The VPW spreadsheet also shows you max drawdown based on history which is really important for a withdrawal method based on portfolio value each year, as that affects your income/allowed withdrawal. During the worst case scenarios your portfolio is shrinking for quite a while in real terms, therefore so is your annual income. Just a potential something you have to figure out how to live with if you chose one of these % remaining portfolio type methods. Firecalc doesn’t provide this, although it does provide worst case, average and max ending portfolio values for a given time period - also valuable. I had to look at those generated scatter plots of runs and tease out which were the starting years for the worst scenarios, and run those to get lowest portfolio value during the period.
Ah, a respite from the Gamestop posts here and at BH ?
You are correct...one has to know the assumptions for each of the models/calculators being used. Being an engineer, I have looked/used all of them. I've come to several general conclusions:
1) starting the saving habit early and being consistent over time has had more of an effect, outside of any large windfall-bolus, on my projected safe withdrawal amount
2) pension income matters a lot more than I thought...it is a stable basis for the streams of income one might have in retirement
All of the models I've used have predicted SWR within $5-10k of each other....could be many things, as most use similar assumptions or algorithms to I may not be varying my inputs much.
For me, I try to focus on what I control...what has been gratifying with running the models is that there is a fairly good correlation for me that my long term behavior will help me as I age and wish to transition to a different model, ie, not being an employee, and yet not require me to significantly alter my behavior, ie spend less. If the models are true, I will need to very carefully read the 'Blow that dough' thread to find some ideas for spending ?
To the OP-understand your angst-as above you can see sometimes I act on it. From the responses here, there's an app/model/spreadsheet for that if you wish to analyze some more.
I suspect lockdowns and limited opportunities to blow off steam in other ways is being manifested in analysis paralysis....I am antsy for my old lifestyle of gym going, skiing, playing badminton, possibly flying and traveling..I've crocheted too many afghans...