hypothetically
tell me how much money you’d like to have to your name if you were to retire at:
60 vs 55 vs 50
im shooting for 50 right now and have some numbers in mind. curious to see what other people’s perceptions are on this, especially horse people as we have an expensive hobby. i plan to continue riding/showing into retirement . east coast if it matters
What’s your healthcare situation at all those ages? IE, will you have a spouse working that you can get insurance through?
I think there are too many variables to really give you an answer - health insurance, if you don’t have a spouse/SO to cover you, will eat up a lot of your money. And where you live and how expensive your lifestyle is (showing isn’t cheap!). I’m hoping to pull the trigger this year but even though I am where my financial planner told me I needed to be, I may delay for a few years as everything is very expensive right now. I have 1 horse and don’t show so ? not that applicable to your situation.
Best advice is to get a good planner who is a fiduciary. Get a budget in place that is covered by about 80% of your current take home and stick to it before you quit. Worse case, you’d have to go back to work but maybe not doing what you do now (less stress maybe).
trust me, I know there are wide variables on all of these and I do have a financial advisor who I will be discussing these things with 
I was just curious from a horse care perspective what people‘s thoughts would be!
Most of the people I know that can and want to retire earlier, seem to still be delaying just to play things safe.
Oh, I’ll play! (I basically spend about one third of my work life dreaming of retiring). I would be comfortable retiring at 50 with $10M in investments. At a 4% return, that gives you an annual ‘salary’ of $400,000- about $275,00 after taxes (gross estimations).
I have a horse in full care in a mid-cost of living area and we show at A/AA shows once to twice a month. I spend between $80,000 to 100,000 annually on him (God that is terrifying to see in print). That would leave around $175,00 for other costs after that, which would accommodate my non horsey life (bills, mortage, car, etc) with a cushion. I agree with other posters that health care/ insurance could be a large expense which I have not researched and could definitely affect the calculus. I also don’t live in New York or California or another expensive place, so that would likely change the calculation as well.
As an aside, there are ongoing debates in the financial community as to whether that 4% withdrawal rate is still feasible and that perhaps 3% is more reasonable which would change this whole answer.
I also agree that while I dream of retiring, actually doing it would be terrifying due to financial/ market concerns.
This! This is where I am. My real dream is to find a small farmette to keep my horse(s) at home (assuming I need a companion or 2 for this horse). I could if I would agree to keep working for like 10 years but I’m not. I hate my job (but love the paycheck).
Be prepared for sticker shock if you have to pay for your own health insurance.
Hubby and I get no ACA subsidies due to our investment income. So we have to pay “sticker price” for health insurance, which at our age (59-60) is about $1,800 per month per person for a good plan.
I know healthcare will be a large percentage Of cost until I get to Medicare age from retirement age 50 until I can draw on Medicare for healthcare
Yes, numbers is what I was looking for!
Like 10 million, 15 million etc
Im Almost 36 and this is a big dream of mine! Thankfully, it seems to be very doable
May as well keep working. 
I retired at 55. The question of how much money I had saved was really not a consideration for me at the time, but I had calculated I’d need $3 million. This was in 1995 dollars.
I am probably one of the last of the generations
who spent a career with the same employer, back when defined benefit plans were common. With that pension and social security I have yet to draw anything from my retirement savings other than the mandatory age-required IRA withdrawals.
If were looking to retire today as 55 year old with no employer pension, I’d need $6.25 million saved to fund my same horse farm lifestyle.
In hindsight, I have already lived far longer than I would have planned for, and would be really worried today about outliving my savings.
Yeah. What I found was that at a certain age, I said, “When I have $X, that’s enough to retire early.” Then, when I had $X, I thought, “But what if $X isn’t enough? I should have $X+.” Then, when I had $X+, I thought, “Yeah, but look at the economy. Look at inflation. I’m afraid $X+ won’t be enough, maybe I need $X++.”
At 50 I would want 8x my annual salary in a retirement vehicle (401K, IRA, whatever).
At 60 - 10x my annual salary.
Gross - not net.
Thankfully if you’re accustomed to a small net paycheck while employed and can swing your lifestyle, you’ll be better prepared when you retire or your RMD kicks in.
I grow weary of my net being less than 50%. Those online retirement calculators that breathlessly tell people to live on 70% is a pay rise for me. May I be able to experience it for myself. Even for a month or two!
This is exactly where we are at. DH and I both have planned to retire early and are in pretty good shape at 41 and 47 years old, but I’m guessing will probably continue to work longer than we want provided we still have jobs that haven’t offshored our roles or handed them over to AI.
I am hoping to retire at 50 and had been thinking $5M but your post has me thinking I need to double it! Although I don’t plan to fully retire - just retire from corporate/high stress job life and take more part time or low stress work that pays some bills (like health insurance). I also expect to keep riding and showing but likely much downgraded from what I do today (no full training, more local one day shows, etc.). I guess if I kept working longer I could save more money to keep the $$ horsey lifestyle - I’ll have to see when I get closer!
I am also single and no kids and I don’t care about leaving an estate or creating generational wealth so I want to plan to spend down my money - when my finance guy at the last estimate told me how much I’d have at 99 I thought to myself no way gotta spend that!!
(I recognize how fortunate I am to be in this position.)
i’m in exactly your position!l as far as the second to last paragraph except married and no kids just tons of animals ! my guy told me the same thing and i thought the same way lol
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