Is FIRECalc too optimistic?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I actually think it might be right. You spend $500K. But you will get a pension of $50K and presumably social security of a combined $140K-$150K. That means you have a gap of $300K that needs to be funded. If your portfolio grows to $8M, it will generate $320K at 4%. That collectively is $520K per year, so a draw down rate of $500K/year would in fact cause the portfolio to increase.

75k pp in SS? At age 60?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually think it might be right. You spend $500K. But you will get a pension of $50K and presumably social security of a combined $140K-$150K. That means you have a gap of $300K that needs to be funded. If your portfolio grows to $8M, it will generate $320K at 4%. That collectively is $520K per year, so a draw down rate of $500K/year would in fact cause the portfolio to increase.

75k pp in SS? At age 60?

The 140 - 150 includes the 50K pension + SS. But certainly not that amount in SS at 60, maybe at 62 (7 years) with both maxing out.

[Anonymous]

500k a year in retirement is an insane number.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually think it might be right. You spend $500K. But you will get a pension of $50K and presumably social security of a combined $140K-$150K. That means you have a gap of $300K that needs to be funded. If your portfolio grows to $8M, it will generate $320K at 4%. That collectively is $520K per year, so a draw down rate of $500K/year would in fact cause the portfolio to increase.

75k pp in SS? At age 60?

The 140 - 150 includes the 50K pension + SS. But certainly not that amount in SS at 60, maybe at 62 (7 years) with both maxing out.

Are you aware that there is an absolute dollar max on SS? It is not $50k/pp at 62, even if the recipients were maxed out. That is a 70 number.

https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-01897

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:50/56yo with $5.25m in retirement/brokerage accounts, DH will have a pension of about $50k/y.

Trying to figure out if we can retire in 5 years. FIRECalc thinks that we are good to go as long as we spend less than $500k/year (using the Bernicke's Reality Retirement Plan that reduces the spending as one ages). Moreover, it projects us dying with possibly many millions left in our estate....

Do you think that FIRECalc is too optimistic?

You could retire now if your spending was low enough. In 10 years, your money will double if you can live off the pension. Rule of 72.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually think it might be right. You spend $500K. But you will get a pension of $50K and presumably social security of a combined $140K-$150K. That means you have a gap of $300K that needs to be funded. If your portfolio grows to $8M, it will generate $320K at 4%. That collectively is $520K per year, so a draw down rate of $500K/year would in fact cause the portfolio to increase.

75k pp in SS? At age 60?

The 140 - 150 includes the 50K pension + SS. But certainly not that amount in SS at 60, maybe at 62 (7 years) with both maxing out.

The calculation was “But you will get a pension of $50K and presumably social security of a combined $140K-$150K. That means you have a gap of $300K that needs to be funded.” so the $150k did not include the pension unless you were getting the OP to $450k total instead of 500k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So you would sell a portion of your stocks every year?

We have a sizable stock portfolio as well and would prefer to keep the capital and live off the dividends as much as possible, to preserve wealth for the next generation.

The thing is that stocks with a high capacity for growth rarely give large dividends. You want to balance growth and profit.

This may be true for the brokerage accounts, but not for retirement accounts. Those assets will have be liquidated and paid taxes on one way or another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:500k a year in retirement is an insane number.

+1

Firecalc supposedly says that OP is good to go if she spends less than 500k/yr, but realistically should only be spending around 150k (before taxes) from her investments. Whoa, big difference!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:500k a year in retirement is an insane number.

+1

Firecalc supposedly says that OP is good to go if she spends less than 500k/yr, but realistically should only be spending around 150k (before taxes) from her investments. Whoa, big difference!

OP said along the way that they would be adding to their investments at a rate of 200K/year. In addition to not touching the principal and growth, they easily could be at 8mm in 5 years. A withdrawal rate of 4% + SSI + 50K pension could get them over 400K/year. And OP chose a spending model that adjusts over time vs constant spending power. So you conceivably could take out 5% initially and still have plenty of money to continue to grow.

