Financial independence

[debtdude]

Retiring just five years earlier than age 65 makes huge difference. Dropping down to 50 - wow. Financially speaking, I don't know how $1 mil would spread through the years. There are so many variables such as lifestyle, living arrangements, health, etc. If you retired at age 50 and lived for 30 years off of $1 mil, that equals ~$33k per year. Using such an annual income, apply that to your situation and start doiing a lot of math...meet with a CPA...and then think about it for a few years. You don't want to be broke at 70.

[lillyb]

Right now we are living on half of dh's $60k salary. And I don't think we're even that intense, we could lower that if we had to. So $40k a year is very doable.

This idea is really for looking at an early retirement from one company to pursue a business of our own, without worry of earning living expenses. Of course, we still have the company IRA that we'll still have at the usual age of retirement (65). So not really so we can just sit around and do nothing, but the freedom to do something that inspires that could potentially make a nice return itself. Between the 3 (say the $1m, business potential income, and regular retirement) we should be okay well into our later years.

Interesting replies, though. Love the thought processes.

[jmjj215]

Originally Posted by debtdude

Retiring just five years earlier than age 65 makes huge difference. Dropping down to 50 - wow. Financially speaking, I don't know how $1 mil would spread through the years. There are so many variables such as lifestyle, living arrangements, health, etc. If you retired at age 50 and lived for 30 years off of $1 mil, that equals ~$33k per year. Using such an annual income, apply that to your situation and start doiing a lot of math...meet with a CPA...and then think about it for a few years. You don't want to be broke at 70.

That's actually spot-on advice in my book. I see people saying they have goals of retiring at 45 w/ $1 million. I hope they're talking about a million of future dollars, not a million dollars right now...

[Harrison]

Does 1 million really enough for retiring financial independence? For me it will be not enough as things are getting more and more expensive and the inflation rate also is a main factors. Wht I worry is the illness or accident that happen in future. We can't predict this so better plan more

[Ima saver]

I agree that you probably need more than 1 million, but if you have everything paid for, I think it is doable. The neat thing is, if you are young enough and start early, it is possible for everyone to have a million by age 60!!