The "magic" retirement age is 61

[bada bing]

I surfed to a paper over at Morningstar:

The Retirement Mirage

It is mostly a financial planning puff piece, but I found some of the numbers interesting. Particularly that age 61 is currently the "magic" retirement number in that 61 is where expectations/planning best line up with outcomes. If your retirement plan is to work past age 61, the further past 61 you plan to work the more likely you won't make it to your planned age and the more you are likely to undershoot your financial goals. Conversely, if you plan to retire before age 61, the more likely OMY syndrome will cause you to overshoot. Interesting because most people's plans are for working past 61 and a lot of them end up short, both in working time and retirement money.

Of course, this is mostly obvious, but I haven't seen the numbers presented exactly this way before. There is an inferred cause and effect that I'm not sure I 100% buy into, but I think it is interesting. And my personal plan includes working until age 61 even before I knew that was the "magic" number.

 

[Teacher Terry]

I retired at 58 but within 7 months started a new p.t. Job teaching which I love. Still doing it at 64. The beautiful thing is that I can do it from anywhere with internet so doesn’t limit my traveling.

 

[Fedup]

It’s almost 61 for us if you add our two ages and divide by 2, which is 59.75

 

[W2R]

Well, I retired at 61 (and 5 months), but honestly I would have loved to retire earlier.

The lyrics to a Rolling Stones song applies here:

"You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometime you find
You get what you need"

 

[MRG]

Perfect. I'm 61 and retired. Wait I've been retired 5.5 years! Oh no, I've screwed up again.

 

[RobbieB]

I'm close at 59.

 

[scrabbler1]

I'm not even close. Being an outlier, I had all the opposite problems. Instead of OMY, my early retirement plan came together several years sooner than I had expected. Instead of retiring at some time in my early 50s, I was able to work OLY (One Less Year?) several times over and get out at 45, ten years ago.


Even before that happened, to me retiring at 61 would hardly be magic. It would be a nightmare. By the time I turn 61, I will have been retired for as many years as I worked full-time (16, before 7 part-time years). Now that's magic!

 

[RunningBum]

I barely skimmed the article but it seems to be based on averages. What do I care about averages? I only care about my own financial situation.

 

[NYEXPAT]

Darn, I shoulda listened when they told me not to retire at 33. I wonder where I would be if I had worked another 32 years?

 

[Midpack]

I retired at 57. I probably should've waited until I was 61 just for all the money I left on the table, but I'm not losing sleep over it. Hindsight is a wonderful thing...

 

[Scrapr]

It’s almost 61 for us if you add our two ages and divide by 2, which is 59.75

I think if you do OMY you are going to hit the number on the button....(rounding)

 

[Car-Guy]

Missed the magic number by a month when I retired. Interesting in that a number of my colleagues retired with a few months of the magic number too.

 

[Dtail]

57 for me. If I discovered this site earlier, would have led to more LBYM with lower cost investing and probably could have gone at 54/55.
I was at my peak earning years, but don't regret it one bit.

 

[MRG]

I barely skimmed the article but it seems to be based on averages. What do I care about averages? I only care about my own financial situation.

Averages lie.

I don't know how many people I watched learn that averaged data will shoot your career in a hurry. They all seemed very surprised when they learned the same lesson.