How much money would you need to truly retire if the following was true?

Assume the following: *you own your home with no mortgage (real estate taxes are about $12K) * your 2 kids college education is 100% paid for * you are 45, married and in good physical shape * you own 2 cars with no loans and have zero other debt

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2. You need a few more facts to know this answer. For example: * At what age do you want to retire? * How long do you and your spouse expect to live? * How much income do you need in retirement? * Where will your nest egg be invested to provide your income? * How will you get health care (Medicare doesn't start until age 65)? * What if one of you dies prematurely, will any pension or support income stop when that person dies? * How much will you get from social security? Will you start taking reduced benefits at age 62, or will you wait unitl full retirement age. There are some good retirement calculators at Kiplingers.com and Fidelity.com Try out some numbers and see what it looks like. Sounds like you are in good shape so far to have a house paid in full and no debt. Nows the time to ramp up your savings and put as much as you can into tax advantaged retirement accounts like 401ks, IRAs, Roth IRAs, etc. Good for you!
3. Your question doesn't provide the number you really need: how much do you need to live on? Do you want to eat beans and rice every day, never go out and not have cable/cellphone/internet? Figure out your monthly expenses and multiply by 12 to get how much you need annually. Make sure you include all your expenses. Take this number an multiply by 20. Why 20? Because if you have a "lump sum" you are living off, you can relatively safely life off 5% of that without eating into your principle. So, if you have annual expenses of $30,000 then you'd need a nestegg of about $600,000 to "live off the interest".
4. That would depend on the kind of life style you wish to pursue. With the exception of your real estate taxes (12,000.00?) pretty high, I would venture a guess that 3,000.00 a month would be enough but it depends on where you live and what the cost of living is in your area. My situation is similar to yours except that my real estate taxes are 2,000.00 per year. We get along very well on our combined income of some 5.000.00 per month. no one can give you a specific answer on this question since each case is different.