Ask an Advisor: How Do I Retire at 62 With $680K in a 401(k), $150K in Cash, and a $1,600 Pension?
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I currently have $680,000 in a 401(k), $150,000 in savings and a pension of $1,600 per month. Can I retire at age 62?
– Hieu
This is a good question and the answer depends primarily on what your expenses are and how much you will collect from Social Security. What we can do here is run the numbers on a few different scenarios to give you a sense of how much income you can expect to have and the level of monthly expenses that your income might support. (And if you have more retirement-related questions, consider speaking with a financial advisor.)
First, let’s look at what your retirement income might be before considering Social Security benefits.
Your pension is straightforward. That $1,600 per month is a consistent income that provides a strong baseline for supporting your needs. On an annual basis, your pension income will be $19,200 per year.
You also have $830,000 between your 401(k) and your savings. Using the 4% rule, you should be able to withdraw about $33,200 from these sources in your first year of retirement before adjusting subsequent withdrawals for inflation.
Between your pension and account withdrawals, you’re starting with $52,400 in annual income. Depending on where you live, you’ll likely have around $48,000 per year to spend after taxes are taken out.
That comes out to about $4,000 in monthly expenses that you’re in a position to support before factoring in Social Security. (And if you need help building sources of retirement income or estimating how much you’ll have, consider matching with a financial advisor.)
Of course, Social Security could add a significant amount of income to the equation. Using the Social Security Administration’s Quick Calculator, I ran a few different scenarios to see how they would affect your situation.
First, I assumed that you turned 62 on Oct. 1, 2023, and made $40,000 in your most recent year of employment. In that scenario, here’s your estimated annual Social Security income depending on when you retire:
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Age 62: $11,340 per year
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Age 67: $17,064 per year
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Age 70: $21,816 per year
When added to the income from your pension and your savings, you’re looking at a total annual pre-tax income of between $63,740 and $74,216.
Next, I ran the same scenario, but assumed that your employment income was $70,000. Using the same calculator, here is your estimated Social Security benefit at each retirement age:
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