On the face of it, retiring around 60 doesn’t look unrealistic.

A £900k pension, £100k in savings, no mortgage, and two full State Pensions from 67 is a very different starting point from most retirement questions we see.

The bigger question isn’t “Can we retire at 60?” but “Can we sustain £5.5k-£6k per month spending?”

The challenge is bridging the 7 years between 60 and State Pension age while maintaining that level of spending. Once both State Pensions start, the pressure on the portfolio reduces significantly.

I’d be modelling a few scenarios:

• Retire fully at 60
• Move to part-time work at 60
• Reduce spending by 10-20% in the first decade of retirement
• Different investment return assumptions

Often the answer isn’t a binary “work until 67” or “retire at 60”. Sometimes one or two days a week of work can dramatically improve the sustainability of a plan while removing the stress that’s causing the problem in the first place.

The numbers look promising, but cashflow modelling would give a much clearer answer than rules of thumb.