This is optimal finance daily.

Episode 539.

Can you stop investing when you hit your retirement number?

Part 1, by Jason Hull with P.T. money.

And I'm your host and narrator Dan, happy Thursday to you. This is of course where I read to you from some of the best personal finance blogs on the planet.

And now let's get right to it and start optimizing your retirement number. Can you stop investing when you hit your retirement number, part one by Jason Hull with

P.T.com.

Quote, the rearview mirror is with PT money.com.

Quote, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

Warren Buffett

Remember those ING ads where people were carrying around big orange random numbers. Those numbers represented the amount that they needed to have in assets to have a safe and secure retirement.

The ads were trying to create awareness that there's a magical, mystical number that supposedly guarantees that you

won't have to eat cat food or dive in dumpsters when you stop working.

I was recently at a FinCon meetup with PT and he asked me a thought-provoking question. He was looking at the

sum in his retirement accounts. He took that number, assumed a certain rate of

return in the market between now and when he reached age 59 and a half, and the

result was his number.

Does this mean I can stop contributing to retirement accounts? he asked me.

Before we can start to answer that question, let's dig a little more deeply into the issue.

Retirement accounts.

Why 59.5 is a magic number.

Many years ago, the US government decided that it would be in the best interests of folks

...