Tag Archives: 4% rule

To help make sure your retirement income covers your needs and lasts for a lifetime, you need a custom plan. The 4% rule of thumb is a handy starting point, but it’s too general. Get specific to find your very own retirement number.

Withdrawing from a $1,000,000 nest egg upon retirement using the familiar 4% rule to generate a successful 30-year inflation-adjusted (3% per annum) retirement proved to be totally inadequate as per the retirement withdrawal strategy that I put forth in a previous article (1). In fact, it crashed and burned in year 25 of the 30-year plan! In fact, as I show in this article, it will only succeed if your portfolio outperforms the S&P 500 by 5% every year for 30 straight years - and what is the likelihood of that? Words: 1533

If you’re planning for retirement, it won’t take long before you come across the 4% safe withdrawal rate which goes something like this:

This post looks at the 4% rule to understand why it works so well in retirement, what could possibly be a stumbling block and how to overcome such a situation should it arise.

One of the things that really frosts me is the financial planning industry that insists on using rules of thumb such as the “set and forget” tools - specifically the 4% and 60-40 rules.

According to the 4 percent rule, retirees who withdraw 4% of their initial retirement portfolio balance, and then adjust that dollar amount for inflation each year thereafter, can create a paycheck that lasts for 30 years. The concept has recently been criticized given the fact that the current crop of retirees are entering retirement during a period of historically low interest rates so the question of how much a retiree can safely spend each year is now more important than ever. This article reviews the original concept and puts forth a number of variations to help you answer the question put forth in the title: How much can I spend in retirement without running out of money?