never confuse a 6% withdrawl rate with a 6% return.
i happen to like immeadiate annuities...
imagine you needed 6,000 a year pretty much guaranteed forever .. you have 100,000.00 ... well if you wanted to play it safe the best you could do is about 4,000 from a 30 year treasury. the other 2,000 would have to come from principal.
only problem is next year you have less than 100,000 and even less interest.
but suppose i said give me the 100,000... ill give you back 6,000 bucks of your own money every year and you can spend every penny.. and next year i wont reduce the amount you get, ill give you another 6,000 . if you live long enough to get all your money back ill then continue to give you the 6,000 bucks a year forever on my dime .
only hitch is if you die before you get all your money back i keep the money you didnt get back.
that is in the most basic form how an immeadiate annuity works. dont confuse it with a variable or deferred annuity. those can be horrible. high fee , commission and expense laden they are usually poor choices.
i have to work on incorporating a small immeadiate annuity into my final retirement plans but im still a year and a half away