What’s Your Number? By Jeff Brown
What’s Your Number?
By Jeff Brown
New York Times
The question came the other day from an old friend with a one-man business: “What’s your number?” It’s the latest way of asking, “how much money do I need to retire?”
I’ve been asked this many, many times in my years as a personal-finance columnist. I used to take a deep breath, then begin a discourse on pensions, Social Security, life expectancy, plans to pass assets to children, business succession, expected rates of return, inflation … Then, finding that people really wanted a simple, easy answer, I came up with one: “three million dollars.” That’s what you need to retire. No matter who you are, where you live, what your expectations. Trust me.
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