I assume 8% in my retirement charts. I invest very aggressively. I see no point in putting money in bonds or money markets unless I think I have enough to retire.
Sure the market is going to tank, its also going to recover.
If you think the market is going to tank and never recover than the world is likely in some sort of apocalypse and retirement will be the least of your worries.

Let it Ride !!!

I wouldn’t say a 7% annual return is completely unrealistic. Historically stocks have delivered 7% returns even after inflation. Granted, going forward most people expect annual returns to be closer to 4-6%, so it’s certainly possible that the 7% assumption is slightly lofty. The future is hard to predict though.

It also depends on the x-axis, which shows your annual income. If you save $1,800 per month, that’s $21,600 per year. If your income was only $25k per year, that means you’d be living on $3,400. Thus, having $86,400 after 4 years would make you financially independent. Granted, it’s basically impossible to live on $3,400 per year, so the extremely low numbers on the grid are basically only mathematically sound, not realistic for most. The numbers begin to become more realistic for 8+ years

Look forward to seeing that. It is fairly unrealistic to count on a 7% return, unless you are willing to accept exposing a significant % of your portfolio to large downside risk.

I completely agree, a grid that can display numbers based on varying interest rates would be extremely helpful…I’m actually working on building an application that does that. Stay tuned 🙂