It’s a curious trait of human behavior, we sell our time and our health for money, and once we have it, we do all we can to avoid spending that money, even beyond the time of our deaths. And numerous studies have shown that the more money we have, the less likely we are to spend, share, or use it. Greed can make us do silly things.
One person online has a very strong retirement plan, with more money than most people will ever see in their entire lives at $4 million, but they were wondering if it’s enough, and how they can avoid touching that money before and after retirement. They took their questions to the r/fatFIRE community — a group of people obsessed with retiring early with massive amounts of money. Here is what they said.
Please remember, that everything you read online, including this article and the comments in the original thread, are opinions. You should always speak with an expert before making any drastic financial decisions.
The Question
Going through family finances.
The author of the post says that he and his wife are planning to retire in about 8–10 years. He is a retired military veteran and received $4,000 per month for disability which goes directly into investments, along with pay from both of their jobs.
He anticipates receiving around $7,000–$8,000 per month from their pensions after retirement which means they won’t have to touch their significant investments of $3 million to $4 million.
He asks the community if there are any other military vets in the same situation (for some reason), and wants to know if there are others who have multiple streams of investments coming in during retirement.
The Community Response
Retirement finances.
Most of the responses to the author were congratulatory, since he didn’t really have a question that needed an answer. Some of the responders say that he has plenty of money to respond, and other said that a retirement fund of at least $10 million is the “sweet spot”, though how they come to this number and why it’s ideal remains a mystery.
In the end, the consensus was that, especially on a military salary, the author has more than enough money to retire already, and with two additional streams of income in the form of pensions helping to make that amount stretch longer, they will probably never be able to spend it all (reasonably) through the entire retirement timeframe.
The urge to humble-brag about our financial situation, if we are doing well, is omnipresent, and we often cloak our boasts in the guise of questions or confusion. But there is a simple way to calculate how much money you need for retirement: calculate your annual spend, and multiply that by how many years you plan on being retired. The final sum is what your retirement goal should be.
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