I retired at 58, which had been my long term goal. When the 2008-9 thing hit, I figured I would work to 62 or more. Things recovered faster than I expected and the company offered me a year's pay to quit. In July, the offered the deal to folks at my level but in management only, which really incensed me. They claimed folks on my side were "too valuable", even though we were paid the same. Managers bailed in droves.
That was a good thing of course, and I didn't really have much to "do" at work, and come September they allowed us on the tech side to go as well, so I left 31 October, now having banked a few more months of pay for doing almost nothing and still getting severance.
I've been able to grow my retirement funds considerably since then, it would have been hard to do otherwise, and I checked today I'm ahead of where I was in February this year somehow. That wasn't any prescience on my part, just luck.
My kid in Texas wants to retire at 45. That is MUCH tougher.
