livingalmostlarge
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2014
- Messages
- 330
So how low a success rate using the FIRE calculator would you take and pull the trigger?
Were you at 100%? 90%? 80%? Lower?
Were you at 100%? 90%? 80%? Lower?
I was at 100%, or very close to it. I also assumed my living expenses would double, and my income would be half of what I projected.
It all depends on what your fallback plan is.
One way to look at it:
It largely depends on the amount of flexibly you have. For example, could you ramp up income or ramp down expenses if needed.
Another way:
"But history teaches us that depriving ourselves to boost our 40-year success probability much beyond 80% is a fool’s errand, since all you are doing is increasing the probability of failure for political, economic, and military reasons relative to the failure of banal financial planning."
The context is important, and can be found in Bernstein's article here:
The Retirement Calculator from Hell, Part III
I didn’t discover FIRECALC until well after retiring. I figured I would just spend my divs and pension. Probably still a good plan.