Tag: Case Study

Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Rene”

Welcome! Today is the third installment of our Case Study Series. Please check out the other two posts here if you haven’t done so already:

Today’s volunteer “Rene” (not her real name) was laid off earlier in 2017 and is now living off her severance package. She wonders if she has enough of a nest egg to simply call it quits and retire in her late 40s. And many other questions: if/how/when to annuitize any of her assets and what accounts to draw down first? So many questions! As I pointed out in Part 17 of the Safe Withdrawal Series, a safe withdrawal rate calculation has to be a highly customized affair and that’s what we’ll do today again. Let’s see what the numbers say!
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Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “Captain Ron”

A month ago, I did a case study for a fellow FIRE planner (“John Smith”) and the reception was awesome. So why not do more of those? Without even asking for volunteers, I already got two more fellow FIRE planners who contacted me via email and shared their financial parameters. Today’s case study is for “Captain Ron” and, of course, Ron isn’t his real name, though he is indeed a Captain. Not the “Captain Ron” from the 1992 movie, but just a captain. More on that later!

captain_ron_poster

Why are case studies so exciting? One of the most important lessons I learned from my Safe Withdrawal Rate research (jump to Part 1 of the series here) is that the safe withdrawal calculations are best performed on a one-by-one basis. As we pointed out in our post last week, a withdrawal rate strategy should respond to market factors like equity valuations and bond yields as well as personal factors like age, retirement horizon, and expectations about pension and Social Security benefits. Further complicating the whole calculation is also the fact that we all have different distributions of assets over taxable, tax-deferred and tax-exempt accounts. So, let’s take a closer look at Captain Ron’s situation…

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Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “John Smith”

Welcome! Today is a premiere! Our first case study for a fellow FIRE planner “John Smith” (not his real name) who asked me if I can look into his early retirement plan, run some numbers and check whether he can retire already. John and his wife have done a phenomenal job and reached the “millionaire club” in their thirties! Congrats! Continue reading “Ask Big Ern: A Safe Withdrawal Rate Case Study for “John Smith”” →