How much $ to retire and how to fund your lifestyle in retirement

[adiggs]

In working out a retirement plan, I've been calculating what future gains might be useful to base projections upon.

Quoting a piece, but responding to all. One thing I recommend is sort of a sensitivity analysis - what return do you need from TSLA (as long as you're calculating end results) to support retirement? If you need something like 10-20%, that might be modest compared to some periods of historical results, and might even be modest compared to what we/you expect between now and 2030 for TSLA.

If it's closer to 0% then you're more than ready and you've got a fair bit of buffer.


I used the Fidelity retirement planning calculator which bases its portfolio estimates in historical results. More exactly, it takes one's portfolio and backtests it using different starting years for the assumed length of retirement and provides a terminal value of the portfolio. You also have the ability to provide very detailed expense forecasts, such as a big lump in 5 years to buy a Roadster

So that's the future returns that I used, and in fact the most conservative, was what I used. Fully expecting to beat that handily with my overweight TSLA portfolio. But not NEEDING it to beat - it only needs to match the long run conservative (close to work case) return, that also encompasses a variety of particularly bad and good times.


If your retirement is highly sensitive to your returns, and especially if you need a steady and consistent 10% + return, then that sounds to me like retirement is premature. Even if 20% / year sounds like easy mode for TSLA, that's still an amazingly high historical return for long periods and you're going to kind of be in a bind if something significant about the TSLA investment hypothesis changes (Elon gets hit by a bus, an accounting scandal, a major and extended macro downturn, ...). You'll want some sort of fallback that is closer to the long run return (well - I think that anyway).

So I didn't forecast TSLA returns at all. I used the retirement calculator and made sure that the conservative result was still a good result. That means that the average and good results will be amazing. Since I expect TSLA to beat that conservative result like a drum, I'll have a lot of charitable donations to make!

It's possible I've been too conservative, but I've also gone from growth in order to afford retirement, to retiring, over the course of 2020. I think that I'll never have the regret that I kept working much longer than I should have.

 

[2daMoon]

Good questions ...

Quoting a piece, but responding to all. One thing I recommend is sort of a sensitivity analysis - what return do you need from TSLA (as long as you're calculating end results) to support retirement? If you need something like 10-20%, that might be modest compared to some periods of historical results, and might even be modest compared to what we/you expect between now and 2030 for TSLA.

I'm 62 this year, so aiming for another 20 to (genomics?) years. This is meant to help determine when I can stop earning a paycheck.

I used the Fidelity retirement planning calculator which bases its portfolio estimates in historical results. More exactly, it takes one's portfolio and backtests it using different starting years for the assumed length of retirement and provides a terminal value of the portfolio. You also have the ability to provide very detailed expense forecasts, such as a big lump in 5 years to buy a Roadster

The limitations of the Fidelity Retirement Planning Calculator is what led me to make the spreadsheet.

I wanted to chart out annual distributions from each source account (IRA, ROTH, Investment) and see how the accounts are affected by taking different distributions in different years. Plus, see how changing distributions might affect overall gains. Also, wanted to estimate taxes (based on 2020 rates) for future years to show spendable income after taxes.

Fidelity didn't offer enough flexibility for this sort of thing in their tool.

So that's the future returns that I used, and in fact the most conservative, was what I used. Fully expecting to beat that handily with my overweight TSLA portfolio. But not NEEDING it to beat - it only needs to match the long run conservative (close to work case) return, that also encompasses a variety of particularly bad and good times.

I'm thinking along the same lines. If the spreadsheet returns a workable set of numbers using a low-ball gains calculation, then with TSLA over the next few years it should do better. Quite a bit better I would think. The goal is to determine when I can bail from work. As it is now, once the SP gets to about 1000 I'll get a substantial raise over the paycheck simply by retiring.

Part of the strategy is to burn the IRA first, and that will allow the other accounts to gain for about three years before beginning to whittle on them. The Investment account is the largest, and I'll save the ROTH for last. Also, won't apply for Social Security until 70 to get the most from there to supplement the ROTH.

If your retirement is highly sensitive to your returns, and especially if you need a steady and consistent 10% + return, then that sounds to me like retirement is premature. Even if 20% / year sounds like easy mode for TSLA, that's still an amazingly high historical return for long periods and you're going to kind of be in a bind if something significant about the TSLA investment hypothesis changes (Elon gets hit by a bus, an accounting scandal, a major and extended macro downturn, ...). You'll want some sort of fallback that is closer to the long run return (well - I think that anyway).

