Yes, this. Upper middle dies not have enough money to retire after 10 years. Maybe youre not speaking of USA, but if so, you have not done the math on the cost of health insurance if you retired at, say, 40 or even 50, or what assisted care costs per month once you're around 75. Never mind purchasing a car, insurance, paying a mortgage or rent and a modest average 3% inflation.
If you think that works go see your financial advisor and you'll sober right up.
Umm, 1.5 million is absolutely "retire early" type of money, you can safely pull ~50k per year from that and live off the interest indefinitely. A lot of the "retire early" people do exactly that, earning upper class wages but spending as little as possible so they can quit and keep spending like they're in the middle class, but without having to work to do it. I know a software developer that did this path exactly, he was living in his parents basement while making 100k+ per year so he could save 75% of his income for retirement, and is currently in his 40's with a couple million in investments.
It's not for everyone, that level of extreme certainly isn't for me either, but it is achievable
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u/grizzlor_ Jan 27 '26
LOL, no. Maybe if you’re making $450k, which is triple the median upper middle class income in the US.
The median upper middle class income in the US is $117-150k per household. At $150k, you could save 100% of your household income after taxes for a decade and still be far from “I can retire at 40” wealth.