&gt; Define &quot;major negative event&quot; here. Assuming you have insurance for catastrophic events, few things should be able to wipe out hundreds of thousands in savings, which is what you&#x27;d quickly build up with a high savings rate, especially in a high-paying field.<p>Health insurance never provided 100% coverage and you can get into 5 figures with health insurance. I&#x27;m not sure why you disbelieve it given its a pretty accepted fact when talking about medical bankruptcies with insurance.<p>Similarly, if you are having a major medical event, if you cannot work for months...failure to earn income is a cost.<p>Other major negative events are extended bouts of unemployment that will chew through savings while creating a failure to earn income for months, etc.<p>Hell, even being sued can be a problem if you have a high networth because you have access to resources. In the past 12 months, I&#x27;ve literally had people track me down to drag me into such fights over money.<p>&gt; And even if one of your desired safety margins is a pile of savings, the higher your savings rate the sooner you build up those buffers. If you assume one of those events will happen and wipe out a pile of savings, that&#x27;s an added drain that you&#x27;d have to account for, but a high savings rate still means you&#x27;ll retire sooner than you would have with a lower savings rate.<p>I&#x27;m saying he is selling you a dream that you can do it at the age you stated. Black swan events do happen to people and you have no real safety margin for them with his lifestyle advice after you retire.<p>A &quot;silver plan&quot; is 70% coverage. If you have a 6 figure medical event, that wipes out your entire planned income for the year.<p>The 4% rule has been found to be overly optimistic. Similarly, RoI greater than safe withdrawal rates are assumed. [Hint: SWR and RoI are equal and equivalent in real terms over an extended period. MMM claims otherwise and I find it depressing people believe him, especially given that isn&#x27;t what happened to him. ]<p>The reality is, for most people, even with a high savings rate you are looking at 25+ years of work.<p><pre><code>			1400000 [35*40k]
			</code></pre>
2015	40,000<p>2016	81,600<p>2017	124,864<p>2018	169,859<p>2019	216,653<p>2020	265,319<p>2021	315,932<p>2022	368,569<p>2023	423,312<p>2024	480,244<p>2025	539,454<p>2026	601,032<p>2027	665,074<p>2028	731,676<p>2029	800,944<p>2030	872,981<p>2031	947,900<p>2032	1,025,817<p>2033	1,106,849<p>2034	1,191,123<p>2035	1,278,768<p>2036	1,369,919<p>2037	1,464,716<p>Assuming everything goes perfectly, it takes you 22 years. However, you are going to be unemployed for at least a couple of those years and you are likely to have some kind of major medical expense [or your wife, or your kid] in that time as well.<p>The ability to do it faster is an illusion created by a bull market and lucky timing.