Defining retirement as a discontinuity in the labor supply of the agent, this paper resolves the retirement consumption puzzle in avery general model of intertemporal choice of consumption ans savings of a fully rational, forward looking, agent. Building on a specific version of Bellman(1957) principle of optimality, it provides a very general and parsimonious formula for determining the optimal age of retirement taking into account the possible discontinuity of the optimal consumption profile at the age of retirement.