We spend a lot of time talking about building up our retirement accounts, investing the money, and growing our wealth.
There are lots of people who think knowing a lot about this topic will somehow allow them to come up with a scheme that will allow them to maximize their happiness and spending.
Any retirement spending plan that doesn’t acknowledge that fact will result in you spending less than you otherwise could.
The 4% rule of thumb is set low to cover the worst-case scenarios. If your scenario doesn’t look like that, you can likely get away with spending a little more.
Another key principle to understand about withdrawal rates is that the longer the time period, the more important it is for your portfolio to continue to grow.
If retirement withdrawal rate studies were a meta-analysis, this data is not only retrospective, but it is also very limited. It is barely better than expert opinion.
Deal with it. If you are not willing to, it will cost you a lot of money either in foregone returns.