Early Distribution of IRA, 401K & Other Retirement Accounts - Penalty on Early Distributions
That should explain all your questions. 25 years gives you the minimum retirement. You should seriously consider your costs in early retirement - i.e. costs of living. Health insurance goes up dramatically with age and is a huge cost late in life. Traveling, hobbies, etc. You still have a good 40 years in you after retirement if you stop working at 46. Call it $1,500 a month minimum to have a comfortable living with no debt and not doing much extra for you and a spouse, you would need a minimum of $720,000 of todays money to retire. Figure inflation of 2% a year until you retire as a conservative estimate, and that turns your $720,000 into $964,800 as your magic number in order to live on a set budget of $1,500 a month. When you figure all your costs in, you cannot count on social security or medicare as being there. You never know for 40 years from now. We all would hope they are, but you have to make sure you take care of yourself just in case.
Seriously consider all of this because $1,500 a month is only $18,000 a year.