Originally Posted by Unregistered

The decision to go into retirement must be considered carefully. Do not just look at the financial aspects but also look at how you will occupy yourself in retirement. Financially, the earlier you retire, eg before 55, the more savings you will need to have. At least you should aim to ensure the funds can outlast you, not the other way around. The average lifespan of Singaporeans is now at 82.5 years. So retiring at 55 or before, means your funds need to last 27 to 30 years at least.

We are in our mid 50s, and the factors we consider in deciding whether to retire are:
1. Push factors in our current jobs. For eg, is our job stressful?, is it detrimental to our health?, are we treated with respect & dignity?, do we have good work-life balance? Are we paid fair wages? And so forth.

Our answers to the above are generally positive. There will be times we felt stressed and workload seems heavy, but these tended to be cyclical. There is no compelling reason for us to call it quits yet.

2. What to do in retirement. This is equally important for us. We need to be sure our life in retirement is still fulfilling and meaningful. Certainly not to cut back on the things we love to do, such as traveling, golfing, and so on. The worse thing is to end up with days and days of boredom and the lack of funds to pursue activities you enjoy.

Here, our answer is we are not sure what we will do in retirement. What can we do that will be meaningful that each day we will look forward to waking up to. So because of this, we are not ready to retire.

3. Do we have financial security to retire? This is the only question we can answer positively. Yes, we think our current net worth is sufficient to last our retirement - just based on simple draw down model. But since we are actively putting our savings to "work" through investment, we are generating the passive income to grow our savings even more. We are almost reaching the stage where the passive income is able to cover our current expenses!

Based on the above 2 out of 3 considerations, we will not retire so soon. Furthermore, as most of our savings are invested, we don't hold much cash on hand. Because we don't hold much cash on hand, we don't feel we are rich and thus don't spend frivolously.

Retirement doesn't have to mean that we stop living, it is has to be another phase of meaningful and fulfilling living.