Retire at what number?

[thrifty++]

At what number did you or will you retire?

I talked to a friend who has about 1.6 million in assets. Not because he is into personal finance or makes a lot of money. More because of several large family cash injections plus the housing boom which put him there. He has no concept of how much money that is or how possible it could be for him to not have to work again with that money if he understood personal finance better. He seems to think about 3 million plus will be required for him to retire. This is obviously very common in society.

It got me thinking about when I should call it myself. Forget the 25 x expenses or 4 percent rule. Wondering what nominal $ sum at which others on here did retire or at which you think you will?

[basuragomi]

$0.8M is my upper limit, when years of expenses > years of life expectancy.

[Toska2]

$500k and a short life.

[Seppia]

Realistically, even if I’m trying to move past it, I think I will stay stuck in WL6.
I will probably feel comfortable enough to pull the plug when my Y-1 dividends multiplied by 0.8 will be enough to cover my family lifestyle.

[IlliniDave]

My number wound up being pretty high, ridiculously high when compared to the amount of it I might actually need to spend from it. A certain financial threshold was a prerequisite but not the sole determinant of the timing of my checking out. 33x was sort of the threshold. As it is, if I spend money like I hope, I'm looking at 2079X. If I spend money like I expect, I'm looking at 294X. I suppose that's an epic fail in the Wheaton Level Universe of Discourse. But in a sophomoric sense it feels like a win.

[Jin+Guice]

My initial plan was 33x expenditures, but this has become weirder as my expenses have dropped towards $0, most of my expenses have become wants I could shed or improvise around and most of my sources of meeting needs are not necessarily sustainable (but maybe they are?, same could be said of investment returns in the sense we are now accustomed to them).

[Lemur]

Less about a number and more about agreed upon requirements for me to quit full time work. My Spouse and I agreed on the following:

1.) A fully paid off house / shelter. (Eliminates inflation risk?)
2.) Funds that cover normal expenses in the 3-4% range.
3.) A supplement for income robustness and to reduce risk of market downturn. My Spouse will keep doing her business. She enjoys it and it takes less than 20 hours a week. I would like to find some other way to make money as well and continue to explore hobbies...For me the former is options trading (though I'm really debating if this will harm #2...I am so far in the green but a really bad trade recently has me thinking how realistic this really is) or maybe some future form of blogging/teaching/writing.

I'd say about $900k.

[Married2aSwabian]

He seems to think about 3 million plus will be required for him to retire. This is obviously very common in society.

For sure - in a society where fear is a major driver. When you have morons like Suze Orman out there telling people they need $5 mil and up to retire. Hell, I told my little sister recently that I plan to retire next year at 57 and that I’m counting the months. She said, “Well, what if you live to be a hundred?”! I thought, what if I live to be only 62 and work until I keel over?! Most people have no concept of the power of compound interest, because they’re paying it, not earning it. Not this community, but everyone else.

We will be comfortable with paid off house and about 30x annual expenses (about $1mil) in the stash. Also closer to getting soc security at our age and Medicare, so those are big factors.

[2Birds1Stone]

Already "retired" once in 2019 with ~$525k in investable assets but went back to work after 13 months of travel due to Covid poopooing our geoarbitrage plans and a few other factors. Next time will be ~$750k this coming spring. Being mid 30's we don't expect to never earn another penny again, so it will be interesting to see how it pans out this time.

[white belt]

Old thread on this topic: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7870&p=119986&hilit ... er#p119986

Past WL5, skill and all forms of capital become much more important to “success” than just the one dimensionality of financial capital. This makes drawing conclusions from comparisons between individuals difficult because not apples to apples.

[jacob]

How tall does one need to be to play basketball?

I'm asking for a friend.

[Qazwer]

Muggsy Bogues was 5’3’’
Unfortunately I cannot call him early retirement as I think he played 14 years in the NBA.
So if we go by history, you have to be at least 5’3’’ to play NBA but I do not know what is the smallest amount of money anyone has ever retired on. So therefore logically if you are taller than 5’3’’ you can play in the NBA but cannot retire unless you have at least 1 million dollars (said in a Dr Evil voice)
Unless you are a duck in which case you should be burned for witchcraft.

[unemployable]

Muggsy lived in my neighborhood! Towards the back where the bigger houses were. He drove a convertible and would wave if you were in your front yard. His license plate was 1-MUGGSY. What else do you need to know?

I'm retired with nowhere close to a million.

[WFJ]

I'm now about 4x my original number, but use each retirement as a way to retool and do something interesting. Below is how I have viewed my "retirements" (from some old dead white guy). A side note, in my personal experience, I do not know any who is happy that retired when hitting a "#", but I'm sure others have had different experiences.

"A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both."
François-René de Chateaubriand

[thrifty++]

"A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both."
François-René de Chateaubriand

I love that quote. Is that how your work life has been? I dont know if I have met anyone who has had that experience. Was it like this pre FU stash as well? Or only post FU stash when working was optional? The latter makes more sense to me.

[AxelHeyst]

That's how my life feels at the moment, although I wouldn't call myself a master at living just yet. FU not FI, and only a year or less into it so we'll see.

[WFJ]

I tried to follow this and had many short career tracks that always seem to build to something better. In my 20's, most of my jobs/careers were measured in months, as the jobs were menial and boring (this is how all entry level jobs are designed). I've mostly worked in "Right to work" states which basically means companies can fire anyone/everyone without warning or cause at any time (and was fired many times). This was a great signal to start working in a new field. I usually receive some legacy income from past careers (training or owned book of business from sales jobs) or reduce work hours in jobs that became uninteresting as I transitioned to new fields. As the jobs have become more interesting, my time on jobs has increased. This transition probably happened in my early 30's before my number, but had a good start and cushion at that point.

My work life is not a rosy as the quote, but once I stopped learning useful skills or just lost interest in a job, I ask for reduced hours as my performance in uninteresting jobs eventually falters and use the free time to start looking for something else or develop new skills. I also usually had hobby jobs (coaching sports, deck hand, other odd easy part time mindless jobs in good locations) where hours could be increased when traditional employment options were limited and filled in all traditional employment gaps on the CV. Almost any job is interesting for a short time (6 months) as one is learning something new around new people and new challenges, the trick is to have 50 6 month gigs that build in income rather than one long grind of a career.