I don't plan on using a money market account to retire. I'm hoping REI will afford me enough cash flow to retire.
Currently I'm still paying off my first home (bought for 120K with 0 down. Worth about 160K now. Made several extra payments when I had extra cash, owe 109K now. Approx 51K equity. In 2 or 3 more years I'm hoping to pay down another 20K to 25K. Then Rather then sell the townhouse and buy a bigger better house, I plan on keeping the existing townhouse, using my equity as the down payment on another property, and buying something that has a garage (or at least a personal driveway rather then assigned single parking space), and is at least a little bit closer to work. Then, I'd like to rent out the old place and Live in the new place.
I am realistic here, I do not expect a positive cash flow from one rental property in the first few years of renting as I know there will be problems, and I'll still be making some pretty good sized payments on the mortgage myself. However, once the RE market starts to bounce back, property values will go up again, rent will go up, and I'll probably start being able to make a positive cash flow ater 2 or 3 slightly difficult years in the beginning. After that I just would try to purchase 1 new rental property every several years.
Hopefully by the time I retire I'll have at least 7 or 8 rental properties with at least 5 of them earning positive cash flow and the rest breaking even.
Retiring before 60 would be awesome, except I do like working, so I'd probably switch to part time rather then fully retire.