I am in a very similar situation to you and Cents. I got a promotion to development team manager a year ago and will make 6 figures in the not too distant future. But, I won’t want to do this forever. I am targetting $1mm by age 42 and I also target having my final home paid off my then. Within a few years of that, I’d like to ‘retire’ as well. Teaching and being a wrestling or football coach has been a dream of mine.

But, I recently started thinking of another option. At age 45, I will be getting 5 weeks of vacation a year. Right now I get 4 but take about 2.5 due to job demands. Because I manage a team, I get far behind when I take vacation. At age 45, I like the idea of taking a demotion to a non-managerial position. I would take an obvious pay cut. But, I could be free for more time with family and still have a salary equal to about $65k in today’s dollars. That is about the same age my youngest child will get in to college. Soon afterward, my income needs will drop off quite a bit. Without the kids at home and the mortgage, my income needs will drop off a lot and $65k in today’s dollars will still likely afford the same level of retirement savings that I currently maintain. A teaching career would be nice, but at

Yes $4.8M is chump change in today’s dollars. $1.75M (assuming 3% inflation) which would be $70k per year at 4%, which would probably be sufficient seeing as how I would hopefully be able to manage the taxes (currently 75% Roth money in nestegg) and wouldn’t have bills like mortgage, etc. I’d like to shoot higher, but like I said I may value early retirement more than being extremely wealthy in retirement. Plus who knows I might earn more money in early retirement than I do working, but at least this will give me the freedom to take risks and try other employment routes out.

BTW I’m just picking on you for picking on me about inflation. I understand the evil power of inflation http://www.myfinancialjourney.com/archive/realistic-rate-of-return-part-iv-inflation

Coming up with a retirement number at our ages seems just about impossible given the amount of unknowns. I like your approach to make medium term goals ($XXXX in X years).

From there you can roughly compute how long you can survive by using the 4% rule (planning out 4% of your nest egg each year to live on). The math should give you a guide.