How long a portfolio lasts at a given spend, and how it holds up when returns land badly.
Assumption basis: S&P 500 long-run returns and volatility · BLS CPIIn today’s dollars, all in.
Income that arrives regardless. It comes off the spending the portfolio has to cover.
After inflation. A 7% nominal return at 2.5% inflation is about 4.4% real.
Both paths average out to the same return. The difference is the order: the amber line takes its losses first, while the portfolio is still large and every withdrawal sells into a down market. It survives that sequence too, which is the real test: an average-return projection alone would not tell you.
Clearing the 80% band is what planners treat as sound. The paths that failed are the tail where returns land badly and early, which is the risk this table exists to show rather than to average away.
Today’s dollars throughout, so spending stays flat and the return you enter is a real return. Monte Carlo draws 500 paths with normally distributed returns around your input at 17% volatility, from a fixed seed, so the same inputs always give the same number. Real returns are not normally distributed and real retirees do not spend a constant amount, so treat the percentage as a stress test rather than a probability. That is also why no survival percentage appears above: the model can say which band a plan lands in, not the odds a real retirement lasts. No taxes, fees, or required minimum distributions.
This answers one question in isolation. The playbook puts your answers in order and tells you which one to act on first.
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