Is $1 Million Enough to Retire?

Is $1 million enough to retire? The answer is not the market. It is the gap between what you will spend and what your guaranteed income already covers.

Same million, same Social Security, three answers

In this video three couples each have $1 million saved and each have $36,000 a year coming in from Social Security. Their numbers run live on screen.

Nothing about the money differs. What differs is the life each couple wants. Watch how far apart the same million lands once you put a real number on the life beside it.

What changes when part of it is protected

Then I show what happens when one couple sets aside a portion of their savings for Protected Lifetime Income, a payment that keeps arriving for life and continues for the surviving spouse.

The point is not that this is right for everybody. The point is what it does to the gap, because once the essentials are covered by income that arrives regardless of the market, the rest of the portfolio stops having to behave like a paycheck.

Essentials, adventures, memories

The order I work in is the essentials first, then the adventures and experiences, then the memories with the people you love. A million dollars sounds like plenty until you price out all three and find out which one is unfunded.

Go deeper

The full written breakdown: Is $1 million enough to retire?

Run your own numbers on the free calculator

Everything on this page is illustrative and hypothetical as of August 2026. It is education, not investment, tax, or legal advice. Any people shown are examples, not real clients, and your situation will differ. Withdrawal-rate rules of thumb are general guidance from published research and are not a prediction or a promise of any result. Protected Lifetime Income figures rely on the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Kurt H. Jackson is Life and Health Insurance Licensed in MO, NE, KS, IA, and FL, and is not a securities broker, registered investment advisor, or CPA.

Browse all of Kurt’s retirement videos on the Retirement Planning Videos page.