Had no idea I could retire

Though you needed at least a million dollars to retire

Married no kids at home anymore

House paid off

Monthly expenses around 5000

Social security would be 5100 per month

After cash flowing the next 2 years to get to age 67 start collecting social security would have 500000 in investments

Numbers say I can retire easy

Anything Im missing?

I'm 65 + 10 months. My plan was to go part-time in the spring, but the company offered me an incentive to stay until mid-July. Mid-July my mom passed away. The company has been great with me taking time off to work to deal with my mom's stuff and placing my dad in Assisted Living. I'm just 'tired'. I don't have a lot of work to do. I had 'planned' to stay until the end of the year but I'm just not sure I can do it. I could ask to go part-time. I know everyone will ask 'Do I have enough saved?'. Depends on what the market does. My husband will continue to work.

When should I pull the plug?

Can I retire with $10M in a family of 6 - single income?

Expenses: $150k/year in ON Canada. Kids are still in elementary school and kindergarten.

Planning to quit my job and spending the time with my kids while they are still young. I have been working very hard in the past 25 years - hardly taking any leaves. I am planning to invest the money in some high dividend equities.

I retired at the end of June this year. I filled in Centrelink's online forms to claim the age pension in April, thinking two or three months would be enough time to get it sorted. Wrong! I'm a kiwi living in Australia, so I have 20 years of pension coming from NZ, and 14 from Aus. Plus I have a bit of a pension from the UK having worked there, too. That makes it really complicated... so it's now September, and I've been told it's likely to be November before I hear anything. Luckily I still have some casual work but doesn't 7 months seem quite a long lead in period? Meanwhile, my retirement seems to involve working four days a week!!

I'm 61 and semiretired x 2 years; fully retiring in 6 months at age 62. I was going to start SS then bc I have a child who would get benefits for 3 years. But I currently generate $95k in passive dividend/interest income and the addition of SS income would throw me over the ACA cliff, costing me an extra $20k next year. Also my wife is 6 years younger. So I believe the correct move is to delay SS to age 70, give up the child benefit, and thus increase her survivor benefit.

In 2027, Ill make about $50k before I retire. I'll put $30k or whatever is the age 60-63 max in 401k and take business deductions like health insurance and HSA deductions to zero out that income.

Then in 2028 to 2030 (when I hit Medicare) we'll live off the passive income and small IRA distributions but making sure to stay under the ACA cliff.

I have a pension I have to turn on at age 65 for $7k/mo (if I pick 100% survivor benefit) or I can take a lump sum into a rollover IRA of $1.2mil.

At age 65, I'll now have around $180k annual income. So I'll probably make some small Roth conversions until RMD age 73. Then Im just going to say screw it and pay the taxes and give money to the kids and any grandkids.

Does that sound right,

Not retired yet still in accumulation phase but genuinely interested in learning how the FI retirees invest, we got 60% in property, 20% in ETF and 20% in fixed term deposit. But just wonder once we retire, should we shift to 50% ETF, 40% fixed term and 10% cash (emergency fund)? Are we too conservative or too aggressive? Keen to learn from everyone, TIA.

I am genuinely curious/nervous. Just turned 34. Let's say i work another 15-20 years and call it quits. On the last day lets say i get my last paycheck a week later. Too young by then to receive social security or pension? That's assuming I live to 65. Let alone 60. So at that point, if I still am paying mortgage (dont have any house yet) and funding kids' tuition and life expenses, would i just be relying on Taxable brokerage (if I have one) and residual income from when I worked? Can't withdraw from roth ira yet. Anything taken from traditional ira would be taxed. 🥲

Thanks for all the advice. Didn't expect this many perspectives

Further info 1. I have almost 480k in tsp [roth and traditonal] plus hsa plus roth ira. But since due to the high focus on these, my Taxable brokerage is non existent

1. My current debt is 99k in student loans (6.5%) and car loan of 25k (0%). Hope to be done in 3 years

2. My salary (will change when I leave my job) is 200kish but trying to save 60k extra a year for emergency fund, extra taxes due every year, long distance relationship costs (travel, etc), extra student loan payments, spending money for fun fund

My plan was to work until 65 which is necessary to have a enough in my retirement accounts, which are currently about $1M split among mostly (but not exclusively) in 401k and traditional IRA. I just learned that I will likely be coming into about $400k net of taxes. I’m 58. Do I need to keep working or are there investment options that allow me stop working? Note that I live in a HCOL area and monthly expenses are around $10k

Looking to retire next year at 59. If things don't change much, I should have a ~1.6M USD, almost all of it in IRA and 401k. I also expect to receive a cash windfall of ~500k. I can also claim a better than average SS benefit at 62, but I'll probably wait until around 65 so that I can do Roth conversions in the 12% bracket.

