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Q: I want to retire at 50. How do I make this happen?
You need to start saving as much as you can as soon as possible. You need to start young so that your money has the maximum time to grow. Since you're retiring about 15 years earlier than the average, you'll also need to save much larger amounts of money to make up for the additional time that you won't be working and earning. Not only do you need to begin saving when you are young, you need to save some of your money in investments that you can tap at age 50. You can't touch a regular IRA or 401(k) until you're 59 1/2 without penalties and taxes. You can tap your principal contributions to a Roth IRA at any time, but you cannot touch the earnings penalty-free until age 59 1/2. You don't want to retire early only to find that much of your nest egg is unavailable to you, so you need to put some money into taxable investment accounts, savings accounts or CDs.
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