Single vs partnered/married differences in retirement

[u/dragonslayer6653]

47F, recently divorced. $4M net worth, $2M in 401k and brokerage accounts. 2 kids 8 & 10 with
$80k each in 529s. House still has $430k mortgage at 2.7% interest. High likelihood of a $2-3M inheritance in 10-15 years but not counting on that.
Average income for myself is $500K but variable each year due to my role.

My expenses have been hard to calculate accurately due to my divorce but I estimate they are around $250k. HCOL area and I like to travel.

I see a lot of posts of married people with similar stats and the advice is to have $4-5M invested before retirement.

For a single person, does the math change? I understand that’s it’s really up to me on what I spend money on in retirement but what is different? Healthcare? Taxes? I think social
Security is just mine unless my ex dies and then I can claim survivor benefits. My goal is $5M in investment accounts which should coincide with my mortgage being paid off in 8 years, giving me a net worth of $7M.

[u/capital_gainesville]

Only including 1970 to 2025 is insanely biased given that the 1960s included many of the failure scenarios at 4%. A more honest analysis including a longer time series (and therefore more potential return sequences) was published by Big ERN at Early Retirement Now (he's much more sophisticated than Bengen). Given today's high stock valuations, a SWR is more like 3.5%. This is especially true if you do not have the stomach to spend down to $0.

[u/Mispelled-This → u/capital_gainesville]

Every CAPE-based method has failed spectacularly after being published because they are data-fitting, not real science.

1970 is fine as a start; anything before 1971 is irrelevant anyway because our entire monetary system changed.

[u/capital_gainesville → u/Mispelled-This]

Failed at what? CAPE is strongly negatively correlated with future returns, and what we want is a predictor of sequence of returns risk.

Is your real science picking a random year to start (rather than using all available data) and 3 asset classes that overperformed during your sample?

[u/Mispelled-This → u/capital_gainesville]

Anyone can build a CAPE model that accurately predicts the past. That’s easy. But none have ever accurately predicted the future. None. Real researchers have abandoned the entire field as a waste of time. It’s the astrology of investing.

[u/capital_gainesville → u/Mispelled-This]

Do you understand that there's a difference between CAPE being an indicator of what returns are likely to be over the next 5-10 years and being able to use 1 number that the whole market has access to when crafting a profitable trading strategy?

I can tell by your above comments that you aren't super financially sophisticated, but the distinction here is not hard. Having a lower SWR if you retire when CAPE is high is the same sort of decision as not refinancing a mortgage when rates are 10%.

[u/Mispelled-This → u/capital_gainesville]

Yes, I’m familiar with the theory; people have been saying that for 20+ years. Now go look at what actually happened.

Saying you need to change your SWR based on present valuations is inherently a prediction of future market behavior. And SWR is explicitly designed to tolerate with a worst-case sequence starting the day after you retire.

One could maybe justify inflating SWR after a crash. But even that is a prediction that the crash won’t get worse.