That is right, they want to scare you with the difference you get between 62 and 65, but the fact is unless you live past 85 it all equals out.  I prefer to get out early while I am still healthy and can enjoy my retirement!

 

And actually I plan out getting out by the very least when my husband is 55 and I am 53.  However you ask, are we rich….gawd I wish.  No but buy having a plan and a budget, plus the use of 401k, a dividend producing stock, and social security we are going to get out of the rat race.

 

Basically I took all of our assets, stock, 401k, house, social security and all over our liabilities – credit cards, equity line, mortgage balance and did a 9 and 7 year plan.  Retiring in 7 years still isn’t really reachable, but then my numbers don’t include any raises, bonuses, or raise in stock dividends.  So it may be doable.

 

The liabilities are easy enough, each credit card has a starting balance, % Rate, and what I pay each month.  I started off with all the minimums, and added “extra” payments to get them paid off when I want them.

 

The house is a fixed rate so I can add in extra payments also (I highly suggest bi-weekly payments as you reduce a 30yr mortgage to 23 years.) Basically I figured every 3.5 extra payments you make, your reduce your mortgage by 1 year.

 

The equity line is a interest only payment, so I used the same calcs as the credit card and can add as needed to reduce quicker.

 

The guess work comes in with when you want to retire and how much you think the house will sell for and what you will have in your retirement fund.

 

For the house I used an amount between the highest value it has had and the lowest.  For the 401k I divided the amount by the amount of years we have invested and used that.  For the stock I just used the current values.

 

I broke our retirement up in to segments, I believe you want to have the most money in the early years when you are still young enough and in good enough health to enjoy it.