Dtail
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
I know I've asked this before, but at what point in the year does FireCalc presume you retire? That can make a huge difference.
For instance, on the first trading day of January, 2008, my balance was around $415K. On the last trading day of December 2008, it was around $260K.
On the first trading day of January 2009, I had that ~$260k, but at the end of the year I was around $460K.
BTW, in your example above, if you re-run FireCalc again for the 29 year scenario, I think you need to reset the initial withdrawal back to 3.5%. So it would be $700K for 29 years, which would be $24,500. $35.7K would be 5.1%.
I think the reason the success rate drops off so much is partly the higher initial withdrawal rate, but also, in the 30 year cycle, you just retired going into one of the worst one-year market drops in history. Chances are, you aren't going to do that again in the near future, and the market will most likely recover fairly quickly. But the 29 year cycle starts all over again, and throws in the possibility of you again, retiring into one of the worst downturns in history, but at a higher withdrawal rate, so you're less likely to recover.
At least, that's my rationale. I'm sure there's holes that can be poked in it
IIRC, Firecalc presumes that you retire at the beginning of the year.