I am currently employed at a job that I dislike and I am wondering if I can retire. Despite making around $150,000 annually, I have a total of $11 million in my brokerage account and other accounts. I also receive social security income and have started receiving Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs). Moreover, my house is fully paid off, and I pay approximately $10,000 in taxes each year. However, I am worried about the possibility of outliving my income. Considering my situation as a single individual after the loss of my spouse a decade ago, I am contemplating whether I should seek advice from a financial advisor or consider purchasing annuities.
In general the safe withdrawal rate roughly depends on your age. The calculated number (more a rule of thumb) is 4% inflation adjusted from a typical 60/40 portfolio over 30 years without heavy management expenses. So, if you are, say, 60 years old, then you can retire and roughly withdraw 4% of the $11M each year, and inflation adjust it each year thereafter, with minimal chance of ever running out of money (in fact, the chances are much higher that you end up with far more than $11M at death despite withdrawing for all those years to supply retirement income). So in theory, you can withdraw about $440,000 in the first year, and adjust that for inflation each year thereafter. Since you are living on $150,000 a year now, you can surely retire at this point.
Now, you mention that you already take RMDs, so that means that you are over 72 now, and now you more than surely can retire, you can retire well. Even if you have extreme longevity in your genes, 30 years from now you will be over 100. Now is the time to live it up, before age takes away that ability.
If an annuity would make you feel safer, you could take a million or two and put it into an annuity to ensure some level of guaranteed income in addition to social security. For example, let’s say you get $4,000/mo from social security, you could put $1.4M into an annuity and get another approximately $11,000/mo for a guaranteed total of $15,000/mo for life. PLUS you can withdraw from the remaining $9.6M of savings.
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Congratulations. If you drop 10 million on 30 year UST, you will get $400K interest yearly!!! Sincerely, stop worrying and enjoy life. If you don’t want to quit your job, see if you can take more vacation and use that time to travel or do things that you enjoy.
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Sounds like your brokerage account is doing a good job for you.
TMF would suggest that you do a retirement budget and figure out how much you need per year to cover your expenses. Keep your funds in equities to keep up with inflation as many expect to be retired 30 years or more. But as a buffer, keep five years of expenses in a laddered maturity bond portfolio. This guards against being forced to sell in a down market to cover living expenses.
I’ll just say this. I’m 57, make more than you by a comfy margin, and have a wife and a 12 year old (house paid off too). If I had $11M I would already be retired.
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Last year? Five years ago?
The only expense you mention having is $10k in property taxes. Without some idea of how you like to live, and how much that costs you, it really isn’t possible to say whether you need to worry about running out. But you would have to have a very lavish life style for it to be a realistic issue.
I think that would be a good idea. I believe a good and honest advisor, who will ask as much about your spending as your assets, will be able to provide the assurance you seek.
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If you are on SS and are taking RMDs, then you must be over 70. I’m 60, and retired last year.
You didn’t specify your expenses, but I can say (as another poster did), if I had $11M at any point in my life, I would have retired already. But then we aren’t lavish people, so our expenses aren’t outrageous.
Unless you like expensive cars and yachts, I suspect you’ll have enough. Use the calculators to be sure, though.
There are several simulators you can use. Fidelity has one. I think most investment houses do. I started with FIREcalc (https://firecalc.com). Just under the green banner are small tabs where you can refine the calculation for your situation/income/expenses. In most scenarios it projected that I would have more money when I die than I have now. I confirmed it with the Fidelity calculator, and one other (I forgot which one…someone linked it on the old TMF), and put in my notice.
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A net worth of $11 million puts you in the top 1% of wealth in the U.S. I would certainly hope you could retire without any financial concerns, or there’s no hope for the other 99% of the country.
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Dear God. Congratulations on whatever you did to amass an 8 - eight! - figure portfolio. Retire already. Find something to do that gives you joy. Buy a nice house on a lake or the ocean. If you want ideas on how & where to invest portions of it at low cost, this community can help. Don’t purchase annuities.
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How did I miss that? AGREED! At $11M, honestly the odds of your running out of money are near zilch unless you start taking 3 European ski vacations per year plus a yacht in the Med.
