Reply to Is saving/investing actually a crappy way to get rich?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was just running some numbers in an investment calculator and, frankly, they’re a little depressing.  I’m in my early 30s, single, and have finally gotten my income to the point that[b] I make $210K, am debt-free, and I’m able to save $100K per year.
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Even saving at that level, which seems like a huge amount, I have to work for decades and would still have to live a modest lifestyle if I retire semi-early.

In the calculator, I assumed 8% returns, 3% inflation, and a 15% tax rate on my investments.  With those assumptions, $100K per year invested for 20 years becomes $2.36M in today’s dollars (it’s almost $5M in nominal terms, but of course, that means nothing).

Using the 3% rule at that time, that means I can pull out about $70K per year to live on, which is not that much more than I currently spend trying to live a frugal lifestyle and stack my investments heavily.  And of course, that assumes that I stay in relatively good health so I can afford my own insurance and medical bills before Medicare.  Throw kids into the picture, and thoughts of early retirement would be over.

I don’t know – that seems kind of…underwhelming.  I guess I always thought that saving $100K would be a fast track to riches.  But now, more and more, it seems like you really need exorbitant incomes or significant risk-taking/entrepreneurship to be able to live a really good life at a relatively young age.  Am I out of touch here?  Missing something?  Thoughts?[/quote]

I think what you're doing feels underwhelming because you're heavily restricting yourself to just save 100K so essentially you're suffering for 20 years for barely any outcome.

But also, your math is wrong. You end up with 3.4M after accounting for inflation.  Further, accounting for 15% capital gains means that, you take out 4% of 3.4M (136K), but you'll only see 85% of it (115K).

Not sure what you did for your math.  Did you assume that you'd be paying capital gains every year or something?  You only pay capital gains when you sell, which I assumed would only happen at the time of you actually withdrawing the funds.
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