Yeah, I live in Houston and can totally see what you mean. I think I could reasonably get down to 30k and be pretty comfortable. I let lifestyle inflation hit m

Yeah, I live in Houston and can totally see what you mean. I think I could reasonably get down to 30k and be pretty comfortable. I let lifestyle inflation hit me harder than it should have and that's what I'm dealing with now. I make better decisions than most, but not optimal decisions. (eg. I bought a car for 14k on an almost 0% interest loan, but the optimal choice is to not buy a car at all. The average choice is probably buy a more expensive car with a bigger interest rate loan) As I get older I realize the compounding sub-optimal choices really make a huge difference. I'm going to take your advice and really break down what my goal is and what my spending habits must be in order to hit that goal. It's definitely closer to FI at 40 than RE at 30, but at this point I'm not even sure I'll hit that.