To make sure I understand you, your definition of financial independence is a portfolio throwing off 5-7x your expenses? So, if my annual expenses (excluding taxes) are $100k, I need a portfolio returning $500k a year? If so, that seems a bit extreme. If my portfolio is somewhat but not excessively aggressive, returning on average 7%, it would have to be about $7M. Using the guardrails approach, I should be able to safely draw 5% a year from a diversified portfolio. If $100k expenses imply say $40k taxes, that means $2.8M should be enough.