You can live on $24k/year from $600k in invested assets. With mandatory health insurance, its income tested, not means tested; living on $24k/year means a family's premiums will be heavily or fully subsidized (under current ACA law).
> In summary, I doubt that one can retire early with any comfort off of a decade of decent earnings.
It can be done.
"A Brief History of the ‘Stash: How we Saved from Zero to Retirement in Nine Years"
This guy and his wife are making $160k gross in 2003, and that's on the fifth year. I plugged that into a .gov inflation calculator just now and got $216k equivalent today! Some numbers are omitted, but they're nearing $200k by 2004 and certainly clearing it by 2006. Then when he "retires" he's pulling 50k with a side business? Everything about this is misleading.
> In summary, I doubt that one can retire early with any comfort off of a decade of decent earnings.
It can be done.
"A Brief History of the ‘Stash: How we Saved from Zero to Retirement in Nine Years"
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/15/a-brief-history-of...
"Getting Rich: from Zero to Hero in One Blog Post"
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-...