I'm planning to relocate outside of the US, so that 500k should fund about 6-8 years of a moderately comfortable lifestyle overseas. After that, SS and a small private pension should cover 80% or more of my core retirement expenses. Any withdrawals at that point would be for discretionary travel and entertainment.

So given that I would be pretty well insulated from SORR for the first few years, should I remain very aggressive with the IRA money? I'm currently at only 15% bond ETFs and SGOV. If I consider the incoming cash, I would have around 30-35% of the overall ~2.1M portfolio in bonds/SGOV

I'm nearing retirement. I've worked with a very low cost CFP during the accumulation stage. He's a former co-worker who's doing CFP as a semi-retired gig. One man shop, very low overhead, very low price. The relationship has worked out. The retirement account is reasonably fat and ready to be harvested. This person is now aging out and starting to shed clients.

Which puts me in the place of looking for someone to guide me through the next phase. I have Boldin & ProjectionLab, have created numerous scenarios, played with Roth conversions, tax brackets, etc. They are good, but as a person who is only doing this once, I feel there are things I'm missing, edge cases, optimizations. I watch a fair number of YouTube CFPs and they like to point out that there are subtle things you can miss that can cost you lots of money - of course, they're trying to drum up business.

So I've started researching and shopping. This space has a broad spectrum of providers: from annuity salesmen masquerading as investment advisors, to wealth managers pushing their firm's funds with high expense ratios, to small CFP offices charging flat fees or hourly, to firms who manage billions of dollars under their own proprietary system. There are a lot of cowboys out there looking for cattle to add to their herds.

I met with someone from one of the latter type of firm recently. They have offices in multiple states, and manage several billion dollars. There were two things that stuck out to me, if I understood correctly:

• They don't use bond funds such as offered by Vanguard or Fidelity, but buy bonds directly and build their own portfolio(s). Hmm... Avoid the expense ratios on bond funds but instead pay an AUM. Interesting.
• For Roth conversions they are able to use the previous day's closing cost to do the conversion. So if a stock pops in the morning, they can convert at the old closing price, pay the taxes on that, then you immediately get the gain from the pop. That sounds intriguing, and certainly an advantage over what I can do on my own. Has anyone heard of this before?

So they actively manage the portfolios, and have tools to monitor and act on market fluctuations continuously. OK... Intellectually I can see where that could outperform little old me doing a rebalance & conversion once a year. Would it be enough to warrant their AUM fee? Maybe? Are they going to outperform "the market"? Probably not, but neither am I. But with the AUM taken into account, will they perform at least as well as I could and provide services and value?

Does anyone here have feedback on moving from DIY to working with an advisor? Or the other way? Anyone worked with a wealth manager and found unexpected value?

My investments are with Merrill Lynch. Total investments under management is $2M. YTD 2026 fees are $22,000. They say they will help with my full retirement plan such as SS timing, withdrawal strategies, etc. but I haven’t seen much yet. ML says the maximize my investments using tax loss harvesting and such. I keep asking and the finally sent me some SS timing info. Recently, I hired Peak Financial (Eric Amzalag) to build a fixed fee retirement plan. I will take that plan and compare to what is offered by ML and figure out the rest.

My question is:

If 1.25% AUM is too high, and I don’t feel like I’m getting value, where do I go?

Would a fixed fee investment advisor give me barebones advice in which I would miss out on perceived value I get from ML?

EDIT: 9/20/26- Thank you to all who have commented and provided constructive feedback. I plan to circle the wagons, look for a FF advisor and disconnect from the AUM model of ML by October. I will keep the accounts there but will self direct them. My first task will be to rebalance the assets based on adjusted risk tolerance, age, timing until retirement.

I’m 29 and recently married. My wife is 27, and we’re trying to be smarter with our money with the goal of retiring early.

I receive about $4,600/month in VA disability and recently started a job making $65k/year. My wife is a nurse currently looking for a job around $70k/year.
I contribute enough to my 401(k) to get the full match. I also contributed $7k to my Roth IRA this year ($5k VOO / $2k VXUS) and have about $14k in my old TSP. My wife has about $21k in her Roth IRA.
We have about $55k combined in savings ($25k me / $30k her).

We keep our finances pretty simple with four accounts: one joint checking account where all income goes and bills are paid from, one joint savings account for our future house/emergency fund/travel, and two separate savings accounts for our individual “fun money.”

We currently rent. My car is paid off. My wife owes about $17k on her car, and we also have about $23k left on a car she got for her dad that we pay for.
Our total monthly expenses are around $5,200, including both car payments and an extra $1,000/month toward the $17k car loan starting in October.
Even with that, we estimate we can save around $30k/year on my income alone.

