[alwold]

I don't really think you need enough so that you never need to work again to consider yourself financially independent. If you have enough to live for a year or two, you can be pretty independent. Yes, you'll have to work and earn some more money, but you aren't dependent on that biweekly paycheck, so you can be somewhat selective, and do whatever you want, within reason.

Also, if you are into minimalism, you can really live on quite a small amount of money, so that can reduce the amount of work you have to do even further.