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About the author
Ramsey Solutions
Ramsey Solutions has been committed to helping people regain control of their money, build wealth, grow their leadership skills, and enhance their lives through personal development since 1992. Millions of people have used our financial advice through 22 books published by Ramsey Press, as well as two syndicated radio shows and 10 podcasts, which have over 17 million weekly listeners.
Why Retire At 62
We admit it is just a number and so many people, continue to work beyond 62 years of age. However, it is significant in many ways. At 62, you become eligible to draw on your social-security benefits even though your benefits are lower than if you were to wait until the full retirement age between 66 and 67. After you are 59 and a half, you can withdraw money from your retirement saving vehicles like IRA and 401K without any penalty. However, please note that one does not qualify for Medicare until the age of 65. So, if one does decide to retire at 62, he/she would have to buy their own medical insurance for the intervening period .
Another reason 62 is a good number from a planning perspective. Even if you continue to work beyond 62, it is better to plan for early to cover any exigency.
Option : Retire Fully At Age 60
You work hard for your money and love the idea of getting to enjoy your retirement savings while you still have energy to chase your big life dreams. So, what would it take for you to step out of the workforce and into the good life at age 60?
Since youll be dipping into your retirement fund five years early, weve upped the saving ante to $2 million. In this scenario, you have five extra years to save for retirement at full speed. So it doesnt take that much more a month to go from $1 million to $2 million.
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Savings Rates: What’s Enough
While it’s good to have a dollar amount as your long-term savings goal, it’s helpful to focus on how much you should sock away each year.
Ten percent is the historical recommended savings rate. Schwab further refines that to say that if you start in your 20s, you can retire comfortably with a 10% to 15% savings rate. Here’s how a few scenarios could play out for a future retiree.
Can A Couple Retire On 2 Million Dollars

Yes, a couple can retire on two million dollars. Annuities can provide a guaranteed income for both spouses lifetimes. After researching 326 annuity products from 57 insurance companies, our data calculated that $2,000,000 would generate $95,000 annually starting immediately if both spouses were age 60, $108,900 if both spouses were age 65, and $114,400 if both spouses were age 70.
Im a licensed financial professional. Ive sold annuities and insurance for more than a decade. My former role was training financial advisors, including for a Fortune Global 500 insurance company. Ive been featured in Time Magazine, Yahoo! Finance, MSN, SmartAsset, Entrepreneur, Bloomberg, The Simple Dollar, U.S. News and World Report, and Womens Health Magazine.
My goal is to help you take the guesswork out of retirement planning or find the best insurance coverage at the cheapest rates for you.
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How Can I Save Money By Switching To Wealthsimple Invest
We charge a fraction of the fees that traditional mutual fund investors pay. Our management fee is 0.5% , plus underlying fund fees of about 0.1%. The average mutual fund investor pays 2% in fees.
Our smart technology helps keep your portfolio on track with auto-deposits, automatic rebalancing, and dividend reinvesting. And, we have a team of experienced financial advisors available to answer your questions and provide advice – whenever you need it.
Note: the total savings above, calculates the what you’d save if you were investing with Wealthsimple Invest compared to a traditional mutual fund investor. We compare the growth of your current savings between now and your retirement based on the rate of return selected. All figures are for illustrative purposes only, actual results will vary and fees among other factors are subject to change.
Can You Retire With $2 Million
$2 million is a lot of money.
But lets face it, its not as much as it was a decade ago.
So when a hopeful retiree approaches me with a nest egg worth $2 million and wants to know if theyll be able to successfully retire, there isnt a clear-cut answer as many would think.
There are many factors that go into the equation such as:
- Retirement goals
- Investment risk tolerance
- And much more
This is what makes financial planning tricky but also a ton of fun because every situation and story is unique.
The following is a sample case study of retirees who are seeking to retire with a nest egg worth $2 million. Some of the details have been changed for their protection. While this case study focuses on soon-to-be retirees, this should also be an important lesson for any Gen Xer or Gen Yer wanting to retire one day. A portfolio worth $2 million does not grow overnight.
