How much can you withdraw from your nest egg each year without running out of money before you die?
There is no single approach the industry has settled on yet, and probably won’t be due to conflicting interests between product based solutions versus a process based solution. This article (link at bottom) by Kelly Greene is a good summary on the state of thought to date.
My thought leadership on this is through a process based solution that incorporates your age, expected longevity statistics, and measures comparing what you are currently doing against what you should be doing in light of probabilities. This evaluation is redone each year to incorporate a now shorter lifespan because you have aged another year and updated portfolio values … in other words, a dynamic process that looks at the facts each year and one that does not depend on markets (since nobody knows what they will do tomorrow, let alone the rest of your life).
To get an idea about my approach to measuring sustainability over a person’s remaining lifetime, take a look at the sample decision matrix below.
Wall Street Journal | WEEKEND INVESTOR NOVEMBER 19, 2011
Another blog that explains this further … http://wp.me/p2Oizj-xP