You wrote

A research found that a sudden setback of your financial situation could be one of the most severe causes of stress (the other top ones are finding yourself in a terminal disease, death of your child, divorce, etc.).

Yeah.. adjusting to a 20% drop in net asset is stressful, detrimental… (What if an earthquake inflicts a 20% drop in most your peers’ net asset? See https://tanbinvest.dreamhosters.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=14830&action=edit.)

In my case, adjusting to lower living standard is no big deal. In 2017-2019 when I worked in U.S. alone, my burn rate was $11,400 over 28 months ($400/M) excluding rentals and transport [+driving practice].

Very comfortable living near huge beautiful parks, abundant yoga classes + gym visits + cinemas, sightseeing trips in NY/NJ, Chinese and Indian restaurants at least once a month in U.S. and Singapore.

Q: What did I sacrifice? How was my spending different from peers?
A: No car (except zipcar), no health insurance, no big home, no repairs, no utilities. My reunion trips to Singapore provided enough vacation + fine dining.

Result? I saved a lot, and became really healthy, almost fighting fit both physically and on coding tests.

On one 16-hour flight I took no nap, and spent half the hours reading c++ and laptop-coding in my tiny seat. 5 years earlier I tried several times but could never achieve the same as it required tremendous mental and physical stamina. So after that 16H trip I knew that I had reached possibly the apex wellness of my life.

During that period, I moved home and stayed in 4 locations, and stayed/worked in 4 cities, and maintained a $400/M burn rate.

Actually I was not extremely vigilant, and probably overspent occasionally on food, cinema,,,

Coming back to your point, iFF indeed I can cope with cashflow constraint, then I would have a lot of built-in flexibility in my career and financial situation.

Q: is my $400/M lifestyle realistic for the average Americans?
A: I think so. Remember the FIRE leading lights like MMM? Fundamental adjustments needed.

Q: as a family of four, how about USD 1600/M burn rate [excluding housing + transport]? Not the focus of this blogpost. My kids may be very different from me. I have an uphill battle to train them up.