And while it may seem impossible for some to attain, its very doable with discipline, a plan of attack and making sure that you’re not in denial about your money situation.
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Retire Comfortably By Taking Risk Down
Once youve won the game, theres no need to keep trying to amass a lot more wealth. Hit singles and stop worrying about money ever again! You can retire comfortably on only two million dollars for sure.
All you need to do is have your investments match inflation each year. With inflation running at roughly 2% a year, 2% should be your annual retirement withdrawal rate if you want to keep most of your principal.
Also, one of the great things about retirement is that you DONT need to save for retirement. A lot of people forget this important point once they retire because theyve been so used to saving money.
I saved 50% 80% of my after tax-income from 1999 2012 before I left the workplace for good. Yet, I STILL continued to save about 20% of my passive income for retirement my first couple of years out.
Now Im back to saving and investing 80% of my income because my passion project in retirement, Financial Samurai, took off. Further, I have a hard time getting myself to spend more! Saving for retirement is addicting.
I havent been employed since 2012 , live in San Francisco, and have no financial fear anymore. If hard times come, then I will simply adjust my spending accordingly or draw from savings.
Before you go ahead and negotiate a severance from that job you hate, just know there are plenty of people who make $200,000 $500,000 a year who feel like they are still scraping by!
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Both platforms are free to sign up and explore.
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Retirement Income Calculation Rules Of Thumb
When it comes to income required in retirement in Canada, there are several rules of thumb or schools of thought out there. If you are looking for a definite answer to put your mind at rest, you may be disappointed.
In fact, the one thing everyone readily agrees to is that when it comes to retirement income, it is not black and white and there is no 100% consensus.
Popular rules of thumb include:
% And 15% Savings Rates
Keeping the above assumptions about her salary and expectations, a 10% savings rate yields Beth $847,528 at age 67. Her projected needs remain the same at $1.3 million. So even at a 10% savings rate, Beth misses the amount of her preferred savings.
If Beth pumps up her savings rate to 15%, she will reach the $1.3 million amount. Adding in anticipated Social Security, her retirement will be funded.
Does this mean that individuals who dont save 15% of their income will be doomed to a sub-standard retirement? Not necessarily.
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The Multiply By 25 Rule Is Equally Imperfect
The multiply by 25 rule and the 4-percent rule are often confused with one another, but they have very different purposes. The 4-percent rule estimates how much you can withdraw without going broke. The multiply by 25 rule tells you how much you need to save based on how much you hope to spend.
The multiply by 25 rule says to multiply your desired annual income in retirement by 25. So if you want to have an annual income of $50,000 per year, you would need to have $1.25 million saved. To withdraw $60,000 per year, you need $1.5 million.
This calculation is imperfect for several reasons, chief among them that it doesnt take into account the other sources of retirement income you may get most notably, Social Security, private pensions, or income from other sources such as rental properties or part-time jobs. All of those things should be factored in before you determine how much income you need your savings to contribute.
But it also doesnt answer a much larger and looming question: How the heck is someone in their 20s or 30s supposed to know how much they will need to live 50 years in the future? How can they guess accurately what financial events lie ahead? Will they inherit money or wind up spending their own savings on caregiving for a parent? Will they have bought a home and paid it off or still be shelling out rent? Will they need to help their adult children pay off student loans?
You might as well ask the Magic 8 ball.
Start By Estimating Your Future Expenses

A 2020 survey from Schwab Retirement Plan Services found the average 401 participant thinks they’ll need $1.9 million to retire, a 12% increase from the previous year’s survey. Of course, many people in the U.S. aren’t investing enough to reach that savings goaland the income it brings.
To find out if your retirement income will be enough, you have to start by estimating your retirement expenses.
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Responses To Do You Really Need $1 Million To Retire Well Of Course You Do
There is no such thing as feeling entirely secure financially. The paradox is the more you gain, the more you desire. Having more money relieves you of some stresses, but adds others. Keeping the money is almost more burdensome than getting it. Its absurd to say one cannot be comfortable with 1M. It depends on the lifestyle you embrace. Some people live lavishing, some more moderate. Greed factors in, envy as well. Are you psychologically well, or a total neurotic? No one here admits such important things. Do you have vices, which no one here would ever reveal, or lifestyle dysfunctions? This all matters whether 1M is your golden parachute.
