re: Retiring at 50 with $2MM in savings

I listened to Big_Money_Mo for financial advice. He made me a killing by suggesting oil stocks

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Did she address healthcare? Any retirement prior to Medicare needs to take this into account.

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subsidized ACA plans can be cheap as hell

With that income level, you will not qualify for subsidized ACA

I'm an extreme DIYer. I've been retired almost 2 years. I switched most of my "growth" portfolio to an "income" portfolio. I follow Jason Kelly's "Income Sig" plan. My assets have grown 57% over the past two years while I have withdrawn significantly more than 4% a year. His plan uses some of the same concepts, but in a different framework. It is an aggressive income plan and carries the risk of your assets losing significant value. Most people are unable or unwilling to do this. I am able to do it because my risk tolerance is high, my assets are large, and I have contingency plans if things were to go poorly.

There are two "buckets" in his plan. One is the Generator and the other is the Reserve. The Generator does exactly that. It generates income. It is a portfolio of three funds that you rote rebalance every quarter. Any dividends generated from these funds go into the Reserve. The Reserve is where you draw your income. It buffers risk, so it's in your best interest to have enough in the Reserve to handle downturned markets. The Reserve is also three funds that you rote rebalance every quarter.

There is a mechanism in the Generator where if the stock fund overperforms (via Value Cost Averaging), you are able to "skim" additional cash from the Generator to the Reserve. I have mentioned this before, but this "skim" in 2025 was significant (enough to buy multiple cars and pay for private school tuition in cash). In 2026, the extreme growth we've seen since end of 1Q2026 is projected to be a huge skim (even larger than those of 2025).

Before this model was put into place, it modeled to provide 18.5% of income per initial amount invested. To take a more conservative approach, guidance is to plan on 9% per initial amount invested. So, $1M = $90K per year of income. Almost half of that is through dividends and the other half is through "skim".

In short, my assets have almost doubled since retirement with my withdrawing over twice my "working" income over the last two years. Of course, everything is easy when it's working. The rote rebalancing after having terrific years provides a hedge against a poor market in the sense that assets in stock funds are moved to less volatile funds.

I agree with a lot of what Erin said in regards to people needing to think dynamically about how much they withdraw and when they withdraw it. I have always been a "fluid thinker" when it comes to money, but I find many intelligent people I know have no interest in managing their own money which is why FAs earn such a great living. I'd rather spend my money on me and mine and I wish more people took an active interest in finance.

Planning on getting to 5 million by 60

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Retiring at 50 with $2MM in savings

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does this assume your kids are already done with college

The middle bucket is producing incoming that replenishes the first

The video explains the concepts if you watch it all the way through

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Do yall pay for your kids to go to college? I paid for it myself.

Not being a smartass. Genuinely curious. My wife and I were arguing about this the other day. She wants to plan for spending a mountain of money on kids college, and I dont want to plan to spend hardly any on it.

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It is good for you guys to argue over it now as opposed to then. Whatever way you decide, speaking as someone who has a college freshmen and HS senior, the process is a nightmare (unless your child had a in state lock they are interested in which is a dream lol).

I paid my own way but the wife and I agreed years ago when we moved to MS that it was likely the kids would go out of state and as part of the calculus of the move we factored in that we woudl pay for their eduction out of state.

Philosophically I can see it both ways in terms of paying or not and it is really a family specific decision.

If you have the money, then go for it.

My wife and I decided that we would assist our children, if they needed help. We have 4 children, and 3 of them are triplets, so paying for the last three at the same time would have meant risking our retirement, and we decided that we would not do that.

When our children needed help, here and there, we gave it to them. Both my wife and I had jobs while we were in college and we told our kids that they would need to contribute as much as they could, as well. It worked out well for us, and they all have their degrees that are useful.

They say that the best present you can give your children is not to pay for their college, but to not be a financial burden to them in your last years. I tend to agree with that.