Do high-earning chubbies win "no matter what" over the next ~15 years?
Wife and I have $4M+ in 401Ks/invested, $6M net total including home. Early 40s. $800K+ HHI. We plan to work until we are mid-late 50s. 2 young-ish kids.
It seems that best case scenario the stock market keeps ripping up, in which case the $4M doubles or more by time we retire.
Mid-case, the market drops for a while due to war, AI job losses, etc, in which case we keep buying "cheap" stocks with our high income.
Worst-case, there is some sort of an AI job apocalypse, in which case life gets harder but we are still better off than 98% of the world and maybe there is even deflation in which case our relative earning/skills/existing wealth still keeps us above water.
Maybe I am missing something, but the above seems like a decent heuristic for three primary future paths.
If we hated our jobs and wanted to retire sooner, I'd be a bit more worried about scenario #2.
Thoughts?
*A few background notes: our income increased a lot in the past few years. We had a long training / job loss early in our careers. We also received an inheritance (sad but thankful) that boosted our net worth this year. Two years ago, I was feeling less confident -- and we were planning to work longer. Finally, the pandemic was a huge blessing -- I went from 12+ hours of commute per week to about 4.