<prompt> Human: Good morning PF,I am on track to retire early. Im hoping for somewhere between ages 40 and 45. My question is in regards to how people get access to their retirement savings when they retire early. I was always under the impression that withdrawing money from a 401kIRA before the official retirement age 59.5? would cause a pretty significant penalty. So, how are people that retire early accessing their retirement funds? Do they typically save up a lot of money in non-retirement accounts to tide them over between their early retirement age and the official retirement age? Or do they just pay the penalty and access their funds early?Thanks in advance for the input. Googling the topic of how to retire early only generates a bunch of articles about how to save up money to retire early.  <response>: Look at 72t distributions. You are able to set up equal periodic distributions of your 401k funds based on one of a couple life expectancy calculations. You can do this before 59.5, and there is no penalty on the distributions. The caveat is that you are locked in afterward, and the distribution schedule may be much different from what you needwant in retirement. 