alt Hacker Newsmost don't even have 3-5 years "spending money" (whatever that is) in total savings; if you're keeping that in cash you're getting 2-3% annually while the market has doubled.
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When you're headed into retirement, one possibility is to shift to saving more in cash-like options instead of a 401k (or whatever). It's should just be part of your retirement plan to account for possibilities like this.
Sure, but we're not talking about people who have no savings. FIRE people have huge investment portfolios while being frugal with their spending, and understand the risk of keeping 5-10% of their total net worth in cash equivalents (not dissimilar to having insurance).
People return with less than 4 years expenses in retirement funds
Surely you need about 20 years?
Look back at the grandparent comment. If someone doesn't have 3-5 years in total savings, then they had better not try to retire.
Last week I was at the bank in my hometown, a small rural community. The teller took a phone call, and I overheard her say "You have $1.53 in your checking account, and $150 in savings".
Presumably this is their total net worth. I think this is way more common than people on this type of forum realize. Most will work until they literally can't anymore, then scrape by on social security until they die. I think it's important to keep that perspective.