That number was based on the prevalence of reasonable apartments in my city that rent for $450/mo or less. With a roommate that's $225/mo or $2700/yr. That leav

That number was based on the prevalence of reasonable apartments in my city that rent for $450/mo or less. With a roommate that's $225/mo or $2700/yr. That leaves $191/mo for food and toothpaste and the like, which is doable for one person. (Clothes are essentially free if you don't care what you look like.) The example was meant to be extreme and you can adjust the dials a bit without missing my point, which is that of course it's easy to retire if you remove the requirement that you might want to buy stuff.