[zakthor]

For past 5-10 years I spoken with retirement planners who give me thumbs up.

Few days ago I spent some hours to play with the fidelity planner.

Learned some stuff and now feel like I need some perspective slapped into me.

Pretty much no matter how long I work I'm never going to be able to afford a 9 figure castle on lake como. I'll not be hosting parties with saudi princes.

Fidelity predicts a band for future assets. The most pessimestic future says each additional year I work my portfolio value at 'end of plan' increases by 5% (todays dollars), which I think will feel like peanuts to my future 95 year old self. Of course future might be better but that 5% end-of-plan increase seems to stick.

Never thought about this before but looks like my future lifestyle is relatively set whether I work or not. Working more isn't going to change the dollars I can spend per day and it seems like I have 3x more than I need to just stay even.

Assuming those bounds are true, at what point do I quit and go do cool stuff? Is there some middle aspirational goal that means a few more years of work will be worth it?

Seems like I should walk away from salary and use my fitness while I have it, spend time with friends and family. In my heart I'm worth $6.50/hr so is hard to walk away from a huge salary.

Advice from those who took the plunge?