You emphasize that my investment could be up to $32k less in that first period, but so what? When dealing with big numbers, smaller ones like that really don’t matter too much.

All the calculated figures aside, this is still assuming I only contribute $15k a year until I stop working, when in reality I think a few years down the road I will be throwing $20k to $40k into savings, and so I’ll end up with more than planned.

And working in the arbitrary numbers that we don’t know, if I buy a house – which I didn’t do a good job explaining – out of my retirement money (say, when I’m 28) and it takes out half of my savings, I will then be living without a house payment (or one that takes a year or two to pay off entirely only), and which point I’ll only have that much more to save. And although it will set me back a few years in my retirement due to lost time with compound interest, I’ll still meet my goal within a few years.

It could be said that I’m using the term “retirement” loosely, but I’m not dumb I do intent to take a year or two off and just completely do nothing or only what I want to do. And THAT is definitely retirement.

The only reason I know I’ll work beyond that point of freedom is because I’m one of those irritatingly upbeat Type A personality people who thrives coming up with business plans and being entrepreneurial somehow. So that’s why I’ll probably work some point after the financial freedom date – because it makes me happy and that’s what retirement is for.