Alessandra Malito

Tue, May 13, 2025, 8:26 AM7 min read

My spouse and I are 66 and 59, respectively. We keep our finances separate. We do not have children. She owns our apartment in New York City that is worth $2 million and has no mortgage. I own a house in eastern Long Island worth $4.2 million. I owe $2.7 million on it with a 2.25% interest-only mortgage rate that has four more years left on it.

We are both planning on retiring in five more years. I have a combined $1 million in my IRA and 401(K). I have $12 million in the stock market in a very good, diversified portfolio with a lot of Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B A shares. I also have $1 million in gold. She has $2 million in stocks and an IRA.

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We will both receive the maximum Social Security when we retire. How can we calculate what our retirement allowance will be? We live a very nice life, but aren’t insane with our spending and live below our means. We are both in excellent health and have three parents living in their late 80s.

Two Multimillionaires

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I receive letters from frustrated people when this column responds to letters like yours because not many near-retirees are in a position to worry about how to spend millions of dollars in retirement (or even $1 million).

That said, I’m going to respond by pointing out that even the wealthiest of the wealthy can mess up their retirements, and there are factors to look out for whether you’ve got $22 million in assets, or $220,000.

First, you need to have a clear picture of what you and your wife want for your retirement: Where you want it to be, how you want to spend your time, what you expect it to cost — or what you’re willing to spend on it. That $2.7 million mortgage is a perfect example.

I’m asked often if near-retirees should pay off their mortgages before retiring, and the answer is “it depends.” Mortgages aren’t automatically in the category of “bad debt” like credit-card debt, especially when there’s an interest rate as low as yours — unlike those 6%-plus rates we’re seeing currently).