Is a million enough anymore to retire
 

No real estate so need to pay mortgage.

Let's say this person is not yet 65.

Not enough without other pensions. Assuming only that and Social Security. It all of course depends on how you spend and want to live.

Not yet 65? Is that 64 or 55?

It all depends on their expenses and their income and their life expectancy. Are they getting social security? Are they getting medical expenses paid? That is huge!

And it depends on the pension. Some government pensions pay 80% or more of your final salary. And final salary may be way above base salary as many employees work vast amounts of overtime the last few years to increase their pension.

Please note that the Dow had a high in December of 45,155 and is currently at 37,425.

That is a drop of 7,730 points and a percentage drop of 17.12%.

Gold is up $357.60 per ounce, or roughly 13.5%, from January 1 to April 8, 2025.

So if you retired with a million at the end of the year and you were 100% invested in the Dow, you would have about $830,000 left.

If you were all cash, you would still have the million.

And if you had 100% gold, you would be up about $135,000.

If you die in the next five years, you should be ok. If you live until 2050, probably not.

I would work more and try to do away with the mortgage before retiring.

This is a question that is impossible to answer.

Yes, there is so much to consider. It's not a one size fits all I guess.

Thanks everyone

If you are willing/able to live on $40,000/year plus whatever you get from Social Security, then yes, $1M is more than enough to retire on. Not necessarily here in TV, but certainly somewhere.

No Real estate, so my guess is with National park pass, and a good tent one could travel the world until their dirt nap. Still have plenty of that million, to give to multiple charities.

Wife and I have no mortgage and have $5500 coming in from SS and a small pension Fixed expenses are about 2K a month. Leaves $4600 a month. 1 million in bank could get about 4% or 3300 a month and no reduction in principal. Yes this is do able

There are two sides to everyone's balance sheet. Knowing what your assets are is not enough information to answer your question. What are your liabilities, and how will inflation impact your liabilities in the future? A spreadsheet might be helpful.

The biggest determinate in retirement financial planning is the cost of your expected lifestyle. The more expensive your lifestyle, the more assets you need. The biggest obstacle to accurate spending is health care insurance cost and actual healthcare spending. . Like wise, the other determinate is are you living on dividends and interest only, or are you withdrawing principal for the difference.

So ball park figures:

Starting at full retirement age, with a 3% inflation rate per year of the expenses, assets which gives off 3% in tax free dividends, and 5% growth per year,

From a taxable account, not an IRA, and does not draw down on the principal, for every 25,000 of life style costs over and above Social Security income, you will need about $850,000 in assets.

OR

From a taxable account, not an IRA, and does draw down on the principal, for every 25,000 of life style costs over and above Social Security income, you will need about 300,000 in assets, which will disappear at age 86

So pick your incremental costs over social security, and save for your retirement. The same amount in a Roth will do. As far as an IRA account goes, then it's a more complicated model with taxes, penalties, and increasing distributions.

just a generalized starting point, not knowing your social security income levels. .

good luck

How much R U spending??

bingo

Unless the Fed quits printing fiat money, the old million dollar cushion is closer to $2 million.
The inflation reduction $trillions printing reduced my purchasing power by $100k almost overnight.
Milton Friedman maintained that inflation was caused by excess Fed money printing. It is a cowardly political tax that congress is not accountable for.

Something else to consider, as houses appreciate we become more of a renter as property taxes and insurance sky rocket!

Unless the Federal Reserve is dismantled and we return to the gold standard, this will never end. I don't think even Trump could get that done in 4 years and no other politician will have the balls to try.

$1M to live on? Not even close to live comfortably. If you want to live like a hermit, watch every dime you spend, and hope there is no recession (there always is and can last a couple of years), then yes, you could get by.

None of the posts above included medical expenses, new cars, large car repairs bills, vacations, hospices expenses, home repairs, maybe redecorating/furniture expenses, etc.

No lose of principal? If you know what you are doing, yes, but 99% of the people don’t. Right now, the majority of the people have to sell some of their portfolio while the market is down, this is the worst scenario that can happen because when the market recovers, you have less in the market to get you back to where you were. Never allow this to occur. There are easy ways to not allow this to happen but most don’t do them.

Another thing to consider: how much are you making each year? Somebody said above you get 4% from your bank. Today yes, but normally you will get < 1%. Even at 4%, you are still losing money to inflation. You were getting 4% when inflation 2 years ago was triple that rate. You will never MAKE money when earning less than the inflation rate. But let’s say you are making 4% and inflation is 2% and you pull out the standard 4% each year to live on, your principal is already down 2%. And this is the best scenario.

