We Are 58 With $1,800,000 In Savings, Why Can’t We Retire?

Wow, all these people with SO much money saved, and SO many expenses... My plan is to retire at 55 with (ONLY) 500k saved. I realize I'm in a low cost of living and I won't have a mortgage to pay. I'm 100% certain retirement is possible for many, many people IF they learn to live on a budget. High stress working environments are not healthy. Get out, enjoy life, live a little. If you need to be a bit more frugal, so be it. Get outdoors, walk, hike, bike, fish, hunt, all these things are VERY inexpensive! Good luck to everyone!

Retired at 55 with $1.4M (60/40 split of stocks and bonds) liquid assets and about $300K in a paid off property/lot in Hawaii that I never built on. I'm now 57, have $1.5M liquid and am about to list the lot for $400k so I match this scenario pretty closely. Our budget since I retired was $9.2K/mo and we've spent only $8k on avg even with 6 months of global travel, a year living in Hawaii and golfing twice a week and some domestic travel. I too got similar (poor) results from my retirement planner but there was no way I would've kept working in a high stress job working 65hrs/wk average because of hypothetical scenarios and probabilities as we're highly adaptable... who in their right mind wouldn't cut back in discretionary expenses during a major recession? Besides, as long as you don't sell or do something dumb in a down market, historically they bounce back in 6 months on avg, maybe a year worst case so you just need to have about 1-2 yrs worth of cash (in a High yield MM) to live off of. At my age, worst case is I get a part-time job at Walmart or get a remote gig where I can work in my PJ's for a year to fund my discretionary spends and hobbies. My highly probable backup plan is to get travel health insurance for $500/mo for both me and my wife where we have to live abroad for 6 months and in the US for 6 months for a year or two. Already got quotes and can save $0.5 - 1k/mo in health insurance and travel abroad half the year. There are too many options to list but my advice is to retire as early as you can and be flexible.

Great video. I want to add that health insurance is a significant factor for people considering retirement before 65.

Retired at 50 with 250k, most of it in gold, and moved onto our sailboat. All these years later (20) we are still on the boat. Our expenses are 1/5th of what they would be living on land, we’ve seen the world at 6 knots, and had a blast. No plans to stop. You don’t need millions if you think like a contrarian.

One of the best videos! Thank you for helping people retire! John & Bev

Well laid out and explained. Thanks!

Thank you for the analysis!

Love your videos! I watch every Saturday. Retired at 56, I’m 61 now. I watch a lot of you tube videos on the subject and use New Retirement software. Your videos are the best. Presentation, length of video, content, it’s all awesome. Thank you for the time you put into these, greatly appreciated.

most people retire and dont have nearly half of this.... most people cant even come up with a few thousant for an emergency fund

After Listening to so many retirees, I believe $500K should be more than adequate for singles. 😂😂 What we should fear is not money but TIME.

Single, retired last year at 58 with $2M in investments and $2.6M Net worth. I invested 60% in Dividend ETF's (SCHD, DGRO, JEPI, JEPQ) generating 5.5% Annual dividends and rest in MM fund, generating another 5%. Yearly budget of 90K (Including taxes). I traveled Internationally for 6 months and 6 in the US (FL). I only spent $55K and my investments are at $2.1M. There are many ways to slice this retirement cat, you just need to be flexible!

Got about half a million more than this scenario, zero debt, age 63, wife is 60 but doesn't want to retire quite yet (she really loves what she does). Can I retire? Guess I'm going to find out, I'm one month into it and so far so good. I'd planned on working to 65 but the career I used to love so much is changing. And it's not the type of change you can avoid by looking for a job elsewhere. So I called it quits a couple years earlier than I'd planned.

Well done. I’m subscribing

Great video!

Very good video. Thank you for the information! Do you work with people who reside outside of Florida?

I retired at 58 with $2.65M in investments, no mortgage, no high CC debt or AUTO loans and my monthly withdrawals change from month to month, some months being higher than others, none exceeding more than $9k.

Very helpful and well done video. I just subscribed to your channel. The allocation suggested is stocks, with "cash" and commodities. Why does the allocation omit bonds or bond funds?

I'm curious about this scenario's recommendation of investing in commodities. Could you give a couple of examples of which commodities you would suggest to your clients? I've casually monitored several of the often recommended commodity ETFs over the past couple of years and frankly, I still don't understand why they're so popular because, to my untrained eye, they seem to be crap. From the looks of them, unless you were lucky on a swing trade of a specific commodity, going long on commodities in general appears to be a definite loss.

They should consider a SPIA since they’re not interested in legacy, but your cash bucket strategy is a great option too

Good video. I like how you show you can change some of the variables to manage risk. However, the assumption of a 50+ percent stock market crash in the first years of retirement seems overly catastrophic, potentially discouraging the couple from not retiring early, without fully understanding what is being modeled. If someone truly wants to model a worst case scenario, then this is an OK approach, but they have to realize, it is likely leaning them to work longer due to a risk that will very likely not happen. I am a proponent of having a few years of "cash/cash equivalent on hand", to allow myself to "weather the storm", to help mitigate the sequence of returns risk. You have only impacted your portfolio when you sell assets that have declined in value. If you can cover the bear market with cash, for a few years, history shows the market will recover. Also, I like how you articulate you can leverage the equity in your home to cover long term care expenses. I also see this overlooked in many cases and it is a huge asset that can be tapped for late in life long term care needs.