The question of how much money you need to retire is a common one.
Especially as you start to approach retirement or start thinking about early retirement.
A very specific question that we’re often asked is, can you retire early with $10 million?
Don’t worry, we’ll answer that for you here!
However the more important question should be how much money do you need to retire early. Luckily, I have plenty of articles and resources to help figure this out for you.
Continue reading to find the answer to “can you retire early with $10 million?”. Alternatively, quickly find your own retirement numbers by skipping to our Early Retirement Calculator.
Contents list
How Much Do You Need To Retire?
As mentioned previously, one of the tools here on Fire The Boss is our Early Retirement Calculator. This tool lets you input key income and early retirement data. This includes your yearly net income, your current investments, your age, your yearly spending, your expected returns, and your withdrawal rate.
Before you head over there, it generally helps to understand the reasons behind the math and why these variables are important.
“What numbers do I need to know?”
The most important factors that determine how much you need to retire include your approximate amount of yearly spending and your withdrawal rate.
The reason why these two factors are so important in determining how much you can retire on is because they are directly correlated with one another—and together, they demonstrate how much you will live off each year after retirement.
Withdrawal Rate Calculations
Your withdrawal rate is simply a percent figure that demonstrates how much of your nest egg portfolio you will live off of each year. A higher withdrawal rate means that you can retire on less money (as you’ll have more money accessible each year). But you may run out of money later in life. However, a lower withdrawal rate means that you need a much larger nest egg, but it’s less likely to run out.
For example, if you have a 10% withdrawal rate, it means you’re going to use 10% of your portfolio each year to live on. This means you would need to save less, because you’re able to use more of the money you’ve saved. However, it also means that you may run out in the future.
This is why many resources online, including our own guide to retirement saving, suggest a safe withdrawal rate of 4% (some would say 3.5%). Estimated yearly growth is generally around 7% on average. With a 4% withdrawal rate you’re leaving a good margin of error. This should mean that you won’t struggle in a bad year and your account will (hopefully) continue to grow in the good years.
For example, to withdraw $20,000 to live on per year at a 4% withdrawal rate, you would need $500,000 saved in your index funds.
On the other hand, let’s assume you have a very low withdrawal rate of just 0.5%. This means that you plan to only live off 0.5% of your savings each year. To do this, you will need much larger savings; but you’re a lot less likely to run out of money.
For example, to withdraw $20,000 to live on per year at 0.5% withdrawal rate, you would need $4 million saved.
Yearly Spending Calculations
As you can see, the numbers will change hugely depending on yearly spending. I won’t work through examples as as I’m sure you can just play around with the calculator.
However, a very important point – your current yearly spending should not be the same when you’ve retired.
- You’re probably paying a substantial monthly mortgage bill right now? Or maybe you hope to soon when you get your own place?
- I’m also guessing (hoping!) that you invest a reasonable percentage of your income every month?
Both of these things represent significant costs that should be irrelevant once you’ve retired. Most of you should aim to have paid the mortgage off before you retire. Most will also no longer need to save or invest as you’ve already reached your goal!
Keep this in mind when calculating your yearly retirement spending… you probably need much less than you think!
Ok, But Can You Retire Early With $10 Million?
Based on a ‘normal’ retirement scenario at age 65, 10 million dollars is a very feasible amount to retire on. Without factoring in ongoing growth, spending 5% a year would mean being able to live on $500,000/year for 20 years. Obviously, this is an extremely comfortable yearly retirement fund!
However, the question is can you retire early with $10 million?
This becomes slightly more complex.
Let’s say you want to continue with a 5% withdrawal rate and retire at age 35.
As we know, a withdrawal rate of 5% allows you to take out $500,000 for 20 years. So, that would only earn you money until you were 55 years old.
However, this does not factor in ongoing growth…
All of our readers would hopefully have carefully invested this money! Let’s use index funds as an example, with an estimated 7% annual return (accounting for inflation).
Technically with a 5% withdrawal and ongoing compounding, your account should continue to grow despite you spending $500k a year. Therefore you could retire at 35-years old and have more money by 65-years old even without earning an extra dime.
Essentially unless you’re planning to spend more than the estimated 7% returns, you’re good.
Based on this information (and to make a long answer short) yes, you can retire early with $10 Million!
Conclusion
If you haven’t been lucky enough to win a $10 million jackpot, don’t worry!
This huge pot of money and is highly unrealistic for most of us.
Luckily, it’s possible to retire early with way less saved up.
Also lucky – you found our website and we’ll show you how!
Firstly, we strongly encourage you to calculate your own retirement age and goal.
It may be much closer than you think…