DO NOT BUY AN ANNUITY. That advice probably applies to nearly everyone.
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Pretty sure he’s a troll
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Low interest and/or yields on 11M would more than replace your income and pay your taxes and and and…. It does not get much more bullet-proof than 11M. Pull the trigger and go enjoy your life. Seriously, you do NOT need to keep running after you catch the bus.
TIM
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Sounds like it should be no problem for you.
I left it too late and wish I’d gone earlier.
Yeah, I encounter that a lot on social media (TMF, especially). Should have retired earlier. Why didn’t I retire earlier. As a poster in the old TMF said, and it burned itself into my brain, “your health will be fine until it isn’t…and then it’s too late”. You may think you have years or decades, but you don’t really know. We had health scares right as COVID hit. I had sniffed around about retiring (I was in my 50s then), but our health scares made me get serious. I’m coming up on two years of retirement now. We can’t afford a yacht, but our house is paid for, we bought a new car with cash (no car payment), and our basic expenses are fairly low.
1poormom retired late (early 70s), and was planning to travel with her life-long friend. Except that friend up and died almost literally while they were packing for their first trip. Mom didn’t go anywhere after that, then dementia set in, and now I’ve inherited assets I would rather she had spent on herself while she was still reasonably healthy. Which rammed-home for me the fact “your health will be fine until it isn’t”.
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Hi @1poorguy,
You said it!
When we first retired, I was cutting brush, rebuilding fence lines, setting gate posts, went to a fire fighter academy, fought fire for 15 years and a lot of other stuff.
Yesterday, I dug 2 loads of dirt from a pile into our RTV. (about 11 to 13 cuft per load) and dumped/shoveled it into a raised bed tub. That was it for the day, I was pretty whipped. (But we did watch the eclipse using a box.)
So I have no regrets about retiring at 55. We were able to do a lot of things that we could not do now.
Gene
All holdings and some statistics on my Fool profile page
https://discussion.fool.com/u/gdett2/activity (Click Expand)
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1poorlady spends a lot more time in her garden. She works hard. With my back surgery, I’m not supposed to. But I still maintain our irrigation system (drips, mostly), which sometimes involves digging. Occasionally that knocks me out of action for the evening, and maybe even the next day. If it’s hurting, I take it easy until it subsides.
I’m going to have to cut some dead branches from a couple of trees, probably this weekend. Better than digging. I just did some paver repairs a couple weeks ago. Yeah, it’s a far cry from when I trenched and installed our irrigation system by myself about 15 years ago. Getting old is not for wimps.
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You got it Toyota. Man simple stuff becomes problematical.
Yes, I find that a project which used to take me 5 hours now takes 5 days, at an hour a day.
Sometimes it’s because it tires me (probably the most common) but sometimes I just get distracted, and sometimes I sit for a brief rest which turns into a 90 minute nap and don’t feel like starting the project again.
Sometimes I’m just bored with it and will find almost anything else to do, including going to the grocery store, even though I was just there yesterday. And while I’m out, I might as well go to Home Depot and see if they have any deals on Ryobi tools or maybe vent covers.
It’s a rich and full life, but with less and less “productivity” as it is traditionally measured, and more and more different things as I like to measure them nowadays.
Or as my younger brother said when he kept working to age 67 and then quit, “Why didn’t you tell me to do this sooner?”, to which I replied “I did. You just didn’t believe me.”
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You know you’re old when you refer to “you asked for it, you got it, Toyota”. And if you know what they mean, like I do. Yeah aging sucks, but it beats the alternative!
Actually, I think you were the one who posted “your health will be good until it isn’t”. Pretty sure it was you. Burned into my brain, and I spread it around liberally to anyone who asks about retiring early.
As I recall, you have some back issues as well. Yeah, I get tired more easily. I tend to do things in little chunks…do a bit, rest, do a bit, rest. You may think I’m cogitating the issue, but I’m just delaying doing the next bit. 
But when the back starts yelling at me, I listen to it and stop. If I don’t listen to it, things get much worse.
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