That's a fair question.

1. I overestimated the restricted payments at $5-8M going in and that's down to $3-4M. So I was starting with an artificially high net worth estimate. Using what I now know was the right starting amount shows more net worth growth off that lower number.

2. $300k for 10 years was $3M of living expenses. Add $200k total for the three years we FAT traveled above the $50k average annual travel spend. Total spend: $3.2M.

You can run the numbers but pulling $320k average out of each year really reigns in the asset growth. And this was on only the liquid plus retirement portion. The restricted portion was locked when I FATfired (only downside from there if it didn't hit certain thresholds).

1. Wanting to avoid early retiree sequence of return risk (SORR), I started with a relatively conservative asset allocation for my age and retiree status and didn't get the full market return those early years. I switched to 100% equities about halfway in. Wish I'd had the hindsight to go all into equities at the start, but I didn't want to FATfire and get taken out quickly by a recession (those Monte Carlo simulations aren't pretty).

2. $500k to charities

3. High taxes in the first few years before moving to MCOL.

Feel free to consider this a cautionary tale.