For a software engineer, or really most professionals, $2M really is not _that_ much in terms of retirement. It’s absolutely enough to live a frugal retirement

For a software engineer, or really most professionals, $2M really is not _that_ much in terms of retirement. It’s absolutely enough to live a frugal retirement on, but not some sort of massive nest egg. You can safely withdrawal about $80k/year from that without it diminishing. Don’t get me wrong, that’s the average income in the USA, but most deep career professionals would be taking a step down in terms of purchasing power. No real source of income means you can’t really finance anything. Major purchases are essentially pulled straight from that nest egg.