in my case, much of it is tied to equities (retirement account is a portion, taxable account is other). straight cash - probably ~12-14 months. Having lived through a couple of crashes, the idea that 30% of that could be gone (for a long time) still looms.
And yes, it's sort of a complex. I have to remind myself that yes, I can pay the extra 50c and get cheese on the burger if I feel like it. I'd lived 30+ years without being able to do that (meaning that adding cheese a few times would be noticeable at the end of a week), it's a hard mental state to break from. Not 'working' means ... a day where savings isn't going up, etc.
Replenishing the spent money is simultaneously both easier (larger savings tends to grow in larger chunks) and harder (takes longer to earn new money vs the compounding of earlier money, and takes more of the remaining time I have left, which is always depleting).
I'm not claiming it's entirely rational, by any means, and that's why I was saying earlier that it's hard to break out of.
EDIT: I've always taken FU money to mean... you never have to engage in any sort of 'work' ever again, not just for a short time. In some ways, I've been able to use this cushion to say "no" to some situations/jobs/projects that I would have agreed to before, but it's not the same as saying FU to people. :)
Fair enough. This is definitely a personal thing though.
I was like that for a while and went all in on FIRE type stuff.
The thing is that eventually, after I did take off that N months, I realised that it's unrealistic to assume I'd have no/almost no income for multiple decades.
I would go insane without having productive work, even if that were working for a non profit for a significant pay cut.
> Not 'working' means ... a day where savings isn't going up, etc.
This is true regardless of how much money you have. You're always going to be able to add some more income by performing labour, even if your investments outperform your labour after a point.
It's worth loosening the straps at some point, even if you just give someone else the money to spend (e.g. charity).
And yes, it's sort of a complex. I have to remind myself that yes, I can pay the extra 50c and get cheese on the burger if I feel like it. I'd lived 30+ years without being able to do that (meaning that adding cheese a few times would be noticeable at the end of a week), it's a hard mental state to break from. Not 'working' means ... a day where savings isn't going up, etc.
Replenishing the spent money is simultaneously both easier (larger savings tends to grow in larger chunks) and harder (takes longer to earn new money vs the compounding of earlier money, and takes more of the remaining time I have left, which is always depleting).
I'm not claiming it's entirely rational, by any means, and that's why I was saying earlier that it's hard to break out of.
EDIT: I've always taken FU money to mean... you never have to engage in any sort of 'work' ever again, not just for a short time. In some ways, I've been able to use this cushion to say "no" to some situations/jobs/projects that I would have agreed to before, but it's not the same as saying FU to people. :)