The thought of running out of money in retirement can be scary, and it begs a common question:
How much can I safely withdraw in retirement?
The 4% rule has dominated the conversation here, due in large part to its simplicity. The idea: spend up to 4% of your retirement savings each year, and your money will most likely last 30 years.
It’s a helpful shorthand early on, but the closer you get to retirement, the more nuance matters.
Because the truth is there is no one single safe withdrawal rate. Yours will change year to year depending on a few variables, including:
- Market conditions (see: the retirement Class of ‘08)
- Inflation (see: recent times)
- How long you expect to live
If all of this sounds maddeningly inconclusive, we agree. So we designed a dynamic safe withdrawal strategy and built the tool right into the Betterment app. All so you can spend with peace of mind.
How Betterment handles safe withdrawals
If you’re a Betterment customer, you’re probably familiar with Goal Forecaster. It’s one of the most helpful tools we have in charting a path to retirement.
Once you’re in retirement, we shift Goal Forecaster in reverse. Instead of projecting how your savings may stack up over the years, we project different scenarios for spending them down in retirement.
Want to see for yourself? Create a new Retirement Income goal (Add new > IRA > Create new Retirement Income goal) and find the tool under “Projections.” Enter how much you have in retirement savings, then we’ll serve up a personalized projection for a safe monthly withdrawal. We auto-fill a life expectancy age, but you can tinker with this number too.
When the time comes to retire and start putting your hard-earned savings to use, we suggest reviewing your safe withdrawal rate annually, and working with both a tax and financial advisor to fine-tune a spending plan for your specific situation. Assuming your retirement savings are spread across taxable, tax-deferred, and tax-exempt accounts, the ideal withdrawal order between all of them will depend on a few variables.
Before you go any further, however, it’s worth reflecting on a final question.
What does “safe” mean to you?
“Die with Zero” makes for a provocative book title, but we don’t recommend taking it literally.
So while most safe withdrawal strategies (including ours) define “safe” as simply not running out of money, you, a totally reasonable human being, might want to raise the bar slightly higher.
Maybe you’d rather not cut things so close at the end. Maybe you’d like to leave some of your wealth to family or charity. Whatever your reasons, they’re valid.
Just know you’ll need to adjust your withdrawals accordingly. So play around with our projections. Sit with a few different end-of-life scenarios, until you land on a number you can live with. Then spend away, and start realizing the retirement of your dreams.