So I didn't forecast TSLA returns at all. I used the retirement calculator and made sure that the conservative result was still a good result. That means that the average and good results will be amazing. Since I expect TSLA to beat that conservative result like a drum, I'll have a lot of charitable donations to make!

It's possible I've been too conservative, but I've also gone from growth in order to afford retirement, to retiring, over the course of 2020. I think that I'll never have the regret that I kept working much longer than I should have.

Yeah, I think we're on the same page here. What you describe is a lot like my approach, plan for below average to average gains and enjoy any gravy that TSLA delivers. Just don't leave myself in the lurch should Mr. Market be irrational and leave me struggling to remain solvent.

 

[2daMoon]

www.Firecalc.com has a little simulator. I assuming it's tracking some S&P like index of stocks over the last century. It looks at all the potential outcomes if your retirement started in any given year.

Lots of assumptions, but to me its a nice "worst case" scenario: If you can live off of 3% of your portfolio value per year, you will not have gone in the red in any of the simulations.

I have Firecalc bookmarked. It is handy for a big picture view. I just wanted a little more granularity and customization.

 

[adiggs]

Part of the strategy is to burn the IRA first, and that will allow the other accounts to gain for about three years before beginning to whittle on them. The Investment account is the largest, and I'll save the ROTH for last. Also, won't apply for Social Security until 70 to get the most from there to supplement the ROTH.

I'm not going into anything like the detail you're trying to get to; I also don't feel like I need to.

The important element though, I think you've got that - don't build a retirement plan that is dependent on any 1 single investment to do well in order to fund retirement. As much as I like concentration for many reasons, planning for 30-50 years of retirement on 1 single investment for that entire period sounds like a disaster just wanting to happen.


One idea which I plan to be making use of, whether it's optimal or not -- use the Roth as I go along to generate some incremental income after taking IRA (etc..) withdrawals, up to some income / tax level that I decide on at that time. Then again, an important driver for this approach is that I (dumb luck; didn't really know why or what I was doing back then) bought my original shares in a Roth.

 

[2daMoon]

Yeah, my timeline is shorter, so not as big a worry as it would be for someone setting up for 50 years or so of retirement. Also, no one to inherit, so I'm motivated to try to spend it all. Those factors are a lot to do with the level of detail in this exercise for me. Besides, I've always wanted to learn more about using spreadsheets.

I'll likely do the same as you with the Roth as it will be the last account I'll distribute from. I have the OptionAlpha site bookmarked to expand my education on that aspect of potential incremental income. Also reading all that Cathie Wood and Chamath have to share about their perspectives. Ought to be fun to play a little once I have the rest of the income dialed in.

For now, in answer to my original query, I'll dial the random gain percentage generator into ranges with 6% at the bottom, and maybe as high as 10 or 12% at the top. That should provide some conservative results as a foundation.

 

[Rockster]

Some of these may have been discussed elsewhere in the thread, so at the risk of being redundant here are some of my current favorite retirement calculators. (I have two criteria right now as I'm playing with retirement calculators: I'm only using free ones and I don't use any that require me to create an account and upload information about my finances onto their server.) That said, here are four that I've been using lately:

• FireCalc (mentioned previously many times)
• Portfolio Visualizer
• Ultimate Retirement Calculator
• Flexible Retirement Planner

Obviously, any retirement planner is only as good as the input provided and nothing can predict the future, but I've enjoyed using these to model various 'what if' scenarios.

 

[dakh]

Yeah, my timeline is shorter, so not as big a worry as it would be for someone setting up for 50 years or so of retirement. Also, no one to inherit, so I'm motivated to try to spend it all. Those factors are a lot to do with the level of detail in this exercise for me. Besides, I've always wanted to learn more about using spreadsheets.

I'll likely do the same as you with the Roth as it will be the last account I'll distribute from. I have the OptionAlpha site bookmarked to expand my education on that aspect of potential incremental income. Also reading all that Cathie Wood and Chamath have to share about their perspectives. Ought to be fun to play a little once I have the rest of the income dialed in.

For now, in answer to my original query, I'll dial the random gain percentage generator into ranges with 6% at the bottom, and maybe as high as 10 or 12% at the top. That should provide some conservative results as a foundation.

