[twiceaday]

3M is too much money to retire. I plan to retire early and it will be long before I reach 3M. USA is very friendly to retiring on capital gains. The first long-term cap-gain federal tax bracket is 0% on income up to $77.4k (married, filing jointly). That is not counting the standard deduction of 24k (married, filing jointly). If you move to a state with no income tax you pay literally zero taxes for 100k/year. If you get zero growth you can live for 30 years. If you get 3.3% or more average annual growth you will die with 3M in the bank. Move to a no-income-tax state, get a mortgage asap to cement your biggest expense, and live happy.

There are other tricks you can do

(1) You can use your standard deduction to slowly convert your pre-tax retirement accounts into after-tax accounts without paying any tax (i.e. 24k/year). Then after five years you can withdraw the principle from the after-tax accounts. This can be done at any age.

(2) In years where you do not use your 0% tax bracket you can use the remainder for capital gain harvesting. You can sell some of your investments and buy them back again. If the gain does not push you over 77.4/k you pay zero tax but raise your cost basis to lower your gain when you ultimately sell the investment. And wash sale rules do not apply to selling with a gain.