SnowBog wrote: Tue Jul 08, 2025 7:05 pm
eg1 wrote: Tue Jul 08, 2025 4:34 pm
So would your recommendation be to just use the VPW table and not even worry about future income like social security and pensions in the actual withdrawal calculations for somebody that is not collecting those income sources till a future date?
No…
I actually like the way the VPW spreadsheet attempts to handle these situations… Candidly, its what initially drew me to VPW to begin with… When I found BH in 2018, and was trying to get financially literate, and people were talking about 4% and/or 25X – I struggled with “what’s our X”… In our case, we have multiple pensions, social securities, “DIY Annuities” (via Savings Bonds) that all kick in at different times. So our “X” was different, depending if we were talking “early retirement” (before any kick in), “mid retirement” (as some start to kick in), and “full retirement” (as all retirement income steams take effect). For my two cents, I think VPW has handled these types of situations with a simple – yet powerful approach.
The point I was trying to make is you can’t simply look at VPW and say “hey, it said to withdraw $x – which is y% of my portfolio.” That y% might not be what you think it is (as I attempted to explain above). And highly unlikely you can compare y% to anything else – as they aren’t looking at things the same way as VPW does…
That isn’t to say there isn’t “value” in comparing results… I have a home-grown retirement calculator which is my primary tool, but it has a “comparison” tab with inputs that I can feed into VPW, FireCalc, FICalc, cFireSim, projectionlab, https://www.flexibleretirementplanner.com/wp/download/, BH’s own https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Retiree_Portfolio_Model, and Pralana Gold. But I understand that each tool is different – and don’t try to compare them “literally.” Some include tax estimates (RPM, FRP, Pralana) – to varying degrees (for example, not all consider taxable gains correctly), some only use historical data, some only use Monte Carlo, etc. “Big Picture” – my results across multiple tools tell me “I’m on track for success” – IMHO that’s all they tell me…
Coming back to VPW, I intend to use the VPW spreadsheet – as is – to manage our retirement withdrawals (when we get to that point). Again – its simplicity was a driving force/consideration (my spouse is not financially inclined – but I’m optimistic I can give them the spreadsheet and say “update this balance amount and withdraw what it suggests” for them to be self-sufficient if I die first.
My concern was it sounded like you were – IMHO – too focused on the withdrawal %, and talked about just withdrawing a % (one of whatever VPW, TPAW, or ??? [Boldin] said) – and then seeing how things go… I haven’t looked into TPAW – but I’d be surprised if they manage pensions/social security the same way as VPW. So again, just randomly switching between them could have you attempting to “compare” incomparable things (at least at a detailed level)…
My recommendation – when you get to that point – pick a horse and ride it! If you want to use VPW, then use it – update entries each year and follow its recommendations. If you want to use TPAW – then use it… But I can’t endorse using VPW in 1 year, then TPAW in year 2, then something else in year 3… These things are intended for “long-term use.” But use it as intended…
This approach – testing various calcs, know they are providing slightly different results, interpreting them as a collection of indicators – is excellent, IMHO. I really appreciate you collecting the calcs you use into one post and sharing them and how you go about that.