I think there are 2 aspects that need to be managed/considered
1. Do you plan to draw down evenly or can you either reduce spending if the market is down or have cash-like assets to not have to sell in a down market for a while
2. Can you configure your portfolio for producing good returns consistently, which would mean investing in non-correlated asset classes such that regardless of where the debt cycle, inflation and/or virus/war/etc. goes, your portfolio still yields well?

Classic number to go by is 4% but I think we're in a bit of a warp space in that we haven't had such an aggressive inflationary monetary policy and negative yields, which pretty much throws most of the traditional investment advice out the window. Sure you can count on 6% but on shorter time spans like yours I think various tactical aspects can be quite important (like the 2 I mentioned above). If there's a prolonged slump or a bout of substantial inflation, you might have to tighten your belt substantially.

 

[2daMoon]

I think there are 2 aspects that need to be managed/considered
1. Do you plan to draw down evenly or can you either reduce spending if the market is down or have cash-like assets to not have to sell in a down market for a while
2. Can you configure your portfolio for producing good returns consistently, which would mean investing in non-correlated asset classes such that regardless of where the debt cycle, inflation and/or virus/war/etc. goes, your portfolio still yields well?

Classic number to go by is 4% but I think we're in a bit of a warp space in that we haven't had such an aggressive inflationary monetary policy and negative yields, which pretty much throws most of the traditional investment advice out the window. Sure you can count on 6% but on shorter time spans like yours I think various tactical aspects can be quite important (like the 2 I mentioned above). If there's a prolonged slump or a bout of substantial inflation, you might have to tighten your belt substantially.

To clear up any misunderstanding, I wasn't asking about the percentage that most retirement planners use to plan on pulling from the traditional investment combinations of mutual funds, stocks, and bonds.

The number I was asking about was the percentage of gain on TSLA for the next few years that others might suggest be used for planning a growth scenario. I'm not intending to use 100% or 700% based on past performance, but, considering TSLA's good foundation, I think that planning with a 10% or higher gain could be more in line with a very conservative approach to planning for this growth asset.

I'm reluctant to take time to build a traditional retirement set of assets before I turn in my notice. Never realized how unhappy I was with the job until I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. ha ha

The numbers on the spreadsheet support how betting on TSLA while living on IRA distributions over the next three years in order to grow my Roth and Investment accounts has a better-than-good chance of getting those accounts from "almost there" to a very comfortable level. Particularly if using a much lower annual gains percentage, compared to what might actually happen based upon Tesla continuing further on the up-slope of the disruption S-curve, and should help account for market variables to a great degree.


I was hoping some few others here might have also deviated from traditional diversified retirement planning investment combinations and explored this possibility. If so, whatever they used might confirm whether another felt comfortable calculating with gains greater than, say, the S&P (13.5%) when considering TSLA over time, or, would confirm how using a range of 6%-10% or something similar might be more reliable.


In response to your questions:

1. I'll most likely take distributions quarterly, using the old-fashioned hand-tooled method rather than automating anything. So, I'll adjust them as needed for whatever might be going on in the market.

2. Again, most likely, I'll stay invested in high-growth stocks with the hope of exceptional returns and watch it daily to deal with anything else that might be going on. Once it reaches some level that feels comfortable for the longer term I may start moving assets into more traditional retirement asset classes.​

Thanks for the response.

 

[adiggs]

...
I'm reluctant to take time to build a traditional retirement set of assets before I turn in my notice. Never realized how unhappy I was with the job until I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. ha ha

...
I was hoping some few others here might have also deviated from traditional diversified retirement planning investment combinations and explored this possibility. If so, whatever they used might confirm whether another felt comfortable calculating with gains greater than, say, the S&P (13.5%) when considering TSLA over time, or, would confirm how using a range of 6%-10% or something similar might be more reliable.

...

These two sure do resonate with me. Though I did realize a year or 3 back how much I wanted to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I've been in this curious (to me at least) space where I disliked the job, but I have liked the work and it's challenge. Net result - I'll do the work somewhere else on my schedule (volunteering) and ditch the job.

I've deviated from the traditional retirement planning, but I think that relative to your situation, I'm overwhelming the outcome with more assets than I really need.


My plan is to spend down assets if needed, but my first order approximation is to use proceeds from selling (TSLA) options to take care of living expenses and stuff.

I feel like the first requirement to even consider doing something like this is to actively enjoy the process. The next requirement is to be willing (and preferably enjoy) the education / learning about this world that is required. Without both, I'd turn the portfolio over to a wealth advisor and let them manage it, or I'd buy annuity(s) -- I'd be focusing on ease of use and minimal effort (and accepting low to minimal returns over inflation).

