Boghie...I can't pull up the 2000-2002 statements on the TSP site and don't have access to those files right now. I didn't have much money in the TSP back then and don't recall actively trading the account. I do remember being thankful I was buying in low

. As for 2008, I think we all took it in the shorts to some extent, me more than you...I took a 20.26% loss that year (I think I ate the same 2 days you did for 16% too). That is the year I became much less aggressive in my trading. In 2011 I pulled 11.87% and last year I pulled 11.53 (it would have been much nicer but I got cut bad with the santa rally fail. The years in between (2012 through 2017) averaged about 9% so you are right, not the 1% a month...but plenty to live on in retirement. And even if I don't make that amount, for me, a 3.02% draw down, after taxes, would make my take home the same as it is today so anything in excess of that is pure profit in my eyes.
I'm a simple guy and don't need a bunch of toys to enjoy life so those are not necessities. And another huge portion of my overall portfolio is my house, which will be paid off in early 2021. Not having that mortgage payment increases my net expendable monthly money by a significant margin. You are right with my numbers being a risky assumption and suggesting using less aggressive growth numbers. I should have clarified more so as to not present potentially misleading information to people reading my post. I was just shooting numbers that would support a +1% a month strategy and explaining my "hoped for/best case scenario" goal. Believe me when I say that I am not going to risk my financial safety net and rely on those 12% figures to survive.
As for a system, I'm the last person to claim to have one

. I just play my moves as I see them and rely on you, and others on here with more trading experience, to influence what I am seeing in the markets. The only thing I do regularly, which I'm sure others do something similar, is charting with the C, S, 50MA and DJT. I then work in Bollingers, and run 5 day to 3 month (very rarely longer than that) charts and compare everything to Bquats (much cleaner and nicer than mine) charts.
Happy 4th everyone!!!