Retired at the age of 53, and loving every minute of it. Planned for it, spent years getting ready, only to have the Army start the process early. They wanted to get rid of a few of us so they could contract the shop I worked in. They moved me to work in the power plant. I refused due to a lung problem (service connected). They gave me a letter stating the Army no longer had a job for me due to my service connected disability. I took that to the VA, they said the army is telling them I am unemployiable. Got 100% unemployiability out of it. That held me over till I turned 55 (minium age to retire Civil Service). Then I put in for my retirement. Retired 30 years Civil Service.
Now my wife is at the point of being able to retire, but she does not want to. She feels she needs to work, plus she likes her job. I sat her down last week and showed her that she will make more money retiring than she currently makes. She still does not want to retire. When she retired from the Air Force, she spent one year at home. During that year she almost went crazy, she could only clean the house so much. And we also had a 7 year old then. She finally went to work doing the same thing she did in the military, only as a civilian. Now our son is 18 and low to almost no maintenance. I'm often gone for days, sometimes weeks at a time. So she feels she would go totally crazy at home.
Everything we own, including our home is paid for. That is the biggest part of retiring, not having those big housing cost. We bought our house with a 15 year loan, all our friends that bought when we did refinanced. Now they still have 15 to 20 years to pay off. We paid ours off 10 years ago and that is the nicest thing we ever did. That is how I am able to afford all my toys. We pool our money to pay utilities, and to support the kid. Then hers is hers, and mine is mine.