bonesly wrote: Fri Nov 07, 2025 11:23 am
boglefred wrote: Mon Nov 03, 2025 2:07 pm
Current AA: 60/40So I’m saving about $112.5k/year, but my work stress is very high and I’d like to get out of it sooner than later.
For retirement, I’m considering either a 40/60 stock/bond allocation, or a 50/50 stock/bond allocation. My risk tolerance is moderate.
I’ve used opensocialsecurity, and its optimal strategy is for me to file at 70, and her to file at 68, for a total annual benefit of 84334 * 0.75 = 63251.25. If we claim at 62, then we’re looking at 49320 * 0.75 = 36990.0.
When I update the Accumulation Monte Carlo for a 60/40 AA from age 44 to age 50 and contributions of $112.5K/yr the range of outcomes looks like this (for one set of 1,000 trials):
End-Bal Percentile
$1,634.3K 10th
$1,805.1K 20th
$2,175.0K 50th
$2,554.9K 80th
$2,774.9K 90th
The 10th percentile outcome (planning for a bad SOR), supports an initial 3.40% draw of $55.6K in year-1, which is $46.5K in today’s dollars and should last for 45 years (to age 95). That’s useful info if you had no other income sources, but you will get $63,251 from SocSec at 70 or $36,990 at 62, so let’s look at a Trinity Study style Withdrawal Monte Carlo, starting with that 10th percentile portfolio balance at age 50 and using inflation-adjusted numbers for SocSec (those quotes from SSA are in today’s dollars, not future dollars) and retaining a 60/40 AA (since you’re retiring at 50, not 65). That has a 96.2±0.6% chance of NOT running out of money early for claiming SocSec at 70. $63.3K in today’s dollars is adjusted for +3%/yr inflation (long-term average) to $114.2K at age 70, which results in a -87.5% drop in the size of the portfolio withdrawal.
Claiming at 70…
If you’re wary of the SSA solvency long-term and decide to claim early (get it while you can), the the success rate was the same at 96.2±0.6% and $31K in today’s dollars is $52.7K at age 62, which results in a -49.9% drop in the portfolio draw. Keep in mind that each set of 1,000 trials has a bit of fluctuation, so when I ran this case a second time it was 96.1% vs 96.2%, but still that’s well above the Trinity Threshold of 90.0%, so retiring at 50 does not seem “too bullish” at all. Planning around a 10th percentile result means a 90% chance of actually having more than you planned for, so if anything it’s conservative, not optimistic.
Claiming at 62…
Both of the cases above (claiming SocSec at 70 or 62) tend to leave a very large residual balance to heirs/charity and that’s common with a Const-$ strategy per the Trinity Study. You should really look into a variable percentage withdrawal strategy unless every penny of that $72K annual expense is mandatory (there’s no room to take a discretionary pay cut in a down market because there’s no discretionary spending at all). If you do have a fairly significant portion of spending that is discretionary, consider using VPW or the TPAW Planner’s ABW strategy, rather than Const-$ so you can spend more and enjoy it in your lifetime rather than leave such a huge legacy.
It’s likely worth running your scenario through the TPAW Planner, which probably accounts for tax-treatment of the various accounts types, whereas my model is just one big tax-advantaged portfolio (there’s no taxes applied and no distinction among account types making up the total portfolio, it’s a “gut-check” not a detailed spend plan). I already linked my accumulation & withdrawal models earlier along with the TPAW Planner, so if you want to look at variations of what I ran here you can do that yourself (e.g., tweaking retirement age, savings rate, inflation assumption, when SocSec kicks in, etc.).
Alternatively, I do think that PlanVision is very affordable for a professional look at your likely balances over time for various savings & spending plans options (I think their app is eMoney). It’s only a bit more expensive than Pralana Gold, but you get one-on-one guidance from a pro (that probably has a CFP). However, you get what you pay for and their solutions do not typically cover many aspects of detailed financial planning (i.e., they mostly will plan portfolio management and cash-flows during accumulation & withdrawal, not so much complex tax situations, estate planning, and other aspects that a dedicated CFP advice-only advisor would likely cover; at least based on what I’ve read here from others that have used PlanVision).
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Advice-Only Advisors
Start with Jason Zweig’s 19 Questions for your Advisor, so you know what to ask when choosing an advisor. Note that Rick Ferri (no longer taking new clients) disagrees with Jason’s “are fees negotiable / yes” assertion (Rick charges a non-negotiable flat fee regardless of asset size).
Jon Luskin (Jon is on the board for the Bogle Center for Financial Literacy)
Mark Zoril (of Plan Vision)
Allan Roth (of WealthLogic; Allan has been a panel member in several of the Bogleheads Speaker Series; new clients on very limited basis)
Rick Ferri is not accepting new clients, but his site has this link: Advice-Only Network
Listed by @Sandi_K, a client of Plan Vision: XY Planning Network and Hello Nectarine
Also see @ObliviousInvestor’s Financial Planners to Consider in Theory, News, & General.
The state of financial planning and why CFP is only a starting point.
Also see White Coat Investor’s post on Are you a DIY, Validator, or Delegator? as that guides the level of advice you should get (none, advice-only, or full-service).
Thanks for sending this sheet over with the simulations. It’s been really helpful.
