[hugh3]

Well that's talking about retiring rich -- i.e. on a $200K lifestyle. And then he goes to excessive lengths to show that you can't life on a "$200K" lifestyle for the rest of your life given only $4 million.

That's fine, but you can retire on a $120K lifestyle given $4 million -- my rule of thumb is that you can live on 3% of your principal and leave the rest to appreciate fast enough to keep up with inflation. Dividend-yielding stocks are an easy way to do this (not sure if it's the most tax-effective way).

So, $4 million gives you an inflation-adjusted $120K lifestyle for the rest of your life without ever eating into the principal. That still counts as retiring rich. Half that will give you $60K for the rest of your life, which is a comfortable not not extravagant retirement lifestyle.

Halve that again and you've got $30K a year to live on, which is roughly what the guy in this article is doing. That doesn't sound like much fun to me -- if I'm going to be retired, I want to spend a fair slab of my time travelling and doing other fun and expensive things. But hey, if he has inexpensive tastes then good luck to him.

I generally think of $3-4 million as being the amount I'll need to retire. I don't plan on retiring early though -- I'd be doing this as a hobby even if they weren't paying me.