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/NewSocialize/asp/AllConv.asp?forumId=F100000015
Much like this site, there are very knowledgeable posters there. Scam artists are eaten alive.
-helen