 

[2daMoon]

I feel like the first requirement to even consider doing something like this is to actively enjoy the process. The next requirement is to be willing (and preferably enjoy) the education / learning about this world that is required. Without both, I'd turn the portfolio over to a wealth advisor and let them manage it, or I'd buy annuity(s) -- I'd be focusing on ease of use and minimal effort (and accepting low to minimal returns over inflation).

Actively enjoying the process leaves me impatient between SP spikes up. ha ha
Overall, I can think of few things that have brought me so much joy, relief, and removed weight from my shoulders the way that investing in TSLA has over the past year or so.

The learning part is something that has always driven me in life. I've always been that guy who has to know everything about how something works in order to get the most from it.

My plan was to approach a CFP eventually, just to see if they can offer me ideas I have yet to consider. But, I want to know enough to thwart any effort on their part to steer me toward working any longer than necessary while maximizing growth, rather than security.

 

[Rockster]

Some of these may have been discussed elsewhere in the thread, so at the risk of being redundant here are some of my current favorite retirement calculators. (I have two criteria right now as I'm playing with retirement calculators: I'm only using free ones and I don't use any that require me to create an account and upload information about my finances onto their server.) That said, here are four that I've been using lately:

• FireCalc (mentioned previously many times)
• Portfolio Visualizer
• Ultimate Retirement Calculator
• Flexible Retirement Planner

Obviously, any retirement planner is only as good as the input provided and nothing can predict the future, but I've enjoyed using these to model various 'what if' scenarios.

Ha! I was just playing with "Portfolio Visualizer" and it has a Monte Carlo simulation setting that will analyze one's particular holdings based upon the historical performance of those specific holdings. (This is in contrast to some tools that simply use a Monte Carlo simulation using overall historical market data and assume that a person is holding index funds or equivalent.)

I set the calculator up with a mid seven figures portfolio that is 95% TSLA and 5% other stuff and let it use TSLA's performance data from January 2011 until now to model returns for the next 35 years. I completely expected this to be a stacked deck, considering TSLA's performance since IPO, but even after expecting a blowout extrapolation, the numbers were staggering. Quoting:

"Monte Carlo simulation results for 10000 portfolios using available historical returns data from Jan 2011 to Dec 2020. The historical return for the selected portfolio for this period was 119.47% mean return (61.83% CAGR) with 60.55% standard deviation of annual returns."

Accordingly, the worst projected portfolio ending balance was over $800M and the best was over $25 quadrillion dollars! Zoinks!


On a more serious note, @2daMoon asks a relevant question about a safe expected TSLA return for planning purposes. That question has been extremely relevant to my situation, considering what percentage of my eggs are in the TSLA basket. On the optimistic end of the gamut I typically use a 10% annual TSLA growth. Even when being optimistic I'm very conservative in my planning. Honestly, I think they're going to do way way better than that, but I don't want to risk my plans by being overly optimistic.

To balance my 'what if' planning, I also go so far as to model a 50% drop in TSLA share price, just to see if my retirement plans could withstand that. Overly conservative? Perhaps. But it's comforting for me to test at that level, though, just for peace of mind.

 

[adiggs]

To balance my 'what if' planning, I also go so far as to model a 50% drop in TSLA share price, just to see if my retirement plans could withstand that. Overly conservative? Perhaps. But it's comforting for me to test at that level, though, just for peace of mind.

I consider a 50% drop in the TSLA share price, sometime between now and 2030, to be inevitable. It could be 2,000 to 1,000 per share

But it'll happen. Or at the very least, anybody living on their portfolio should be ready for something like that (MHO). I know I wouldn't chance retirement if that kind of an event would put me back into the workforce. If it doesn't happen soon enough, my ability to contribute is likely to be .. seriously impaired

 

[adiggs]

Actively enjoying the process leaves me impatient between SP spikes up. ha ha
Overall, I can think of few things that have brought me so much joy, relief, and removed weight from my shoulders the way that investing in TSLA has over the past year or so.

The learning part is something that has always driven me in life. I've always been that guy who has to know everything about how something works in order to get the most from it.

You might want to come visit us in the wheel thread. We've got some pointers to a resource for beginning to learn about options - going through that will help you decide whether you want to pursue that or not (not is a perfectly fine answer). The thread is focused on selling options, and more specifically - learning from each other. I don't remember the exact quote, but the idea that wisdom is learning from others mistakes is an active component of that thread.

