There is a magic formula.
Income in retirement = pension + Social Security + 4% of your portfolio.

Yep that’s my formula. It’s the years prior to access to my small pension at 55 or 59.5 and then SS at 62 that I’m beginning to consider. Unfortunately I missed the healthcare bridge to age 65 by a few years but that’s ok, just need a few more assets to fund it until Medicare kicks in. I will take the pension at 55 if I’m still employed at my current employer because, as you said, it makes no sense to delay when the inflation adjusted break even is somewhere around age 70. Freedom is highly valuable in my opinion. Even taking our current spending and inflation adjusting it forward to age 55, the magic formula says we can cover that plus another ~30% before SS kicks in so covering healthcare shouldn’t be an issue.

I was able to snag the best way to retire. I smelled a layoff coming and told my boss that it it happened, I wanted to volunteer.

Ironically, I could be facing a similar situation soon but unfortunately a few years short of making it work to my full advantage like that. But it has triggered my deeper look into the possibilities. Ultimately I feel pretty comfortable we could make it work just fine without too much strain if retirement were to be forced upon us today but ideally I would like to make it to 50-55 for total peace of mind and maximum flexibility.

I really appreciate all the feedback. Shrewdm along with the Fool before and even the yahoo boards of old have been a great contributor along my journey.


Jeff