If you had $20M liquid at 38 would you retire?

You could have $20 million and only $1 million is liquid and you could retire.

could but my question is would/should

5% interest rates so $1M year before taxes.

Nah

Of course it would depend on the individual. It is probably best for the mental health of most people to work some, or at any rate to have a purpose. So you should probably do something productive some of the time, whether you got paid for it or not.

Would work limited PT to keep the social skills up to date and in general, just having some low key structure. Some of the retired wealthy, people I know, can’t tell they’re a$$ from their elbow because they are too busy being abused by Fox and CNN.

20m doesn't afford you private jets, super yacht etc. You can probably own a mansion, not no castle, not to say private island.

I am a troll I have nothing to say okay I flip burgers

I would retire. I live relatively frugally, so 20 mill would be more than enough.

Life is short; better focus on what's important. Making more money that you don't really need is not important.

Almost everyone would.

Cue people here trying to pretend like $20M isn't anything special.

I absolutely would retire. We are only on this planet for so long, and you never know how long that will be.

$20 million is more than enough to do a ton of traveling...as someone already said, if that's invested, you can easily take 5% a year ($1 million) while still allowing it to grow each year, so you'd never run out of money.

A lot of people see work as a necessary thing for them to do. I have tried and tried to understand that, but I just can not. However, I do recognize that those people (and it's a lot of people) exist. Only you know if you're one of those or not. You have more than enough money to retire for good. Do it if you want. I would have at 38 in a heartbeat.

I retired not that much older with a small fraction of that.

But of course, Flagpole, OP never said he has $20 million.

It would boil down to a very simple question. But first, you need to figure out what it would cost to maintain the lifestyle you want for the number of years remaining in your life, with an allowance for a margin that you may live longer than expected.

At a certain point, you could conceivably reach a net worth where that is attained plus a buffer, and from there on out, it's not about the money.

One would think that 20 mil at age 38 would put most at a level where they could afford a lifestyle they desire for the rest of their life, esp, with using the cash to generate income,

So, the simple question is, does what you do for work serve a higher purpose that you find justifies the time and energy it takes to do it. Again, with 20 mil in the bank, you're probably not doing it for the paycheck.

I'm sure we can all imagine certain jobs that would meet that test - that are compelling, rewarding, or benefiting others enough that you would basically do it when you didn't need the money anymore.

Evidence says NO. Bill gates had $120B and didn’t retire. Jeff Bezos had $100B and didn’t reire. Same with Musk.

i would quit teaching, and continue coaching. i think if i wasn't coaching, I would quit teaching, but would want to come back after a year or two.

everybody needs to do something. there are people who can fill every hour of the day outside of their job, and others who would spend every second on a lazy boy. if you are the latter, you should probably keep working.

My wife and I are 38. Our target amount is 20m. We make 1.7-2m annually and current trajectory has us there in 7-8 years assuming normal market returns. 5% withdrawal is WAY too risky for a <50 retirement age. That has a 50% failure rate if either of us lives to 90. You would be insane to withdrawal at that level. We feel more comfortable at about 3% or 600k.

600k affords us a comfortable upper middle class life in a VHCOL area while still sending 3 kids to college. Additionally, it will likely allow us to compound and pass generation wealth to our children.

If you handed me a check today to get us to 20m I would retire tomorrow.

I agree with Flagpole. Life is too short.

Of course.
That's the kind of millionaire you want to be. Nobody knows you, you can do almost everything (within reason) and live a good life.

4% of 20 Million is $800,000 a year that should be plenty to live on.

LOL

Obviously your definition of middle class is wrong.

finance.yahoo.com

8 Key Signs You’ve Made It to the Upper Middle Class

There's a distinction between the lower, middle and upper classes, but did you know that there's also a category in between the latter two called the "upper middle" class? While those in the middle...

Link:finance.yahoo.com/news/8-key-signs-ve-...