An interesting dynamic about the share price movements - now that I'm selling options, I find that sideways trading days are some of my favorites. The overall direction doesn't change, but I no longer get impatient about whether TSLA is moving where I think it should be TODAY. Or even if it's been flat for a few years (which we've done previously).

 

[2daMoon]

BTW @adiggs, I think some spy was driving your Roadster on a few episodes of "Chuck" I watched recently. Just thought you should know.

I've visited The Wheel thread and intend to get back there once I have time to dedicate myself to learning more.

 

[dakh]

1. I'll most likely take distributions quarterly, using the old-fashioned hand-tooled method rather than automating anything. So, I'll adjust them as needed for whatever might be going on in the market.

2. Again, most likely, I'll stay invested in high-growth stocks with the hope of exceptional returns and watch it daily to deal with anything else that might be going on. Once it reaches some level that feels comfortable for the longer term I may start moving assets into more traditional retirement asset classes.​

Thanks for the response.

I think I didn't quite grok what you were asking about, sorry. To me TSLA is just one of the assets in my portfolio and I am effectively making bets on overall portfolio return, and not just that but over a substantial time frame plus with certain resiliency to portfolio value fluctuations. I don't want to bet on any specific TSLA appreciation number since I don't think it is possible to predict that.

But let's maybe go there anyway and see if that's useful. Do I get it right that if say TSLA drops 50% this year and stays down for another 2 years and then shoots up 300%, you're still a-okay? This is what I'm trying to address with #1 or #2, the more cash you have that can be used to live off of (say, 3 years worth of living expenses), the more resilient you are from a situation where you have to sell at a low point. Selling at a low point early in the game (i.e. you'll need to sell a lot of shares for the same cash amount you need for living expenses) drastically reduces your gains if/when things recover. To be resilient you either need to keep a lot of cash on hand or to be able to crank down your draw-downs. If you have that covered then I'd imagine it would make sense to keep larger percentage in TSLA. That is, given you have high conviction it is a better investment and just trying to work around the volatility problem.

I'm no pro but overall to me it seems we've been living in a bull market for long enough that folks forgot that all sorts of things go wrong and cause whole markets and/or individual asset classes to go down substantially.

 

[2daMoon]

I think I didn't quite grok what you were asking about, sorry. To me TSLA is just one of the assets in my portfolio and I am effectively making bets on overall portfolio return, and not just that but over a substantial time frame plus with certain resiliency to portfolio value fluctuations. I don't want to bet on any specific TSLA appreciation number since I don't think it is possible to predict that.

But let's maybe go there anyway and see if that's useful. Do I get it right that if say TSLA drops 50% this year and stays down for another 2 years and then shoots up 300%, you're still a-okay? This is what I'm trying to address with #1 or #2, the more cash you have that can be used to live off of (say, 3 years worth of living expenses), the more resilient you are from a situation where you have to sell at a low point. Selling at a low point early in the game (i.e. you'll need to sell a lot of shares for the same cash amount you need for living expenses) drastically reduces your gains if/when things recover. To be resilient you either need to keep a lot of cash on hand or to be able to crank down your draw-downs. If you have that covered then I'd imagine it would make sense to keep larger percentage in TSLA. That is, given you have high conviction it is a better investment and just trying to work around the volatility problem.

I'm no pro but overall to me it seems we've been living in a bull market for long enough that folks forgot that all sorts of things go wrong and cause whole markets and/or individual asset classes to go down substantially.

My hope is somewhat bolstered by what Cathie Wood says regarding disruption during financial crisis. Disruptive technologies tend to be significantly more resilient, per Cathie. Tesla has so many angles to play in areas that are primed for rapid growth. Even in a downturn everything indicates to me that it should perform well. Covid was a test it passed with flying colors. We'll see.

The rest of the story is over here ...
Late to the Party - Last Minute Retirement Planning

TLDR: I haven't planned for retirement. At all. I've been working toward solving this oversight on my part for roughly a total of 13 months.
I intend to retire this year. TSLA has gotten me most of the way there from not much at all in a very short time. Still, I'm late to the party and doing last minute retirement planning. So far, so good. Not quite there, but am getting close.

 

[dakh]

My hope is somewhat bolstered by what Cathie Wood says regarding disruption during financial crisis. Disruptive technologies tend to be significantly more resilient, per Cathie. Tesla has so many angles to play in areas that are primed for rapid growth. Even in a downturn everything indicates to me that it should perform well. Covid was a test it passed with flying colors. We'll see.

