Originally Posted by
mispoken
"For someone who is presently in the 35% tax bracket and expects to be in the 12% tax bracket in retirement ($77,400 + $24,000 = $101,400 per year in the 12% tax bracket)."
This is doable provided you have Roth money to live off of. Otherwise, if it's all traditional funds, by the time you hit retirement the RMDs on your account SHOULD far surpass that and force you into a much higher tax bracket. It's all about control of my money in retirement.
Fair enough. My rates were rather arbitrary. I think I gave a better response to tennisguru the second time.
It's worth pointing out that you can use traditional to roth conversions in retirement to decrease your tax liability.
To the more general point of people talking about retiring with $5M or more, unless you have a strong desire to leave a bequest (which I completely understand) or you want to live an extremely lavish lifestyle in retirement (to each his own), I don't understand the point of working to build up that large of a nest egg.
I invest over half of my net income, and I feel like I have fantastic quality of life. My current plan is to either retire completely, or bid right seat of a widebody and fly one trip a month once I hit $2.5M. I can live a life of luxury on a beach in Thailand for less than $101,200 a year.