Vanguard Big Shots share their retirement wisdom

[mickeyd]

A lot of common sense items are covered here, but it's good to know these pros are thinking just like I am on these financial matters. If I'm wrong, I appear to be in good company.

Vanguard − Vanguard retirement experts answer your questions

Many individuals can probably get by with less than the standard 70% to 80%. But many individuals are also saying that they hope to enjoy a very active standard of living in the early years of retirement, with lots of discretionary money for travel, leisure, and entertainment. Our standard rule of thumb at Vanguard for more affluent households is up to 85%.

If you don't need the assets from the IRA, you might consider converting them to a Roth as soon as possible in order to avoid required minimum distributions, which must start by April of the year after the year you turn age 70½.
You can't really roll IRA distributions into a Roth once the minimum distributions start, though you can still convert a traditional IRA to a Roth. And you can't make new Roth or regular contributions without employment earnings. So the path may be to investigate a conversion now.

The standard approach there is to first sell those assets with the small tax consequence, usually taxable assets taxed at capital gains, and leave the tax-deferred withdrawals, which are usually taxed at higher rates, until later.