The key to retirement is expenses. As long you can meet your expenses whether from your passive income or drawdown of your savings, then you can retire. However, it is recommeded that you depend on your passive income to meet your expenses since if you depend on your savings, it may be gone one day while you are still alive. So, build up your investments in high dividend yield stocks over many years and one day your dividends will be higher than your expenses. Then you can retire.

There are people who live simple lives and they need only $3k pm to retire as a couple. So if they have investments which give them dividends of more than $36k pa, they will be ok. If they want more income, they can rent out their spare rooms in their hdb flat to FTs and they can get $800 pm for each room. FTs are important for our old retirees to depend on.