The rest of the story is over here ...
Late to the Party - Last Minute Retirement Planning

TLDR: I haven't planned for retirement. At all. I've been working toward solving this oversight on my part for roughly a total of 13 months.
I intend to retire this year. TSLA has gotten me most of the way there from not much at all in a very short time. Still, I'm late to the party and doing last minute retirement planning. So far, so good. Not quite there, but am getting close.

The way I understood what Cathy is referring to is that during crisis disruptors grab market share and when recovery comes around they come out way ahead of the incumbents. So crisis accelerates the market shakeup, but that doesn't mean your investment in disruptors is going to stay more stable during crisis. That's usually not the case, they dip more than more established companies since usually their balance sheets are not as strong.

Best of luck with the retirement thing! I'm getting close to seeing that for myself too, exciting!

 

[Discoducky]

So went and took a look at FireCalc and here's the output. Feeling better about retirement...

 

[juanmedina]

I been following the Mr. Money Mustache for years. We been maxing out 401K's and IRA's for a while and I haven't had a mortgage payment in 5 years. We been saving between 80-60% percent of our income and I have no idea what we would spend that money on if we wouldn't save it. My goal is or was smaller than most people here only around 45-40k a year or 1.1-1M. Thanks to Tesla we already passed my goal and I am not sure what to do . We have a rental house that makes around 10-8k a year after expenses, Tesla makes up about 60% of market investments while the rest is in index funds. The biggest issue that we see is healthcare specially if Trump wins. We know some people that have Obamacare and it's been great for them and they got to keep their doctors; for our family of 4 it should be around $300-200 depending on how much we decide to draw. I also think we can supplement our income by selling covered calls. There could be also inheritances that I am not counting on and some social security eventually in 30 years.

Update:

Yesterday I was talking to a family member that I don't see often, he is a teacher, married and with two kids. He has been always very outdoorsy and sports oriented, he was telling me about his summer break and that he has been going fly fishing everyday and playing tennis tournaments. That sounded awesome to me and make me think "why I am still working?". They don't have much money but they live an awesome life, they don't make a lot of money, they still have a mortgage, debt and both of their kids are at college on scholarships. There house is modest and nice, they garden, they live a really simple life and it seemed great.

Anyway, we are currently sitting at 2.3M in investments and I wanted to wait until 3M but I really don't see the point and it feels like I am wasting time. We took our first step towards retirement and slowing down; my wife last day from work is this Wednesday. I see a lot of people have way bigger goals than I do, do many of you are planning to carry a mortgage? We currently don't have one and I wonder if that makes my goal seem more reasonable.

 

[Nocturnal]

Update:

Yesterday I was talking to a family member that I don't see often, he is a teacher, married and with two kids. He has been always very outdoorsy and sports oriented, he was telling me about his summer break and that he has been going fly fishing everyday and playing tennis tournaments. That sounded awesome to me and make me think "why I am still working?". They don't have much money but they live an awesome life, they don't make a lot of money, they still have a mortgage, debt and both of their kids are at college on scholarships. There house is modest and nice, they garden, they live a really simple life and it seemed great.

Anyway, we are currently sitting at 2.3M in investments and I wanted to wait until 3M but I really don't see the point and it feels like I am wasting time. We took our first step towards retirement and slowing down; my wife last day from work is this Wednesday. I see a lot of people have way bigger goals than I do, do many of you are planning to carry a mortgage? We currently don't have one and I wonder if that makes my goal seem more reasonable.

I have the same argument in my own head quite often. I'm sitting at net worth a little north of your goal currently. In Feb thanks to Tesla I had hit my magic income replacement number (using 5% rule) but I decided that I wanted a 25% buffer before pulling the trigger. Obviously the downturn added some validation to that idea. That said, I don't really NEED that full income replacement. Life is short and while my job is remote and I don't mind it, I still don't have the freedom I want. Why am I wasting time? Even if I do "retire" I will still be working in some capacity. Perhaps it will be maintaining rental properties or something. Hopefully TSLA moons this year and my internal argument becomes moot. I'm a contract worker so for now I've just let myself take time off when I want which is somewhat of a compromise.

I'm a huge fan of mortgages myself. Low interest rate and tax deductible. You could park that cash in something very safe such as a nice dividend stock or SP500 fund and make yourself a ton of extra money over that 30 year period. I just don't see the point in paying off a home aside from the psychological benefit.