If you base your portfolio on a the normal growth rate per year, then you better have have your portfolio setup so you never pull from it during a downturn in the market or you live long enough for the market to recover. For example, the average loss during the 2097/2008 crisis was around 40%. So take your $1M portfolio and decrease it by $400,000, now you have $600,000. If you take your 4% out per year, it’s now $24k you take out, not $40k because your base dropped. So do this for the average of 18-24 months that a recession can last, and your portfolio is now $550,000. Then if you needed any type of large expenses during these 2 years, your portfolio could be down to $500,000. Now, how long will it take you to get back to $1M so you can pull out the $40k you need to live on? You need the market to double to get you back to were you were years ago.

This scenario is more realistic than anything else stated above. I don’t go by averages, I go by what if scenarios. I never pull a dime out of my holding when the market is down like this, and actually, I have available $$$ to get in when the market is down.

How do the majority of workers who have hardly any savings and only social security ever retire? They also have no civil service pension or military pension.

Yes, you can retire with one Million in savings/investments but do you want to live on a tight budget in a Historic District Mobile Home?

Very poorly. One million is not enough to live a comfortable life style without worrying about running out of money

Depends on the lifestyle
 

I know a guy that was forced into a disability/retirement at age 49 (late 2009). They had roughly $400K saved in investments. Moved to NC for lower taxes and cheaper home. After the move they were mortgage free in early 2010 and broke the $1 million mark briefly in 2022. They now go on at least one, month long vacation per year plus a month in The Villages. (I'm jealous) The mortgage is what could bite back depending on the amount. Be careful, do your math and good luck. Enjoy retirement, especially if you are healthy!

As others have stated, the answer depends on your other sources of income and your expenses -- including healthcare.

Not that I recommend taking the advice of just anyone one YouTube, but the guys are Root Financial have good advice and for a small one-time fee, you can get lifetime access to the RightCapital retirement planning tool.

You can enter your financial details into RightCapital and it will give you ***some*** idea of what to expect from your retirement savings.

Search "Root Financial" on YouTube. Both James Canole and Ari Taublieb have great videos and offer access to RightCapital using the link in their video descriptions. Before paying any money, watch some of their videos on how to use the platform to see if it's something you're comfortable with.

If you have no debt and can cover your medical expenses within a reasonable monthly budget related to your current income absolutely yes. I am not sure who these folks are on here but a million dollar savings is top 5% of savers in the United States regardless of age. The one killer to any savings plan is long term healthcare need or assisted living requirements. Working away healthy years in defense of the unknown is truly what you need to weigh. Good Luck in your individual decision.

There are places in the US that can be cheap to live in that are nice in their own way. If you were debt free (no mortgage, etc.), healthy with no family history of illnesses, planned on living a simple lifestyle, maybe.... I'm over 65 so I have Medicare, but my wife is under 65 and her crappy insurance via ACA is $1000/mo. If you both need insurance, that's $2k/mo assuming you never get sick, injured, or need meds. With $1M, if you follow the 4% rule, you can take $40,000/yr and of that, $24k/yr is going to health insurance, leaving you $16k to live off (food, gas, cars, homeowner insurance, etc.) plus whatever you get from Social Security. HOWEVER, you aren't at full retirement age so your SS payments will take a hit. You still have a mortgage, so, IMO the writing is on the wall, and you need to keep working, pay off debt, SAVE and not waste money, until you're both at least 65. Ideally, pay off the mortgage unless you plan on selling the house and downsizing or otherwise moving into housing that can be paid off with the equity in your current house. Most banks offer you free retirement planning, as well as other investment PROFESSIONALs, so use it.

Wife and I received $5500 a month in SS and have no mortgage. If we spread out the 1 mil over 30 years it would give us 30K a year and that does not include interest. 96K a year will pay for a lot more than the Historic District.

Don't forget to include inflation in your calculation. $30k in 30 years will only be worth $12k assuming 3% average inflation.

Comfortably??............depends.......

$75,000/yr pension, plus $30k SS, plus $1mil savings = Comfortably.

Prices double about every 10-15 years. SSI only goes up 3% or so per year. Large unexpected unbudgeted expenses happen to everyone, notably medical, but other things too. Those can kill your savings.

Its easy math to add SSI to assumed draw on a $1M nest egg, and say hey I can live fine on that. But it won't necessarily work out that way.

And the calculations don't include taxes.

Don't eat out much. No vacations. Groceries from Aldi instead of Publix, and rice/beans instead of steak. Inexpensive housing, shared if necessary.

It can be done, since most people have to do it. The Villages is not the real world.