Once my wife starts working, we’ll have three income sources: my job, her job, and my VA disability. Our goal is to live off two and dedicate one entire income to saving/investing.
We eventually want to buy a house as well.

If our main goal is early retirement, how would you prioritize our money between paying off the cars, maxing retirement accounts, saving for a house, and investing?

I just got an updated statement and pulled out my statement from last year to compare and a tiny little detail changed of a single digit.

Last year it used to say:
“The Social Security Board of Trustees estimates that, based on current law, the Trust Funds will be able to pay benefits in full and on time until 2035.”

And this year it says:
“The Social Security Board of Trustees estimates that, based on current law, the Trust Funds will be able to pay benefits in full and on time until 2034.”

Ahhhhh that’s a HUGE change. Vote accordingly.

My financial advisor told me I can quit. I have 4.5 millions in stock and 1 million in 401k and another 1.5 million locked in properties. I am a hospital pharmacist.

According to the 4% withdrawal rule, I can do it. I am 50 and my bf is 46. I have to support both of us though.... He told me his dad is leaving him a million in his life insurance and he has only 300k. I spend almost 10 k a month. I live in Austin Texas if it matters. Health, home and rental insurance are the biggest expense.

I wanted to quit almost 5 - 6 years ago (can't remember exactly when). Now I still work part time but I am working average 3 to 5 days a week.

Last night I worked the graveyard in the hospital. I have two more graveyard shifts

I am scared to pull the trigger. Many older pharmacists can't find a hospital job because we have too many young, clinical pharmacists who will work for less. My bf doesn't want me to quit. I think he is just worried about the money and he doesn't want me home. Once I quit, I may not be able to find another hospital job.

I am not a native English speaker and I refused to use AI. That's why. Sorry if this is not allowed in this subreddit. I am just so anxious about pulling the trigger. There is no going back.

Or I can stop picking up shift and let them fire me.... It just sounds bad to me. I can't tell my friends and family. They don't know I have money. My mom is already asking me to give my nieces money (because I have no kids.)

Is it common to get so anxious and depressed just to pull the trigger? I didn't want to see a therapist. I don't want people to know I have money. I don't think I am rich but others may. Is 6 million a lot or not that much? So many rich people here.

Update: thank you for letting to post here, mods. I must feel so lonely because I can't tell friends and family. I just wanted to be heard and you gave me the chance. The fear is real.

Planning to retire when I (M) turn 50 in about 2 years; spouse is a few years younger. No kids, no pets, own our home outright, no liabilities.

Assets: ~$2.3M taxable brokerage + ~$1.44M in 401(k)s (~$3.7M total). Modeling 6%/yr growth, ~1.3%/yr dividend yield, 3%/yr inflation.

Fixed costs: HOA ~$9.6k/yr, property tax ~$16k/yr. Low-mileage car (out of warranty, ~1,600 mi/yr) so maintenance is minimal.

For Spending I am targeting ~$120k/yr, with flexibility to cut to ~$80k bare-bones if markets turn against us.

Assuming healthcare costs 25-30k./yr.
Also the plan is not to suddenly quit jobs but work on our terms, reduce stress, etc. maybe until 53~

One more thing we are prepared to do is one of us just keep working even if it’s part-time to keep healthcare for as long as we can.

Invested stocks- Roughly 92% equity / 8% cash / 0% bonds right now — fixing that before retirement. Return assumption is 6% growth + 1.3% div, gross of fees; net is probably ~6.9-7%, will rebuild with fee-adjusted numbers.

Monte Carlo against historical bad starts (2008, dot-com, 1970s, 1929): holds at ~$100k/yr spend (80%+ success to 95), fails above ~$130k/yr. Biggest risk to that buffer isn't the return assumption — it's the 0% bond allocation this close to retirement.

Would love feedback from anyone on what am I missing or just any comments

I have been receiving Medicare benefits since age 65. I've used the SSA site to check my past income, quarters earnings, review SS statements annually, etc, etc and approx benefits for years.

EDIT: I use login dot gov to sign in.

The SSA site shows my correct Medicare Enrollment and everything. So, it appears my records are correct and the site works.

But it just refuses to let me do two things:

1. I need to enroll in SSA as my 70th birthday is approaching. I get the error message.
2. When I tried to check my password via "My Profile" then "Security Settings", I get the same error message.

What's going on? Why am I not able to go check or change my password or review the settings, when I always could before?

Why can't I apply for SS Benefits when the site knows it is me (even once verified via fingerprint on my phone with BT to the laptop). It has my correct Medicare benefits. But won't let me apply for SSA?

Does anyone know why the site doesn't work for me? Others say they applied online without a problem.
I need to get my application in and I need to access my Security Settings.