Good points Paul, including keeping the money is also as burdensome as earning it and saving it in the first place. There is likely stress in that but Im not there yet so I dont know. I probably have a number of lifestyle dysfunctions does owning a 17-year-old car count? Im trying to run in into the ground but its been a big enabler to increasing our savings rate in recent years.
My husband and I are 62, we have been in and out of job. We recently sold our very beautiful home and after buying our new home out right I think we will have 1 M left for retirement. A little concerned how this will work out.
Hi Toby,
Depending upon your spending patterns and lifestyle objective $1M is still a great pile of money including what youll earn from CPP and OAS.
Can I Retire Early
Have you ever wanted to retire early after a rough week at work? Weve been there.
When you spend 40-plus hours a week at a J-O-B, its easy to feel like your life will never be yours. But you dont have to wait until you reach 65 to reclaim your days.
So, can you retire early? With a little hard work and sacrifice, your dream of retiring to the beach could be within your reach. Start now and, before you know it, you could be sitting by the shore!
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Where Youll Want To Live
Dont just consider your geographic location. When youre ready to retire, youll need to think about whats around you. Will you live in a retirement community or a house boat in the middle of nowhere? Do you have family nearby? Will you need a car or can you survive by walking and biking? These things can all impact the dollar amount youll need to have stashed. A retirement community, for instance, can set you back almost $3,000 a month.
They Have $12 Million And No Pensions Can They Retire Summary
Karla and Toby have significant assets to spend in retirement, but they would need to analyze how much they will spend on a year-over-year basis to confirm if $1.2 million saved is enough. But here is the punchline for everyone:
For any couple in their mid-50s that just intends to spend $40k-$50k per year on average from their portfolio, we can see from above this $1.2 million nest egg is enough to retire on almost regardless of the stock market returns they might face.
For a couple like Karla and Toby that might aspire to spend about $70,000 per year from this amount, they will face some retirement risk depending on actual investment returns.
To make any retirement plan a great plan, including yours, I suggest you really get into the details about what you intend to spend per year, be adaptable with that spending plan if faced with below average investment returns, and try to reduce your investment costs as much as possible. If you do those three things plus build-in some contingency money for emergencies, I think youll be well on your way to retirement success.
I hope to come back to Marks again for more case studies!
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The Tricky Business Of Prediction
As you can see, there are many factors that go into prediction. Predicting the most plausible performance of a portfolio is no easy task. In fact, it’s tricky business. Thankfully, there are a number of tools available that can help financial advisors give the best possible advice to their clients. But the problem is that many of these tools are underused and the right questions usually aren’t being asked.
Consider this, too: Just because a certain investment performed a certain way for a certain number of years, that doesn’t mean the investment will perform similarly in the future. Past performance is not directly correlated to future performance.
It can be easy for clients not to mention financial advisors to forget this and make assumptions without considering all the possible consequences of a particular action. That’s why when I sit down with clients I remind them that even though there may be a high degree of certainty of this or that outcome, there is still a possibility that a different outcome may come to pass.
While there’s no way to predict the future with 100% accuracy, one may become better at prediction by considering all of the known factors such as planned vacation time, major purchases, and more.
$1 Million Is The Oft
The theory behind that goes something like this: A $1 million nest egg can generate around $40,000 per year in inflation-adjusted income. That combined with the typical retiree’s Social Security payment of $1,360 per month brings that retiree’s income to around $56,320 per year, which is right around the median household income. With that median income comes the ability to live a typical middle-class lifestyle.
While that theory might seem reasonable on paper, in practice, it leaves a lot to be desired.
For one thing, the typical net worth of a household approaching retirement is only around $174,000, well below that $1 million level, yet we don’t hear of massive hordes of starving American retirees.
For another, retirees can structure their lives to keep their spending below that of most working folks without taking a noticeable hit to their lifestyles.
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