Retiring With $800K? The One Number That Matters More Than Your Balance

Detailed summary

Two retirees hold the same $800,000 and the same $70,000 budget, yet one plan thrives while the other starts running dry. The difference has nothing to do with investment returns, and most people never check it before they quit working.

Almost everyone with $800,000 saved eventually asks whether it's enough to retire on. It sounds like a fair question, and the answer depends on how much you'll pull from that balance each year, measured as a share of the total. That share is your withdrawal rate. It's the one number to keep in mind for the rest of this article, because it decides whether $800,000 lasts for decades or starts running dry in your 70s.

Your withdrawal rate is the annual amount you take from the portfolio divided by its value. At 4%, $800,000 supports about $32,000 a year. At 3.5%, the rate that makes more sense for someone retiring in their early 60s, it supports about $28,000.

Opening of the article, excerpted from Yahoo Finance. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.