Hi Rusty,
Do you know if you have accumulated enough to sustain you through retirement ?* Have you run the numbers through the FIRE Calc (there is a link to it on this board) ?* Do you have a good asset allocation plan that you are comfortable with and that is appropriate for retirement ?* What are you doing for health insurance ?
As others have said, you can roll your 401k into an IRA an take distributions before age 59.5 using the IRS Rule 72t.* I am not qualified to explain it to you, but you can google it for information.
In terms of living off your assets, the rule of thumb is to use a 4% withdrawal rate (live off 4% of your assets annually, and adjust for inflation) and keep fund management costs as low as possible.* I like Vanguard because of their large selection of low cost funds.* (BTW, you almost certainly are being charged for fund maintenance -the information is buried in the prospectus).
I would suggest that before you make any moves, you study and ask questions.* Also, if you are going to pay for financial advice, make sure you use a financial planner that you pay on an hourly basis as a consultant.* The financial waters are filled with sharks that will be more than happy to take your money, and lots of it.* Think about how much money 1% of your portfolio is on an annual basis (a typical fee charged by financial planners).* If you are living off 4%, you are paying someone 25% of your gross income to do very little work.* That's probably more than you will pay the government every year.
You've spent a life time accumulating this money, don't be rash.* Read, study and ask. Make it your job to learn this stuff.
Also, check out this site:
http://socialize.morningstar.com/New...mId=F100000015
Much like this site, there are very knowledgeable posters there.* Scam artists are eaten alive.
-helen