My dream has been to retire once my nest egg hit $5 million, but I love my job – should I just keep working?

Once you have $5 million, should you retire since you have enough money or should you keep working? This is a question that a Reddit user recently asked.

The Redditor has $2 million already at age 48 and his retirement goal is $5 million. He’s working full-time and earning around $400K per year but he said he likes his job and isn’t sure that he’s actually looking forward to giving up work.

So, should he plan to quit when he reaches his goal?

Reaching your desired nest egg doesn’t mean you have to quit work

While some people can’t wait to quit as soon as they have enough saved to support themselves at a safe withdrawal rate, many other people find genuine fulfillment in their work and don’t necessarily want to retire early — or even retire at all.  In fact, there are many billionaires like Warren Buffett who have kept working well beyond the age and net worth when they could have easily given up their jobs. 

If you like your job, there is no reason that you should stop doing it just because you hit a certain birthday or because you have a specific bank account balance. In fact, you could find you become bored and depressed if you do leave, so retirement might make your life worse. That’s definitely not the goal for anyone.

The key is to make sure you are continuing to work for the right reasons, though. It’s one thing to stay on the job because you love it, but it’s completely different if you’re forcing yourself to stay at a position you don’t like out of misplaced financial fear or a desire to keep up with the Joneses and avoid giving up your impressive title.

You’ll also want to make sure your family is on board. If you and a spouse had been working toward early retirement together and you decide you don’t want to leave after all, you’ll need to have some tough conversations to make sure you’re both happy with your choice.

Achieving financial independence is worth it even if you don’t plan to retire

It’s also worth noting that, even if you don’t have the desire to quit work at a young age, you can still set a goal of being financially independent as soon as possible. In other words, it may be worth trying to ensure you have the money to retire even if you plan to keep working.

Having enough money invested to support yourself can take away a ton of the stress from your life. The reality is that even if you love your job and want to do it forever, things could happen that make that impossible. Your company could go under and opportunities could dry up in your industry, for example, or you or a loved one could develop a health issue that makes working difficult.

If you are in a financial position to quit, you can choose to keep working because you love your job but will also have the peace of mind of knowing your bills are covered no matter what. That’s a great position to be in.

A financial advisor can help you to make a plan for getting to that point, and can also help you to develop a realistic retirement goal given your finances and your feelings about your work so you can make the choice that’s best for you.