With any of these models you have to play around with them to see what you might be missing that would make them overly optimistic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually think it might be right. You spend $500K. But you will get a pension of $50K and presumably social security of a combined $140K-$150K. That means you have a gap of $300K that needs to be funded. If your portfolio grows to $8M, it will generate $320K at 4%. That collectively is $520K per year, so a draw down rate of $500K/year would in fact cause the portfolio to increase.

Op isn’t retiring today. Op is retiring in 10-15 years. With normal inflation that payout for retiring at normal retirements agent will be $70k-75k per year per person.

75k pp in SS? At age 60?

The 140 - 150 includes the 50K pension + SS. But certainly not that amount in SS at 60, maybe at 62 (7 years) with both maxing out.

The calculation was “But you will get a pension of $50K and presumably social security of a combined $140K-$150K. That means you have a gap of $300K that needs to be funded.” so the $150k did not include the pension unless you were getting the OP to $450k total instead of 500k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:50/56yo with $5.25m in retirement/brokerage accounts, DH will have a pension of about $50k/y.

Trying to figure out if we can retire in 5 years. FIRECalc thinks that we are good to go as long as we spend less than $500k/year (using the Bernicke's Reality Retirement Plan that reduces the spending as one ages). Moreover, it projects us dying with possibly many millions left in our estate....

Do you think that FIRECalc is too optimistic?

What's the percentage success rate for being "good to go"?

When I plug your numbers in--assuming the 50k pension starts in about 10 years at 66 and that you'll retire in 5 years, the success rate is only 80%. I personally am not comfortable with that level of success. But maybe you're still contributing and the pension will start in 5 years so the numbers are different?

Also, because one of you is 56 already, Bernicke's model starts going down right away so your actual spending starts at 483K spending per year and then going steadily down to plateau after 20 years to around 220k/yr for your remaining years. So it's not "not going over 500k, but rather matching the rather precipitous decline Bernicke's shows in the graph and settling at a rate that's less than half what you started with. Are you going to be fine with that? Healthcare/long term care?

I would try a couple of different firecalc models and play with the parameters to get a better sense.

[Anonymous]

Here’s a wild idea… if you want to retire early, figure out a way to live in less than 500k per year. I know you’ll be making sacrifices, but I’m sure if you use burlap to make your own clothes and eat soup 5 nights a week you could maybe get that annual spend to 475k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s a wild idea… if you want to retire early, figure out a way to live in less than 500k per year. I know you’ll be making sacrifices, but I’m sure if you use burlap to make your own clothes and eat soup 5 nights a week you could maybe get that annual spend to 475k.

Seriously.

So unbelievably out of touch

[Anonymous]

No, it’s not too optimistic. It’s a tool and you get out of it what you put into it. I like cfiresim better but firecalc is fine.

I agree with some of the other posters though. Hopefully this is trolling because you’re soooo good and the tone of your post is very tone-deaf.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:50/56yo with $5.25m in retirement/brokerage accounts, DH will have a pension of about $50k/y.

Trying to figure out if we can retire in 5 years. FIRECalc thinks that we are good to go as long as we spend less than $500k/year (using the Bernicke's Reality Retirement Plan that reduces the spending as one ages). Moreover, it projects us dying with possibly many millions left in our estate....

Do you think that FIRECalc is too optimistic?

What's the percentage success rate for being "good to go"?

When I plug your numbers in--assuming the 50k pension starts in about 10 years at 66 and that you'll retire in 5 years, the success rate is only 80%. I personally am not comfortable with that level of success. But maybe you're still contributing and the pension will start in 5 years so the numbers are different?

Also, because one of you is 56 already, Bernicke's model starts going down right away so your actual spending starts at 483K spending per year and then going steadily down to plateau after 20 years to around 220k/yr for your remaining years. So it's not "not going over 500k, but rather matching the rather precipitous decline Bernicke's shows in the graph and settling at a rate that's less than half what you started with. Are you going to be fine with that? Healthcare/long term care?

I would try a couple of different firecalc models and play with the parameters to get a better sense.

Very good response.