Just retired at 58 will soon need to manage allocation of 401k in withdrawal mode

[ILMfreelancer]

I'm at the beach having a ball, taking a year off as a test run to retirement, living off of capital gains from the sale of my prior home and downsizing. Felt quite confident investing and building wealth while I was working, making a good income and making contributions to 401k, less confident about managing it once I start making withdrawals from 401k, especially with current ZIRP? 58 years old, just over $1M in retirement plans and about $55k yearly expenses (including a small mortgage fixed 3.65%), in good health with a retiree health plan until I go on medicare but no pension. Because I have no pension would like to try to hold of on SS until age 70, perhaps file on my ex's at full retirement age and defer mine to 70 for maximum lifetime payment just in case I outlive my retirement accounts? The goal is to not outlive them so a solid allocation/withdrawal strategy will be key.

 

[pb4uski]

What is your asset allocation for the $1m in retirement plans? Have you run your situation through Firecalc? Depending on how much your SS is, I'm not sure if your are well positioned to retire now unless you have overestimated your expenses.

 

[old woman]

You will do fine if you can trim your cost of living. Since you are 8-12 years from SS or maybe less you can plan to take say 4% plus 10K a year now then cut back after SS. I did what you plan and took half my ex's SS at FRM but it is less than $800 a month not a fortune but after 70 will get mine of about 2.5K a month. The thing to do is trim expenses to only what you really care about try to live on 40K a year or at the most 45K so you don't freak out when the markets are down.