[zx10guy]

I recently met with my financial advisor to catch up on things.

I initially wanted to retire in 3 years, but that got flushed down the toilet with the divorce. Not so much from the financial asset aspect but from the child support I'll have to pay for the next 10 years. I asked my attorney about retiring early and was a bit surprised with her surprise. She asked why I would retire early. I said because I've been through enough stress in my life and was thinking of being able to just enjoy life without the stress of work. My question to her was around child support being modified if I were to retire early. She consulted with other colleagues where they came up with the opinion that the court wouldn't look kindly on retiring early. It would probably be viewed as intentional self impoverishment and I would be stuck at paying what I'm paying now working in full capacity. I say this for others that may be in my situation.

The other thing I had to come to terms with on retiring early. A friend and I were discussing this a couple of months ago. He looked at me and asked what I would do with all my free time. I looked at him and thought....I don't know. I could just do whatever I want but then how long will that last before I end up just sitting around doing nothing. As I get older, I firmly believe those that stay engaged with something that exercises their mind and body tend to be those that stay healthy and physically mobile well into their old ages. Those that just sit around doing nothing tend to waste away. The trick with having money to retire is that it puts you into a category where you have F' you money. It allows you to pick and do things you normally don't have the option to. So you work at a place and things are not working out. You can say F' it and just quit. Then take your time to find the next best gig to work for. Wanting to work is very different than needing to work.

One of the posters mentioned cancer. I've also been affected by this. So health is that variable that no one can plan for. You can only do what you can to try to lower your risk of having a major illness. With that said, my financial planning has bee severely altered due to my cancer history. From having to think about health care costs in retirement to not being able to buy life insurance. I didn't have life insurance at the time I had cancer because I was single, somewhat young, and didn't do any risks/habits that would contribute to cancer. Now I can't get any reasonable coverage without paying an arm and a leg for it.

With my retirement planning, I've been pivoting to also consider taxes at retirement. Most of my retirement assets are in a IRA/401k type account. I've been contributing to a non qualified account to have the ability to pick and choose where my monthly income streams are coming from.

I've also subscribed to the ideology of not paying off my houses but to pour that money into stock investments. The idea is to leverage compounding and time in the market. But with that said, as I get closer to retirement, I will start to pivot and begin to accelerate my payments to hopefully get myself to the point of having both mortgages paid off.

But to the topic of this thread, I'm still trying to figure out where that number is for me to feel comfortable to retire.