Quoted from bane:

If anyone had the secret to early retirement, they’d already be retired, and probably not posting here.

Quoted from xsvtoys:

It seems like having one million dollars (with all of your asset totaled including house) doesn't really make you too wealthy these days. It might be enough to get by.
Also, I don't think these types of stats include any retired government workers or others who get a pension. They are basically all millionaires also. A lifetime pension of $3,000/month has a current value of about $1.1 million, assuming you get to take it for 30 years. Of course its worth even more if you live longer since with a pension you collect it all the way to the end.
If you have a pension of $6,000/month, that means an average person would need to save up $2.2 million to match that.

Quoted from pinzrfun:

If you need 50k a year to retire and have 25 rental units each clearing 2k a year, you're there. Not only that, most likely those houses have appreciated, and best of all, your tenants have paid them off for you.

Quoted from PanzerFreak:

Great points, thanks for your insight. I was hoping to ask you a question if I may. As someone with a good 20 - 25 years left of work, I'm in my mid 30's, and ideally wanting to retire at 55 or 60 would you recommend staying the course with my current 401k allocations (almost all in stocks) or to move them into safer investment options before the next severe correction? In the past I've been told to stay the course with how many years I have left to work and to expect multiple corrections / recessions before I retire in hopefully 2041 - 2045. Is that still the best course of action?

Quoted from nwpinball:

I'm currently working on my rental to prepare it for sale. After owning it 5 years with very minimal costs, I had to do some big repairs that I needed to take out a loan for. With the current loan rates I wasn't a fan, plus the stress of owning the rental and having to do work on it without much warning was starting to get to me. It will likely sell for 35% more than I paid for it and the income I made from rent more than covered the cost of the recent repairs, so I'm still happy I did it. But I'll be glad to no longer have the stress and work of owning a rental and put that money back into the market.

Quoted from pinzrfun:

i think his case is the exception more than the rule. Even with the challenges he had, he came out ahead.
There is the occasional Bill Gates or Rockefeller, but the vast majority of wealthy people got that way from real estate.

Quoted from PanzerFreak:

Expense ratios are also much lower with the index fund. Let's use a $200k 401k balance for example. With the target date fund there's a .12% expense ratio, the index fund .015%. That's $2,400 in fee's per year with the target date fund while the index fund fee's would be $300.