re: Another “can I retire comfortably” question

Why not ask someone who does this for a living?

Even better, why not ask a few of them?

I can’t imagine planning to retire at 53 without getting a handful of professional opinions on the topic. You have 8 years to plan appropriately for things like health insurance and tax mitigation and you’re planning to stay retired for 30-40 years - paying someone to structure a proper plan is worth it, starting now.

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Makes for good message board fodder.

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Yeah I get that, which I appreciate, but every one of his posts in this thread read like a D-I-Yer who plans to go it alone.

That’s fine for some people, but many, many people don’t know what they don’t know.

Asset location, tax mitigation, etc are huge when talking about a 30-40 year drawdown, yet the OP plans to just eat the early withdrawal penalty? The early withdrawal penalty shouldn’t even come into play with proper planning over the next 8 years.

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But, I don’t think we have a good basis of facts to make a clean assessment.

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We’re missing a lot.

Cars are paid off, cool, but is he keeping them for 45 years?

How did you get $3m in 401k at 45?

Roughly $20k year for 25

You must have got some homeruns

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It's very doable but how will you get by between age 53 and 59.5 without taking penalties on your 401k withdrawal?

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Can be avoided with possible Roth conversions, a 72T, or saving properly in taxable accounts.

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Now under Biden and me being required to take RMD’s we’re down 10% but neither of us making contributions.

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Has a lot more to do with your likely bond allocation in the lowest rate environment in history and a lot less to do with Biden.

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They have access to multiple account. I know people who do a like 3 different account to get up to around 90k per year put away. It never made sense to me that depending on the type of entity you work for, the amount you can put away for retirement can very 4 fold.

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If I'm not mistaken, a company can profit share into someone's 401k. You just can't go over the $67,500 amount for total contributions. So $22,500 for employee and $45,000 from employer.

I thought the most you could put away, Pre-tax, was $67,500 this year. My wife is in a similar boat. She's a higher education teacher. She has pension, 403b, and a 457.

$90,000 seems really high.

$3MM in a 401k is impressive at 45 or 53, for an individual.

Having said that, you can consider “retiring” at 53 but working part time or consulting until you’re 59 1/2 to avoid the early withdrawal penalty. It seems you are a good planner and will have enough to still have fun in your 50s.

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How do people get these sums in 401K when there is a max of ~$23K a year?

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When I switched jobs, my 401K seeded a Rollover IRA where I could invest in whatever funds I wanted. If I was forced to stay within a 401K with non-leveraged funds then I wouldn't have near as much as I have now.

TLDR:
1) Save as much and as early as possible in your 401K
2) Quit your job and relocate the money where you have real control over stock selection
3) Profit

It’s really hard to say without knowing average monthly expenses

In general, I’d say take your annual expenses including taxes, and health costs, and multiply x 25. At 53, that multiple is too low so I’d say 35.

If the result is less than the amount you have saved then you “can” do it but best to be conservative with these things