyone who has FIREd has said they didn't do it soon enough. I personally would do whatever it takes not to go back to work, including downsizing my house and living on mac and cheese. The first step is the hardest and making SWR the make or break deal for FIRE doesn't do any service for the beleaguered working folk.
YMMV
arrete
I guess what I'm saying is that trying to nail down "the" SWR is fruitless and meaningless. Nobody has exactly the portfolios that are looked at when examining historical SWRs and nobody knows the future. "Switching" schemes or mountains of rhetoric aren't going to change the fact that the rational individual will develop her own analysis, factoring in personal risk, personal inflation rate, obligations, etc.
My take is that you get a ballpark idea of what your assets can churn out for you over a reasonable amount of time. Whether you look at history or do Monte Carlo simulations, the number you come up with will be inaccurate. It may be low or it may be high, but there is no way to know what it really is until your 30-40-50 years have passed by and you can look back (hindsight is always 100% ). So why waste time and bandwidth dithering about tenths of a percent?
Almost everyone who has FIREd has said they didn't do it soon enough. I personally would do whatever it takes not to go back to work, including downsizing my house and living on mac and cheese. The first step is the hardest and making SWR the make or break deal for FIRE doesn't do any service for the beleaguered working folk.
YMMV
arrete