I don’t care what others do, what they have in pensions, SS, expenses, all I care about is to be in a financial free state which means:
“having enough income, savings, and investments to cover your expenses and live comfortably without relying on a traditional job or feeling financially stressed“, and IMO, that requires a lot more than $1M, more like $3M or more.
If you get into your 60’s or later, you want to enjoy life, do the things that you couldn’t do while you were working. I have friends that go on 20 cruises a year, something they couldn’t do when they worked. I like a brand new car every 2 years. Remember we also pay $10-$15k a year on house expenses like real estate taxes, bond payments, home insurance, car insurance, umbrella insurance, new roof every 15 years for $20k, and everything else we need, not want. The wants can even cost more: a few cruises, a couple other week long trips, plane tickets, and now you are spending $25-$30k a year.
Also remember, if you only have $3M in investments and it was 2007/2008 being retired, now your portfolio is $1.8M and a 4% withdrawal is less than $80k a year.

IMHO a couple over 65 needs $3-5M in investible assets in order to live a relatively worry-free upper middle class comfortable retirement. If one's SS is on the high side, $2500+/mo and one has a good solid pension $3M should easily work, otherwise $5M would be safer. Under these conditions the money needs to be sensibly invested and capital not invaded for extravagant living expenses.

My brother has in-laws who literally have no savings whatsoever except a hoard of gold acquired over many years and some collectible guns. They have lived high on the hog, large primary and vacation homes, a motorhome, a boat and so on but they have very solid pension income of $200,000 per year.

If we had a million in savings, we would have been able to afford a site-built home between Spanish Springs and Sumter Landing, which was our preference. We could've bought the house for under $400k, furnished it, got all new appliances, replaced the roof -

and then use the leftover $600k combined with our social security to not only pay our monthly expenses, but afford a trip every year to some place or another.

We have a MODEST pension, and two modest social security checks between the two of us. We had no savings to speak of because we had to blow through our investments trying to sell our house up north and had very little left. We live in the Historic Section and other than the yearly trips (which I really really miss doing) we do just fine.

You can live in the Historic Section, in an updated good-condition double-wide, for under $60k/year, paying your expected bills and having enough left over for dining out and buying drinks at the square every week.

The answer is 'yes'. Millions of people do it. It's a matter of living within your means.

You can start taking your Social Security checks when you're 62. You get less per month, but you'll get it for three additional years.

Not here in FL. When property taxes and HOA fees and Bonds and Fire district reach over $9000/year. When we retire chances are we are headed to hills of Alabama or another low property tax state. Same house in the hills of Alabama would cost us $1500/year in property taxes.

No HOA fee in the Villages. Amenity fee (similar but not the same) is about $2,400 per year. Annual tax bill (property, school, bond, fire) is about $5,000 though of course this depends on the size of the home and the bond.

Total can be less than $7,000 but can probably reach $9,000 in some areas.

Location, location, location. Same house in the hills of Alabama would be in Alabama. Same house without the HOA fee (amenity fee in our case) would not have the pools, pickleball courts, golf courses, or rec centers that we have here.

Is $1M enough to retire on? As others have written, it depends on what you want to spend. Another thread asked whether someone could live on SS alone - many answered that you could not. If SS is $2,500/month then for two people that would be $60K/year. At $60K/year, $1M would last about 16 years. I hope to live longer than that.

Much less
 

As of March 1st I had $250,000 in retirement/investments. I We have lived in the villages for 20 years and live in a small ranch purchased for $164,000 in 2005, now worth about $300,000. Other than annual trip up north to visit children/grandchildren and a mini trip on our wedding anniversary, that’s it for travel. Still have $750.00 mortgage and $350.00 car payment. We both worked part time 2 or 3 days a week until this year. I am 80 and wife 78. Income per month is $6000.00 from social security, v a disability, pension, and minimum withdrawal from retirement. Eat out once a week and stop for a drink once in a while. Everyone has a different story but I do chuckle at the million dollar figure.

Thank you for your service.

What you describe to me sounds like surviving..... You've adapted your lifestyle to fit your income.

You "chuckle at the million dollar figure", but if you had a million wouldn't you live differently?

Many homes north of Sumter have their bond already paid off; the historic section never had bonds in the first place. So it also depends on WHERE your property is located, to determine whether you even need to pay a bond at all.

At $2,500/month in social security, two people can absolutely live on social security alone in The Villages. They won't have much left over for anything else, but yes it's doable.

That $1M in savings would only need to be spent UNTIL you start collecting those social security checks. And then, you have those social security checks.

If you're under 62, you won't get SS checks until you turn 62, at the very minimum. So if you're under 62, then yeah you would have to rely on whatever you have in savings.

But once you turn 62, you have those checks coming in monthly. You could wait til you're 65 and have bigger checks. You could even wait til you're 67 and have much bigger checks, than if you started getting them at 62.

But you only "need" to rely on savings until 62.

Yup. I would live differently. I'd live in a site-built home. I'd take a trip at least once a year to somewhere else. I'd have a newer golf cart than the one I have now.

That's about it. It's different, but the rest of my life wouldn't change, because the way I live now, is the way I ENJOY living.