50 year plan, best way to plan

[kat]

Dory and others,

I'm about to take steps to do something I've kicked around for 15 years: buy a getaway place. A small two bedroom place in the mountains.

FIRECalc gives me a 96.6% success rate for a 50 year plan, without even selling the getaway place in the future. But my withdrawal rate is over 4% with the smaller portfolio.

Is there a "best way" to plan a fifty year plan? I'm 45 and my grandparents lived past 90, one past 100.

I tend to do things on the back of an envelope. No spreadsheets. I figure I can always sell the place, can always sell the house in the city, etc.

I'm very likely to go ahead and do it (finally), but just looking for ideas to think it through.

I'm sensing 96.6% is not reliable.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

kate