Poll on initial withdrawal rates

[donheff]

One of the advantages (disadvantages?) of going with a straight % approach is that if you have a run of "good" market years, your draw amount might be increasing very fast (say you had an up 20% year).

But almost no one talks about, or recommends, a "straight % approach" and the poll didn't anticipate it. The concept is to take a percentage (e.g. 4%) of the starting portfolio and then continue taking that actual dollar amount adjusted for inflation. If you had a $1M portfolio and 3% inflation, you would take out $40K in year 1 and $40K + (40k*.03) = $41.2K the second year. It wouldn't (theoretically) matter if your portfolio went up or down 20% in year two.