@UponStars - Um, I'm not quite sure why either of you is still working. You've got 50x current expenses saved. Congrats, you've won the game! Go take your trophy and ride off into the sunset.
(as an aside, I'm guessing the "1900k/month" pension is a typo, and should be $1,900/mo. Right?)
Now, if your Taxable Brokerage account is also a typo, and it's really $113k, or $133k....well then, you have "only" about 25x expenses saved up, and you can still retire now. That also means that yes, you'll be fine if you want to work and DW would like to RE.
Thanks for your response, and you are correct in some regards. I edited it to show $1900/month instead of nearly $2mil/month, that would be an easy decision then. The brokerage amount is correct, it's a over a million at the moment.
As a lighthearted response but serious as well, I would disagree that we won the "game". This is our future life together and is a very serious decision, if indeed it was a game, we'd feel much more confident. I feel confident that she could step away from her career, but we are concerned about future healthcare costs if I did not have employer sponsored coverage. We are also weary of upcoming costs associated with kids and homeownership such as braces, a new roof, replacement windows, and future market fluctuations.
There is also the uncertainty of knowing absolutely no one outside of this virtual community who has actually done this and retired early. There are several single wage earners we know, who appear to, or at least we assume, have a much higher income than mine. We know of one couple who has retired in their mid-late 50's but no one else who have both retired below 60. Is it truly feasible?
The "game" I refer to is the "playing by the rules and working a job like a good little employee until you have enough to retire" game. Not only have you beaten the final boss, you've pummeled him into the ground.
The term "game" is meant ironically, since getting to this point can be anything but fun. You're absolutely right that it's a serious decision. You've mentioned a number of concerns that would affect whether you have enough (new roof, braces, paying for your own health insurance, etc). It's good that you're identifying those potential expenditures now, because you can put a price tag on them and adjust your expected retirement budget to account for them.
What I think you need to do is sit down and build a spreadsheet, detailing your expected expenses in retirement, both normal budget items (utilities, food, clothing, mortgage if applicable, health insurance, etc) and infrequent things like car insurance, braces, new roof, vacations, and weddings. You can then divide those infrequent expenses by the number of months before you expect to pay them, total them up, and create a new budget category for them. The term for this is a Sinking Fund.
For example, you might expect to pay $5k for braces for each kid in 4 years. $10k in 48 months is about $200/mo. A new $10k roof in 10 years is roughly $80/mo. Vacation next year for $1200 is another $100/mo. Now, add a category to your expected retirement budget, and give it $380/mo. Et voila, you've accounted for those big expenses.
In our family, we set up a monthly transfer from our checking account to our savings account (which counts as both emergency fund and sinking fund). Each month, the $Xxx of sinking fund budget is automatically transferred. And when we need to draw off it, we pull that money back out of savings.
All that said, you have $2 million, which give you $80k per year worry-free. In other words, not only do you have enough to cover all your normal expenses plus health insurance, you have enough that you could pay for your kids' braces AND a new roof
every single year for the next thirty years without worrying about running out of money. And that's just with your current assets, without your pension or social security or any of that.
On the social side, you're right that your situation is a rarity, and few of the folks around you are in a similar position. You and your wife have done an exceptional job of spending modestly, earning lots of money, and saving it. I use the term "exceptional" very literally. You are an exception. Most people will either A) have lower income or higher spending, so they can't retire until social security kicks in, or B) will keep working even after SS, because they haven't saved enough on their own, or C) are workaholics, enjoy work too much to retire, don't know that they can retire early, or are chasing the next golden carrot. Very few people can save up 25x expenses fast enough to retire when they've just hit middle age, AND then decide to retire.
There's a great
Post-FIRE subforum for discussing that kind of issue.
