Poll:Are You "Probabilistic" School or "Safety First" School?

[Huston55]

I have no idea what to put. We over saved, but, this year we spent 6.8% of our nest egg, that will happen one more year, and the kids expensive tuition is done. Then we will drop to about 3%. Then in 4 years, at 70, I will get SS, and 4 yrs after that she gets SS. Our SS combined will cover 60% of our spending, putting us at a 1.2% WR. Although if, we can get 1/2 the growth rate of the last 10 years on out assets going forward it may be lower than 1.2%, or if we have a big downturn it could be much higher. I have no concerns about not having enough, but I do have concerns about seeing my nest egg become smaller, even though it wouldn't affect our lifestyle. We would like to pass on an inheritance to the kids, even though I don't expect them to get it until their 50s and I expect they won't need it. Both college educate, one should make a lot of income in the medical field, but is not as frugal as I'd like, the other will have a lower income, but is much more frugal and if he doesn't marry a spender will do great.

Reading this, and similar posts, makes me think that some of us believe that weather we're in one school or the other is a matter of circumstance versus choice. While it's certainly easier to be in the "Safety First" school with some kind of pension and/or perhaps two SS checks, or the like, it's not a requirement. We have control of both the 'income' side AND the 'expenses' side of the equation when choosing which school we will join.

Perhaps my original post wasn't clear enough but, my intent was for us to say which school we choose and why we made that choice. Hopefully, this helps clarify the poll.

 

[ncbill]

Pfau has always come off as a doom-and-gloomer, promoting the safety of annuities*, and using high investment fees to push down future projections of safe withdrawal rates (this time it's different - we could be like Japan/Germany). Kitces has often challenged him. One challenge resulted in a great joint paper about using a rising equity glide-path to reduce SORR.

*Pfau has some professional connection to annuity companies.

I agree with Bernstein (see his "The Retirement Calculator from Hell")...'success' on any financial calculator over 80% is meaningless because of factors beyond our control that can't be financially modeled.