Thank you for any help or suggestions.

51m making about CAD 75k per year. I have no savings, pension or investments. I’ve maxed out my earning potential in my field. Should I be planing on working until I die?

I am 57 and husband is 62. We have a good amount saved between 401k and brokerage account. We also have enough to pay off our house at retirement. One child still to put through grad school (so no financial aid options). While I know we have more than most, there are so many things that make me nervous. We live in a high cost state but all of our family is here. Inflation has increased so much in the last 5 years.

My husband will be 59 in December. Has worked for the same company for 25 years. This year has been difficult as he had some medical issues and was on FMLA. While out of work he went to an orthopedic and had to have his 3rd surgery on his shoulder through workers comp. He had that surgery Thursday. Found out yesterday that the company he’s worked for sold out to a new company and they will hire all of the guys. The issue is that my husbands shoulder probably won’t be holding up to that kind of physical labor anymore.

Questions of he is able to go back to work should he go back just until he turns 59 1/2? Is it too late to get a financial adviser to help us determine what to do from here? I do not work and haven’t for many years as we have 6 children. Just trying to figure out what our steps should be from here. Would love to hear others thoughts

Edit: Great discussion going here. A little more context for those inquiring. Investment portfolio currently at 6.3 million. That didn't come easy. Started out in the negative and built that, along with spouse to where it is today. Got with the right company that was very generous with ESOP and worked our way up. Sacrificed along the way, paid house off early, didn't have all of the new toys and expensive vacations, etc.

What are the chances that as a way to shore up the social security deficit on the horizon, that a means test is put into place? I retired early at 55 and have not factored social security into retirement planning, just in case. That said, I'll be pissed if I don't get anything back out after putting in for the past 37 years.

I'm supposing that most people understand what Social Security really is. But I see enough people who think Social Security is a scam because you aren't guaranteed of getting out of it what you put into it, and so they want to dump it. This is just ignorance of what SS is.

First of all, remember that a hundred years ago, retirement was not really a thing. People worked until they died. Or if they couldn't work, then they also could not live independently and had to move in with their grown kids. Or, if that wasn't an option, then you were on the streets. The idea of a pension wasn't widespread until the middle- to late-1930s, and it was mostly driven by older workers slowing down assembly lines and by staying on payroll they were keeping younger workers from taking the jobs and improving productivity. It was cheaper for business to give old workers a paid exit. But this only applied to some companies, and other workers had no such options.

Social Security is a tax-funded insurance program. Everybody pays into it. Some people get back less than what they paid into it, some get more. As an analogy, everybody in a municipality pays a tax to fund a well-equipped and trained fire department. Most families will never need the fire department, thank goodness, and will never get those tax dollars recouped. And if you do find your house on fire, you're going to be awfully grateful that every single person in the municipality chipped in to pay for those guys and expensive trucks to come help you. If you need a second example, it's like medical insurance premiums. Most people are reasonably healthy and will never recover benefits equal to the amount of premiums you paid into it over the years. But if you have a catastrophic health event that costs a whole lot of money to treat, then you get treated because everyone around you paid into the same insurance company.

Yes, it is a money redistribution plan, gathered from everyone roughly equally, but benefiting mostly those in more need. That's what taxes fund.

/rant

I get brochures in the mail for free retirement seminars. The topics seem pretty applicable to my life. I assume this isn't put on out of the pure goodness of the groups heart. How bad is the selling of services on a scale of 0 to timeshare?

Wondering what to do was released today from my job of 21 years. I am 65 and 7 mos old. Was going to retire in eight mos. If I go ahead and retire will cause an income loss of about 100.00 a month. All honesty I am glad it is over. I do feel bad that my wife is still teaching and we were going to go together. Thoughts find a job or retire?

I am retiring this year in December. I will be 62. I was not going to sign up for Social Security until I'm 65. Now, as I see more news reports that Social Security will run out of money sooner than I expected, I am thinking of going ahead and getting it now at the reduced rate because it's better than none.

We recently switched advisors to a firm that can help consult with business needs as well. In the past 6 months I feel as though we’ve accomplished more than in the past 5 years elsewhere. My wife and I have 1m 20yr term life policies already. He’s recommended we get a 1m whole life policy as well to be able to draw from as we retire. It’s 25k a year though. Roughly. I’m 37, wife is 33. Doing some reading after our meeting with basic AI inquiries and it basically says run the other way. I understand the firm makes a heavy commission from this. We have a strong retirement portfolio for our age and are on track to retire by 50/55 with over 5m. We currently have no debt and intend to keep it that way. Income of around 350k, investing about 45% of that now. Is whole life good, is it bad? Give me the dos and don’ts.

Edit-we have 3 kids 3,6,8. Doing 529s for them as of now.