06/02/2026
Sometimes I see things on social media along the lines of â$3 million is the magic number you need to retire early.â A statement like this makes NO sense!
There is no âmagic numberâ to retire early, or at least not one that applies to everyone. How much YOU need to retire depends on how much YOU spend.
A lot of back of the envelope retirement calculations are based on the findings of the trinity study - a study that was conducted on retirement portfolios and how long they could last. The study concluded that withdrawing 4% of your portfolio, adjusted each year for inflation, would have a near certain chance of lasting you at least 30 years. This has since been revised to 4.7% by the creator, but 4% still works for a quick estimate. With proper planning, you can probably get away with less!
The reasons that itâs not 7-8%, the numbers we commonly use for equity returns, are:
1ď¸âŁ When you retire, your portfolio should not be in all equities - it should have bonds in it. Bonds have lower returns, but are also not as volatile
2ď¸âŁ While 7-8% is the real long term average return of the market, no specific period guarantees those returns. The trinity study took into account worst case scenarios like a downturn the day after you retire.
So with all that being said, these numbers are a good ROUGH estimate of what YOUR magic number is based on your desired monthly expenses in retirement.
As mentioned, this is based on trying to give you reasonable certainty on your portfolio lasting you 30 years. If you plan on retiring early, it would be prudent to use a safe-withdraw rate of