You need 20 mil NW to not be in a medicaid facility?
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The 3% withdrawal rate is for people that need to draw down their principal. You can earn a reasonably safe 4%-5% return…so $800k-$1MM…and you never touch the principal (and in fact probably keep adding to it). |
| A 3% withdrawal rate is meant to preserve your nest egg, not draw it down. Using a 4-5% withdrawal rate runs a real risk of running out of money in old age, or not having anything to pass down to your children. I know people advocate that you should “Die with zero” but that is middle class behavior. The fact that you can reasonably spend 20M in retirement on living expenses and healthcare means that it is still just upper middle class. If you are wealthy then you will be able to set up a trust for your kids/grandkids/nephews/nieces, and make generous donations to your community and alma mater. |
Again…you aren’t getting it. When they talk about the withdrawal rate they are talking literally about drawing down on your principal. If you are earning 4%-5% and living off that, your withdrawal rate is 0. |
These %s are quite high… 64,440 households in the US are worth $100M or more, and I’d assume most are concentrated around major metro areas. So it doesn’t seem “rare” at all for someone in the DC area to know people worth $100M - I’d wager many on this thread do and just don’t know it because who runs around screaming they’re worth tens of millions - that puts a target on your back |
You should have started estate planning years ago. |
Upper middle class is still middle class, and 20 mil absolutely allows you to leave trust funds for 2-3 kids that would be life changing. How is it not "wealthy"? How much money do you really need in retirement when you are elderly? You can live very well with many luxuries, travel, unlimited dining out, etc, and hire a home caretaker with 1 mil passive income you can generate using conservative 5% rate of return off of 20 mi. How is this not wealthy when you are getting income of 1% of population without even touching you principal? What are you planning to spend your additional 3% drawdown on? I am genuinely curious what expenses would ever amount to completely spending 1.5 mil a year taxed at capital gains tax rate at most? Can you please list what this lifestyle involves? |
PP - we started estate planning about 20 years ago before our children got married and had children of their own. Every two years we review our estate plan and update it based on life changes. |
To guarantee that 5% rate of return, much would be in cash/MM/CD/Bonds/Cash alternatives and would be taxed at top tax bracket, so close to 50% in many states. But yes you can live quite nicely on $500-650K/year, especially if you own your home outright as well |
NP. In most cases, a 4% withdrawal rate will leave a lot of money to your heirs. And sometimes you will end up broke lol. Look at the accompanying terminal value chart of the Trinity study. The ending values for a 3% withdrawal rate are insane. |
You can easily have safe dividend stocks and munis as part of the portfolio…someone smart would also want to consider getting residency in a no tax or low tax state. You also have to worry about state estate taxes which tend to also be in high tax states. |
Firstly, if you are in bonds/cash alternatives/CDs, you will be taxed mostly as income, not cap gains. So assume 40-50% for fed and state. but yes you can live quite nicely on that. |
Probably. Most of my friends are millionaires but I don't know a single person who has over $20 million. Anecdotal but from a data set of 100+ families. |
It’s weird that you think you know the net worths of 100 families. |