Frustrated by retirement advice

[EEinNJ]

I've always managed my own finances and investments, and it's worked out well. So well, I'm considering early retirement, or at least restructuring work so I have more free time. I know that 5 years from now, I'll definitely have enough, maybe sooner (inheritance & pension benefits). With what I already have outside retirement accounts, I could cover at least 4 years.

As a reality check, I met with CFP's at 2 places I have accounts- a major discount brokerage and a full service investment/wealth management house that handles my company 401k. The frustrating thing is, while each reviewed not just what I have with their company, but my whole picture, neither had any substantive recommendations for my particular situation, beyond the basic asset allocation/retirement age formulas. That is, they commented on how I might tweak my portfolios, but shied away from the life planning side of it, like how much, if anything, I should continue to put in IRA's.

I did note, the discount guy suggested I put money in an actively managed account (that he would get a cut of), and the full service guy said he couldn't really talk about anything but my 401k since he wasn't managing my assets. I guess I should continue to take my own advise!

[MonkeyMama]

As soon as I read first few sentences, I thought your problem was that you were getting very biased advice. You figured that out.

In addition to the obvious bias, I feel with time and age and wisdom that investment houses are touting WAY over-saving for retirement. But that is in their best interest too.

I feel blessed to have watched my parents retire as their retirement looks very much like I expect ours to. (No employer provided pensions). So that whole thing has me re-thinking retirement and having a much more firm understanding of how things will probably play out for our personal situation. (Much more useful than "one size fits all" kind of advice). This is in conjunction with the experience of my spouse being "retired" for 13 years already. As a tax professional, I also feel that at some point amassing more savings just results in paying more taxes. (Like the extra savings is JUST to pay more taxes).

A suggestion: check out the boglehead forums. I am usually wary of free online advice, but the overall tax and financial knowledge is excellent over there. You can anonymously lay out your situation and would get unbiased advice. It would probably lean towards the more conservative/over-saving side of things but just keep that in mind.

[feh]

If you want knowledgeable people to bounce ideas off of, go over to bogleheads.org.