[DutchmenSport]

newowneroldmontana makes some excellent points. I didn't want to go down that road I made in my previous post, but I suppose since the can of worms is opened, I'll add my 2 cents.... maybe not so much about full timing, but about "retiring" and simply "living".

First, retirement takes a lot of planning and hopefully you have done so, so that you are "somewhat" adequately financially stable for the rest of your lives.

When I announced my retirement, someone asked me, "When do you know you have enough money to actually retire." It is a good question and one that each person has to answer for themselves. But my response back to him was this: "You never have ENOUGH money to retire. You have to learn to make do with what you have."

In preparation for retirement, my quest started about 10 years before the big event. My wife and I did some pretty creative financial planning that included cashing out my 401K.... not once, but twice. Why? Because when the "BIG" day came, we wanted no debt! If you do not have any debt, you can actually live pretty comfortable on a modest retirement, social security income, if you play your cards yet. Again, the secret is, be 100% out of debt.

The second thing is, you really have to do the math to figure out where is your best social security break even point. What I mean by that is, if you add up everything you paid into SS and everything your company sponsored contribution paid into SS, how many years and months will it be before you get all of that back with monthly payments.

Those numbers change drastically if you take retirement at 62.5, 65 (plus), or at 70 years of age. The other thing is, not knowing what the future holds, if you take retirement at 62.5, you will be limited to the amount of money you can continue to earn outside of social security. If you earn more than (around) $24,000, anything over that, you are docked on your SS.

However, if you wait till your full retirement benefit (between 65 plus and 70), two things happen: 1) you can continue working and earn as much as you want and still receive your full SS payments, or you can wait till age 70 and every month you delay taking SS, up to the age of 70, your monthly payment amount will increase... meaning, instead of getting .... lets say, $1000 every month by starting SS at 65, opposed to getting $1005 if you wait till 65 and 1 month, or $1100 at 66 and 2 months.

These are examples, not real figures, but you get the idea. So, you have to take all these variables and crunch the numbers ... which is not an easy task and then figure out where is that break-even point. If you live longer than the break even point, then you are a winner. If you die before that break even point ... well ... Social Security wins and keeps everything you'll never get.

So, do 2 things....
1) get out of debt before the big day.
2) crunch the numbers for the maximum age you need to be to start drawing social security.

Do that, you'll be fine ... just remember .... you really NEVER have enough money, you have to make do with what you've got.