How Much Do You Need to Retire at 62?

Age 62 is the single most common year Americans stop working. It's also the age where the generic retirement formulas break down fastest — because at 62, three things collide simultaneously that don't at 65:

1. You can claim Social Security, but doing so permanently cuts your benefit by 30%.
2. You're three years from Medicare, so health insurance runs full price.
3. Your portfolio needs to last 30-plus years, not the 20 the original safe-withdrawal studies modeled.

The number you need isn't just "25x your expenses." It depends heavily on which of those three problems you solve and how.

Start with spending, not a round number

Almost every "how much to retire" article leads with a headline figure: $1 million, $2 million. The honest starting point is your actual annual spending — housing, food, healthcare, travel, everything — because the target portfolio is just a multiplier of that number.

The two most common multipliers:

• 28.5x spending — implies a 3.5% withdrawal rate, appropriate for a 30-year-plus horizon. Morningstar's 2025 forward-looking analysis put the safe withdrawal rate at 3.9% for a 30-year period; researchers consistently recommend lower for longer.
• 25x spending — the classic 4% rule, calibrated to a 30-year horizon in the 1994 Trinity Study. Still useful as a moderate benchmark.

For a 62-year-old who might live to 92 or beyond, the 3.5% target is the more defensible one.

Annual Spending	Portfolio at 3.5%	Portfolio at 4%
$50,000	$1,430,000	$1,250,000
$60,000	$1,714,000	$1,500,000
$80,000	$2,286,000	$2,000,000
$100,000	$2,857,000	$2,500,000

These targets assume you fund 100% of spending from the portfolio for the full retirement. Social Security will eventually reduce that load — but when you claim it reshapes the math in ways most calculators paper over.

The Social Security decision: 30% is the cost of going early

For everyone born in 1960 or later, full retirement age is 67. Claiming at 62 means claiming 60 months early. The SSA reduction formula works out to exactly 30% — permanent and irrevocable.

In 2026 terms: the average retired worker collects approximately $2,071/month at FRA. Claiming at 62 drops that to roughly $1,450/month — a difference of $621/month, or nearly $7,500/year, every year for the rest of your life.

The break-even math: delaying from 62 to 67 means forgoing about five years of reduced payments (roughly $87,000 total) in exchange for a permanently higher monthly check. At the higher benefit rate, you recover the gap at approximately age 79–80. Anyone who expects to live past 80 in reasonable health comes out ahead by waiting, in pure dollars.

But the break-even ignores a real constraint: your portfolio has to carry you solo from 62 to 67, with no SS income during those years. That's a significant ask, and it affects how large a portfolio you need going in.

The Social Security break-even calculator runs this math with your actual benefit estimate across all three claiming ages in under a minute.

The SS gap: what your portfolio covers before benefits start

Consider a fictional retiree, Dana, who retires at 62 with $72,000/year in spending and an FRA (age-67) Social Security benefit of $2,000/month ($24,000/year). Dana is deciding between claiming at 62, 67, or 70.

The portfolio's job looks very different under each scenario:

Claiming Age	Annual SS at Claim	Portfolio Drawdown (Pre-SS)	Portfolio Drawdown (Post-SS)
62	$1,400/mo ($16,800/yr)	None — SS starts immediately	$55,200/yr ($72k − $16.8k) forever
67	$2,000/mo ($24,000/yr)	$72,000/yr for 5 years	$48,000/yr after 67
70	$2,520/mo ($30,240/yr)	$72,000/yr for 8 years	$41,760/yr after 70

Claiming at 70 puts the most stress on the portfolio in the early years but requires the least from it over a 30-year retirement. Claiming at 62 is the inverse — least early stress, most long-term drag. For a 62-year-old who expects to live into their late 80s with a well-funded portfolio, delay typically wins on lifetime wealth.

The takeaway: the portfolio target you need isn't fixed — it's intertwined with when you claim. A $1.6M portfolio that easily supports the 67-claim path might be marginal on the 62-claim path, because the portfolio never gets relief.

Healthcare: the expense 62-year-olds underestimate most

Medicare eligibility remains age 65 in 2026. Retiring at 62 creates a three-year gap. Your options: COBRA from your former employer (often $800–$1,500/month for a couple), ACA marketplace coverage, or a working spouse's plan.

The ACA marketplace can work well — but the subsidy cliff returned sharply in 2026 after enhanced pandemic-era subsidies expired. Anyone with modified adjusted gross income above $62,600 (single) or approximately $84,600 (couple) loses all premium tax credits at once — not a phase-out, a cliff. One IRA withdrawal that overshoots the threshold by $5,000 can trigger $10,000–$20,000 in additional annual healthcare costs.

A 62-year-old couple on a silver plan might pay $200–$400/month with good MAGI management, or $1,000–$1,400/month without it. The difference can exceed $12,000 per year. If you're budgeting $8,000/year for healthcare ages 62–64 but paying $20,000, the portfolio targets above need to be revised upward.

The practical implication: early-retirement planning at 62 requires MAGI management as part of the financial plan, not an afterthought. The when can I retire calculator incorporates ACA cliff exposure when modeling your retirement date.

What the target actually looks like

Pulling together a realistic range for a 62-year-old single retiree spending $65,000/year with an FRA benefit of $1,900/month:

Strategy	Portfolio Target	Rationale
Claim SS at 62, no ACA planning	~$1.4M	Lower SS, no subsidy management, simplest
Claim SS at 67, MAGI-managed	~$1.65M	Higher front-load, then low portfolio draw post-67
Claim SS at 70, MAGI-managed	~$1.8M	Biggest gap years, then lowest sustained draw

The second scenario — delay to 67, actively manage MAGI to hold ACA subsidies during the 62–66 years — is typically the best combination of healthcare cost and long-term SS income for retirees in reasonable health who have the portfolio to cover the gap.

One underused lever: the early-retirement tax window

A 62-year-old who delays Social Security and manages MAGI carefully lands in one of the most favorable tax environments a retiree ever sees. In 2026, a married couple can have up to $133,000 in gross income ($100,800 in taxable income + $32,200 standard deduction) before reaching the 22% bracket. Long-term capital gains of up to $98,900 per year are taxed at 0%.

The years between 62 and 73 — before required minimum distributions force withdrawals from traditional IRAs — are the optimal window for Roth conversions. Every dollar converted at 12% now avoids potentially being taxed at 22%+ when RMDs kick in at 73. For someone with a $1.5M traditional IRA, ignoring this window can cost tens of thousands in unnecessary taxes over a 20-year retirement.

The retire at 60 calculator models the interplay between early-retirement timing, Roth conversion opportunity, and ACA cliff exposure.

The real answer to "how much"

For most 62-year-olds, the honest range is $1.2M to $2.5M, depending on spending level, Social Security benefit amount, claiming age, and healthcare management. The wide range isn't a cop-out — it reflects that a couple spending $50,000/year who claims SS at 67 needs something fundamentally different from a single person spending $90,000/year who claims at 62.

The generic 25x rule is a reasonable gut check. The portfolio you actually need is the one that survives your specific spending, your specific SS timeline, and your specific healthcare reality — not the average.

Granary models all three: taxes, SS timing across ages, ACA cliff exposure, Roth conversion math, and Monte Carlo uncertainty against your actual accounts. The when can I retire calculator is the fastest way to see your number with real inputs.

This post is planning education, not tax or financial advice. Retirement timing decisions involve personal health, tax, and financial factors that a fee-only financial planner or CPA can evaluate for your specific situation.