Personal Finance

I'm 53 and officially hit $10m in net worth - is it finally time to retire and focus on family and health?

Aaron Webber

Published: December 10, 2024 9:30 am

Key points

• You can always stop working a desk job and focus on your family whenever you want.
• Your years are the most valuable resource you have.
• Also: Is your 401(k) optimized for your retirement plans? (Sponsored)

Should you always wait until retirement age to actually retire and spend time with your family? How much money is enough money for the rest of your life? Is it too late to actually enjoy what time and money you have left?

Questions like these are common for people who have wasted their lives chasing money and status in the rat race. If you’ve managed to hoard a vast amount of wealth and find yourself asking these kinds of questions, you’re not alone. One particular rich person went to the subreddit r/fatFIRE, a community focused on financial independence and early retirement, in search of answers.

The Question

The author of the post says they have a net worth of around $10 million, of which around $8.75 million is liquid and available for use. This money is spread between real estate, a handful of investment accounts, HSAs, and more. They are married and 53 years old and have children. Their wife also works a freelance job.

He has been thinking about quitting at the end of the year and devoting the rest of this time to “fitness, reading, friends and family, and hobbies.” He asked the fatFIRE community what they thought about his plan and if they thought it was financially sound for him to quit.

The Community Response

Thankfully there were a few people in the comment section of the post who had some common sense. The overwhelming majority of comments shared some version of the opinion that it was well past time for him to retire.

Some of the most popular comments included, “Greatest asset you have right now is your years, not your money”, “Move on!”, “Good grief yes retire now”, and “Do it”.

Some commenters offered advice on making a slow transition or maintaining a side job or part-time employment so they don’t get too bored during retirement, but thankfully nobody tried to dissuade him from retirement.

Too often we lose ourselves in our work and forget why we are working in the first place. It’s far too easy to assign value to money for its own sake, sacrificing time, health, and family just to get more. And then, when we’re old and the corporate machine throws us out onto the street, we realize that our family is long gone and the whole reason we were working in the first place has left us behind.

It’s a relief that this person is at least reserving a little time near the end for his family, and we can only hope more people begin to realize that your job doesn’t care about you and if you want to live the life you want, you have to seize it for yourself.