Everyone's circumstances are different. There are plenty of early retirees with similar backgrounds to my own that have kids (Mr. Money Mustache himself has a kid, for example, and retired at 30!) We currently have no kids. But I find the "kids are expensive!" thing is usually pretty overblown / not very creative about solving any problems. Kid spending is similar to the emotional and socialized high-spending expectations that plague the wedding industry. If one applies the same creative simple living strategies outlined in this article, there's no reason kids should increase one's expenses _that_ much. Saving up an extra $100k per kid is probably more than enough, and wouldn't delay an early retirement by more than ~6 months to a year in most cases.

I agree! Making > $100k is an absolute privilege. I am privileged as all hell finding myself interested in and decent enough at computer programming at a point in time where it was a relatively lucrative field to be in. That's serious luck!

But if you're making < $100k and suggesting you need $200k in passive income to go to a farmer's market, cook pasta for dinner, read library books, grow some plants, and drink the occasional wine? That doesn't inspire confidence that you have a great understanding of the value of a dollar.

For sure, it's been a pretty above-average time to be in US market. Very much feels like a bubble ready to burst at any moment. But 40% of my investments are in non-US funds, which have gone sideways for the entire time I've invested. All the modest gains are just dividends there.

This strategy doesn't depend on amazing returns. If you save 65% of your income, and you currently have $0, you can retire in about 10.5 years (assuming fairly modest 5% return on investments). A 50% savings rate puts you at a 17 year career. It's the traditional "save 10%" retirement plan that really relies so heavily on the market going up long-term. The "live cheaply" strategy is infinitely more resilient.

For context, since 1900, the DOW Jones has returned, on average, 7.5% after inflation. And the S&P500 has returned ~6.5% adjusted for inflation. And in Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century, he shows that throughout history, capital has generally returned around 5% (which, itself is kind of a problem).

But yes. The future is unknowable. There are countless things that could dramatically change these types of financial forecasts.