A question I often get helping someone put a a financial plan together is “Do I have enough saved up to retire?” It is a valid question because for most people it’s a daunting decision to pull the trigger to stop working and live the rest of their life off of the assets they have saved up over their lifetime. The answer from me is always, “It depends.”
It was recently reported that Johnny Depp spends $2 million a month. $24 million of spending in one year is a lot, however if I google Johnny Depp’s net worth it comes out to $400 million. Now let’s make a couple of assumptions 1) That Johnny Depp is going to retire today. This is probably false as I recently saw the trailer for the latest Pirates of the Carribean movie. Let’s also make the assumption all $400 million of Johnny’s assets are available to use in retirement. This is also probably false because I’m sure some of the $400 million includes assets that cannot be used to produce income (his home, and his multiple vacation homes.
If we run a year by year analysis on Johnny Depp if he retired now he would run out of money by the time he is 74 years old. Mainly due to the fact that inflation will cause his spending to go up over time.
While I have never done a financial plan for Johnny Depp, I have seen people with millions saved up where it wasn’t enough to retire and people with very little saved where it was enough. The reason why I always initially answer with “It depends” is because there are two parts to answering the question of do I have enough. Not only do we want to look at the value of their assets (IRA’s, 401k’s, pensions, savings, real estate investments), but just as important is to project what their spending needs are in retirement.