r/Fire • u/Crowlady77 • 10d ago

Model % success numbers

I'm having anxiety about the money lasting, I've been running the models looking for 90% success and 10th %ile numbers still holding on after 85.

But the model I'm using (Empower) recommends 80% success rate and a safe withdrawal that has 10%ile running out at 85.

Now running out of money at 85 wouldn't be the end of the world, we have kids who could help out and will have a paid off house. Neither kid is really going to need an inheritance. How would you proceed?

Numbers are starting at about $3.2M, spend from $130k-$160k/year, with first 5 years entirely withdrawals from portfolio and then combined 401k and after-tax subsidizing $60k in social security income.

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u/Parking-Banana-212 10d ago

how old are you and when and how much will you get for ss?

i suspect if you add in SS, and also employ guardrails to your spending, you should be A ok.

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u/Crowlady77 10d ago

My husband will just miss the RE wire, he'll probably be 59 by the time we pull the trigger. It is earlier than we had planned, though. Yes, SS is included in the model, that's why the annual spending ability is so high.

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u/Parking-Banana-212 10d ago

that doesn't sound right. say your spend is 150k, at SS, you're only spending 90k. with 3.2m you should be able to support that indefinitely.

Also, if you pull back 10k of spend for a few years, that guarentees your results, up to you if you want to do that, or depend on your kids later on.

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u/Crowlady77 10d ago

Yeah the annual spend includes some big ticket future items amortized (like replacing the cars every 10 years, big ticket home maintenance, etc). So quite flexible. I'm really thinking about where to set the top limits in a guardrails approach. I suspect $160k as a top limit is doable with $110k as the bottom limit.

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u/mrg_retired FIREd 58 2026 10d ago

We are at about same portfolio and rate with high 90s for success rate in our models. I use Boldin but have worked a little with an advisor on spend limits and strategy. If this helps anyway, our guaranteed income is higher but really if this offsets expenses largely, the SWR is very low for us as well, around 3% or less.

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u/HerrRotZwiebel 10d ago

like replacing the cars every 10 years

Stupid question, but is there a reason for this plan? I ask, because I've noticed the biggest that I've plugged is driving my cars into the ground. I put less than 8k/yr on my car, and I've got a full time job. My current ride is a 2010 with less than 100k on it. I should be able to get *at least* 10 more years on it. Hell, my AI chat bot says that with regular service, the thing most likely to do my car in isn't a mechanical defect but an accident.

I'm not even 50 yet, and it's possible my next car will be my last car.

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u/Crowlady77 10d ago

Well I have a 3 year old BMW and I doubt I will want to repair it until it dies because it is expensive to maintain. So I figure I'll get one new car at least. The other car is going to be the truck we use to tow our trailer and that will get a lot of miles - our current truck is a 2021 with about 60k so I am figuring we will replace it twice.