3 Signs You Should Have ALREADY Retired By Now

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]In today's video, I'm going to walk you through three signs that you should have already retired and why most people who are financially ready stay stuck anyway because there's no clear signal, right?

[00:00:10]No moment where someone tells you you can stop now. If you're new to the channel, hi, I'm Julia LMA, certified financial planner. And through working with clients who kept working 2, three, even 5 years past the point where the math said they were ready, I discovered that the delay almost never comes from a real financial gap. It comes from not having a framework that confirms readiness. So, the default is to keep going because working feels safer than deciding. And that's exactly why I'm making this video today to give you the three signs so that you can check them right now and see whether the retirement you've been waiting for has actually been waiting for you. So, let's get into it. Retiring at the right time when you are financially secure should be one of the most rewarding periods of your life.

[00:00:54]But what I see over and over again are people who did everything right, saged consistently, invested well, stayed disciplined for decades, and they still feel stuck. They keep working, not because they have to, but because something just doesn't feel settled. And the longer that continues, the more it costs them in time, taxes, their health, and the overall quality of their life.

[00:01:16]Okay, so the first sign is that your savings target keeps moving. And you cannot clearly explain why. This is the most common pattern I see in our practice. They'll say, "I'll feel comfortable with $1 million." Then they hit 1 million and suddenly it becomes, "I would feel better at 1.2." They get to 1.2 and now it's 1.5 than 1.8. And then they get to 1.8, the next number becomes 2 million. And when I ask what's changed, there's no clear answer. Their spending didn't increase. Their tax situation did not meaning. Their income gap did not suddenly widen. Granted, inflation plays a small part in this, but it's not the reason why they keep changing their mind. What changed was how they felt. And that is the key here.

[00:01:56]The number is not anchored to a plan.

[00:01:58]It's anchored to a feeling. And feelings change all the time, right? Feelings react to headlines, market swings, conversations with friends, whatever new article just told you that you need more. So, even when you hit your number, it doesn't resolve anything because the number was never based on a concrete plan. A few years ago, I had a couple come to me at 61 with 1.4 million saved.

[00:02:19]At 55, their number was 1 million. At 58, it became 1.2. By 60, it was 1.5.

[00:02:24]And when we actually ran the plan, Social Security at 67 and 70 gave them about 62,000 a year. Their portfolio at 3.75% was uh 3.75% withdrawal rate gave them another just over 52,000. And their total income came in just over 114,000.

[00:02:41]Their actual spending once we removed workrelated costs was about $96,000 a year. They already had $100,000 as a cushion and they had passed their real number years earlier. I'll never forget the wife looked at me and said, "We could have retired earlier, couldn't we?" And the answer was yes. And here's the part that really stings. Those extra 2 years did not meaningfully improve their plan. It didn't change their lifestyle by more than an extra 5 to $10,000 a year in spending. It didn't reduce their risk in a meaningful way.

[00:03:09]But what it did do was delay time it could have spent in a completely different phase of life. And we can't get that time back. That is what moving the goalpost looked like. It's not driven by math. It's driven by uncertainty. And that uncertainty gets reinforced constantly. The financial industry feeds into it by publishing higher and higher recommended numbers that have nothing to do with your actual life. So you end up comparing your situation to a generic benchmark instead of your own plan. And as a result, the target keeps shifting. The people who break this pattern do one thing differently. They stop measuring readiness by a balance and start measuring it by income versus spending.

[00:03:44]They look at their actual social security, their actual portfolio income, their actual expenses, and their tax.

[00:03:50]And the moment they see that their income and their lifestyle is covered with a cushion, the question finally gets answered. And once that happens, the goalpost stops moving because you are no longer asking, "Do I have enough?" You are answering a completely different question, which is, "Does my plan support the life I want to live?"

[00:04:06]And so for many people, the surprising answer is that it already does and it has for longer than you thought. How many of you watching are guilty of moving your own goalpost? Okay, sign number two might be something that you feel every week, but you may have not connected it to retirement readiness and that is that you are spending more energy avoiding work than actually doing it. When someone tells me that they dread Mondays, they count down to Fridays, they burn through their PTO as early as possible, and they mentally check out during meetings, I don't just hear burnout. I hear that they have mentally left a job they no longer need financially and there is a real cost to that. I worked with a client who was 63 and earning about $180,000 a year as a senior operations director. Financially, he was ready, but he kept saying just one more year, one more year. That one year turned into three. During those three years, his blood pressure increased enough that he needed medication. His sleep was inconsistent and his energy dropped. When he finally retired at 66, within 6 months, his blood pressure normalized. He lost weight and he told me, "I feel like I got my life back." The extra income he earned during those three years added maybe $200,000 after tax to his portfolio, but it cost him 3 years of health, energy, and time that he does not get back. And research supports this. Nearly half of employees say that their stress comes from work. And the majority say it negatively impacts their mental health. If you are already financially independent, absorbing that stress for a paycheck you don't need is one of the worst trades you can make.

[00:05:29]The reason people stay is not financial.

