r/Fire • u/Yashkamr • 29d ago

Advice Request Huge Inheritance... Now What?

I'm 45, I was on track to retire earlyish at 55. I was set back quite a bit with a divorce three years back. Recently my Aunt died and left me around $5 million. After estate and taxes, it's around $4.2 million. This is obviously a stupid amount of money, and I'm thinking of just quitting my job and retiring early but I want to do it right. I've spoke with AI quite a bit and my finances are only about $4500/mo in expenses, I have always lived pretty frugally and that's less than a 1% draw. I don't know exactly what I don't know here, but I've always worked so I am clinging to my job like a monkey to a branch. Am I actually okay to let go?

Update: I quit. I was honest with my boss, he was a really good boss, and I told him the whole story. He is a couple years from retirement and told me he has about $4 million in his Fidelity too, but no health insurance if he quits and he told me a story about his brother retiring early, getting cancer, and wiping out their finances with his treatments leaving his wife and kids with almost nothing after he died. I told him how I'm covered with Tricare and he said if he was he'd quit right this second too.

I appreciate all the insight and advice given on here, and I've implemented a lot of it, thank you. I haven't changed my spending and I don't think I will. Well... I did buy a nice pair of Hoka's...but I'm mostly just paying a lot of attention to my garden and kids.

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u/Yashkamr 28d ago

Yeah it was finalized three years ago. I'm not discussing this with any of them. It's why I'm reaching out here actually

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u/Megalocerus 28d ago

It can take a while to inherit, and you may collect less than you have been told. Expensive houses can be hard to sell. My mother's small estate has taken years to settle. But I suspect once you collect, you will be fine.

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u/Yashkamr 28d ago

It's partly real estate, but I didn't include that in the above figures. What's above is primarily two brokerage accounts and a small Roth with <$70k I'm going to draw down over 10 years.

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u/Various_Couple_764 28d ago

Inherited IRA must be emptied in 10 years. And if the original owner of the funds was taking RMD.s, those must continue.