Personal Finance

We're in our 50s with $8 million in our portfolio - can we live exclusively off investment income before tapping our 401(k) and Social Security?

Rich Duprey

Published: November 7, 2024 11:15 am

Some people got the memo early about the importance of living below their means while scrupulously saving and investing for retirement. It all just seems to come naturally. They lived a lifetime of being properly careful with their spending, invested aggressively for their future, and expertly planned for retirement. Now they are ready to fully enjoy their golden years with little financial worry.

That’s the category Redditor Carnut68 falls into. On the r/ChubbyFIRE subreddit, a Reddit board dedicated to financial independence and early retirement while still enjoying the good things in life. He’s what you call an overachiever.

He and his wife are 56 years old, have a household income of around $400,000 annually, and have zero debt. Their upscale home and vacation home are paid off and they have just one kid left in college who will graduate in a year. Decades of saving and investing resulted in a retirement portfolio worth $8 million.

Because they live a frugal lifestyle, they could probably have retired years ago and not even come near exceeding a safe withdrawal rate from their savings, let alone risk running over budget. While they are planning to retire in the spring, they are truly burnt out on the 9-5 grind. They’ve thought about going into work the next day and turning in their retirement papers, but have relatively inconsequential reasons for not doing so.

Carnut68 says “the last mile is tough,” but wants to know if he is dumb for trying to squeeze out the last bit of juice from the lemon.

24/7 Wall St. Insights:

• Many fail to understand the importance of living below their means, saving and investing for the future, and planning for life in retirement. Some, though, execute the strategy perfectly.
• If you have achieved all your retirement goals — and then greatly exceeded them — at some point you need to know when to quit.
• Running up the scoreboard and padding your lead even further when there is little or nothing left to achieve only puts you at risk of not being able to fully enjoy the fruits of your labor.
• Also: Are You On Track to Retire? Take This Quiz and Find Out ^(Sponsored) 

When all goes according to plan

That’s the sort of esoteric question you can ask when you’ve lived a life of doing it right. By having a goal, committing to it, and then following through, you can look forward to a life of leisure and comfort. It is something we all ought to aspire to. 

And if you’re young enough, you can achieve it somewhat effortlessly by following those same steps of living below your means, saving and investing in the stock market, and ensuring you won’t have financial worries at the end of the race.

As the Redditor admits, he probably could have dropped out of the grind “several miles ago.” So, is he dumb for still going?

In a word, yes.

Knowing when enough is enough

The average person needs less than $2 million saved to maintain their lifestyle in retirement, assuming withdrawal rates that don’t exceed safe withdrawal percentage rates (typically around 3% of total savings). 

The Redditor has that amount several over times and is careful with his spending so that his annual expenses in retirement for essentials will be less than the amount \the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has caclualted will be need. The agency’s Consumer Expenditures Survey estimates average annual costs for basics to be $77,280, and Carnut68 forecasts his will be just $60,000 a year.

He and his wife are unlikely to ever drawdown their savings and investments to a dangerously low level, even accounting for discretionary expenses, like travel, vacations, eating out, etc. His reasons for staying at his job don’t hold much water.

The Redditor is a salesman who wants to close out some contracts he has been working on. He doesn’t want his replacement to come in and make some easy commissions on the work he did. His wife wants to properly train her replacement at her job.

But you need to think about your health as there is no knowing what could come tomorrow, let alone by springtime. When you’ve reach your goal and then exceeded it — and then exceeded it again — it is time for self-reflection. It is time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

You worked a lifetime to make it to the finish line. Once you’ve crossed over there is little need to keep on running. Knowing when to quit is just as important as knowing when to start. For the Redditor, he should go into work one last time just to say goodbye to everyone.