[00:05:31]It's identity and structure. After 30 years of being the VP or the director, stepping away feels like losing a part of who you are. And the structure of work, the routine, the calendar gives your day a framework that retirement does not automatically replace. This is what I call retirement. And I've made a video on this. Retirement is not just financial, it's emotional. But here is the key point. In this burnedout state, you cannot figure out what you retiring to while you are still working full-time. The clarity only comes after you create the space. Okay. Sign three is one of is one that most people have never checked, but it is the most financially impactful of all. Every extra year of work is actually making your tax problem worse. And where this really shows up is with clients who have equity compensation, especially RSUs that continue investing even after they retire. Let's look at an example. I worked with a client, Michael, 59, who had about 1.2 million in his traditional retirement accounts and a large RSU package from his employer. He was planning to retire at 60. And here's what made his situation interesting.

[00:06:30]Even if he left at 60, he already had RSU scheduled to vest over the next 3 years totaling about $300,000.

[00:06:36]Those RSUs were going to show up as ordinary income whether he kept working or not. So if he retired at 60, his income for the next few years would be driven primarily by those RSU vestings, $100,000 a year, plus some smaller amounts of interest in dividends. That would have put him right in the 12% bracket to the low 22% tax bracket, which is exactly where we want to be for Roth conversions. So, we had a very clear window. We could layer in an additional 50 to 80,000 of conversions each year on top of the RSUs and still keep his overall tax rate relatively controlled. Now, let's compare that to what happens if he keeps working until age 63. His salary was about 220,000 plus bonus. So now instead of those RSUs filling his lower brackets, his salary is filling the 22 to 24% brackets and in some years possibly pushing him into the 32% bracket. The RSC is still best. So now they are stacking on top of an already high income year. And because his income is already elevated, we cannot do meaningful Roth conversions without pushing him into even higher brackets. At the same time, his traditional balance continues to grow.

[00:07:33]So between contributions, employer match, and market growth, his 1.2 million grows closer to 1.5 by the time he retires at 63. And now instead of having a very long flexible window to convert, he has fewer years and a larger balance to unwind. When we modeled both scenarios, the difference was significant. Retiring at 60 allowed him to convert roughly 70,000 per year for several years at lower tax rates, gradually reducing his future R&Ds.

[00:07:58]Waiting until 63 eliminated most of that opportunity, and his projected R&D at 73 increased by about 20,000 a year. That is 20,000 of additional force taxable income every single year for the rest of his life that may increase Medicare premiums, net investment income tax, AMT, etc. And this is the part that really surprises people. Those extra 3 years of working did not just delay retirement. They crowded out the exact tax planning window that would have made the rest of his retirement more efficient. He ended up paying higher taxes on income he did not need while losing the chance to pay lower taxes on money that is eventually going to be taxed anyway. Now that you see all three signs, if you need help building your dream retirement as a whole, click the link below to watch my free training where I'll show you exactly how to optimize your retirement plan so that you can apply it to your own situation.

[00:08:45]Okay, so what's interesting about these three signs is that they feed into each other. The moving goalpost keeps you working. Working keeps you stressed and fills up your tax brackets. Filling up those brackets reduces your ability to do Roth conver conversions which increase your future R&Ds and tax burden. And that higher tax burdal post again. It becomes a vicious cycle.

[00:09:07]And the only way to break that cycle is to step outside of it and check the math. I had a client John who was 62 and all three sides were present. His number kept moving. He was burned out and his traditional balance had grown to 2 million. When we ran the projections, his income already covered his spending and his tax situation was already getting worse the longer he stayed. He looked at me and said, "I've been financially independent for 3 years, haven't I?" And the answer again was yes. You retired within 60 days. And 6 months later, he said the same thing I hear all the time. I should have done this sooner. The longer you wait, the worse all three signs get. The goalpost moves further, the burnout deepens, and the tax problem compounds. So, how do you confirm whether you're actually ready? Well, there are three simple checks. First, calculate your total income versus your actual spending and your projected social security and a reasonable withdrawal rate from your portfolio and compare that to your true spending after removing work-related expenses and adding any retirement expenses. Second, project your traditional balance at 73 or 75 depending on your age and estimate your R&D to see if that level of income is manageable within your desired tax bracket. Third, evaluate your healthare between now and 65 and determine whether ACA subsidies can help bridge that gap with proper income planning. If all three checks come back positive, your income covers your spending, your tax situation is manageable or fixable, and healthcare is solvable, then you're not waiting on readiness, you're just choosing to delay. And if something does not check out, the solution is not to work indefinitely. It is to fix that specific issue and reevaluate. So here is the takeaway. If your savings target keeps moving without a clear financial reason, if you are spending more energy avoiding work than doing it, and if every extra year of work is increasing your future tax burden, you're likely past the point of readiness. And the most expensive thing that you can do is ignore that for another year. Running these checks takes an afternoon, but the clarity it gives you can completely change the next decade or two of your life. And that is what real planning is about. Now that you've seen the three signs you should have already retired, how the moving goalpost means your readiness passed a number you hit years ago, how work avoidance cost you health and energy during your most valuable years, and how every extra year of work grows the traditional balance and burns the conversion window that can't be recovered, and how all three of these signs feed into each other, and how three simple chests can confirm whether you're past the point of readiness or not. You can stop waiting for a feeling that never arrives and start running the numbers that actually tell you the answer. If you need help building your dream retirement, click the link below to watch my free training where I'll show you exactly how to confirm whether you're ready in your specific situation.