CindyC72 asks,

I have added the "Retire Early Safe Withdrawal Calculator" to my arsenal of planning weapons in the journey towards retiring early. I do have a quick question to make sure that I am looking at the results it is giving me in the proper way.

Right now I have the payout set for the maximum, 50 years. When I plug in the other variables, I have decided that anything with a survivability factor of over 90% for 50 years is acceptable.

Am I being over-optimistic on this?


No.

As long as you understand that you have a 10% chance (based on historical calculations) of running out of money, there's no problem with deciding to accept that risk.

As I wrote in an earlier post, "While I waited until I could live on a 4% withdrawal, if I really hated my job I wouldn't wait until I'd saved enough to reach the "100% safe" withdrawal rate. I'd be willing to use the "90% safe" number to get out earlier. However, I wouldn't be willing to go the "80% safe" or the "70% safe" withdrawal rate to retire early. That's just too risky for me.


intercst