I use the funded ratio advocated by Wade Pfau to have a picture of where I stand. I match reliable income sources with essential liabilities to understand if I have adequate coverage or not. This help me arrives at my equities/bonds mix. I treat SS as a bond for this purpose as well.
I use Pralana to run “what-if” simulations on spending strategies to see how I can fund my lifestyle and realize any charity or legacy goals.
Before I started using the funded ratio, everything was vague with the Net Worth data.
Interesting article and lively discussion here regarding the Boldin approach to Net Worth calculations. After going thru the questions and answers, I got a 99.99% chance of success and not running out of money through out my retirement AND an offer to subscribe to the Boldin detailed net worth calculator for $120/ year. Has anyone here subscribed and did you find it worth while compared to other methods and your own spreadsheets?
What I did was sign up for a monthly trial, performed the calculations, and then, I think, downloaded the data. I then cancelled the subscription. I wanted to “compare” the data to information I obtained the same way from Maxifi Planner. I put compare in quotes as they are really different animals. I have trouble with wrapping my head around the concepts of Maxifi, and at the time I used it at least, with Boldin, I was not able to input inherited IRAs.
I plan in the future to possibly return to the Boldin platform to run my own Monte Carlo if I deem it necessary. At this time I don’t believe there is a need to hire a fee only financial advisor to perform this duty. I’ll probably only run the numbers in the future if there is a significant unexpected threat to our finances.
I have subscribed to Boldin’s online retirement planning software for the past 2 years. My recent renewal cost was $96 and our first year subscription ran $116.00, with tax included.
I find good value in Boldin (formerly called NewRetirement), particularly when comparing their retirement projections to similar reports I generated from pro-grade planning software I use as part of my day job. Boldin’s subscription cost is a fraction of that paid by financial planners for the software they use with investment clients.
Boldin’s HH net worth reports and long-term asset growth projections were within a few percentage points of the pro software at our end-of-plan (RIP) dates. Despite not having as many “what if” calculators as the software used by retirement planners, the Boldin user interphase is very intuitive and easy to navigate, at least for me. The ability to save multiple retirement date scenarios and then compare them side-by-side is a really great feature.
I plan to keep subscribing to Boldin after retirement, when my access to the professional-grade planning tools will end.
As I have mentioned before. I consolidated all investments with Fidelity and also linked all non Fidelity bank accounts. I log in and any info I want, including net worth, each asset performance, balances, allocations and more is there and up to date at the touch of a button. I let them do the work. No separate fees.
I’ve done the same with Fidelity. I also use their 2% rewards VISA, and I utilize free checking and billpay from an account that is currently paying about 4% interest. Total Look updates my net worth daily, and is linked to subtract our current credit card balances. Like Quinn, I update the value of our house 1 or 2 times per year. I do use Morningstar Premium, but that’s more hobby than necessity. That’s all I need. Anything more would violate my KISS philosophy.
I use Morningstar to monitor my portfolio. Use a spreadsheet for net worth. I update spreadsheet quarterly as we are living off our assets until claiming SS At 70. Once we have claimed will probably update semi annually.
I never considered potential inheritances in our financial plan, especially with my wife’s side where there was substantial longevity in her lineage, and a mother and aunt with cognitive issues requiring expensive long term care. When my wife inherited a modest sum from each it was icing on the cake.
So many bad things can happen to a potential legacy. Long term care, lousy investments, theft by fraud. In most cases I’d recommend giving future inheritance little to no weight in your planning.
To be fair, they use the term “Future” Net Worth and define it as a more accurate definition of a persons wealth. I think one of the easiest ways to understand this concept is to price what it would cost to replace a future income stream. This concept was in full view in the case of Joe and Bill, from a post a few days ago, Understanding the present value Joe’s pension , i.e., what it would cost to replace it with an annuity, made the choice obvious.
I know retirees who have no or very little money in the bank, no IRA, but great pensions. Contrast that with a retiree that has a few hundred thousand bucks but no pension. The 1st guy has no net worth, but is more financially secure than the 2nd guy. The Boldin method may better describe someone’s actual financial security, but I wouldn’t call it an accurate method to calculate net worth.
Dan, look at it from the Joe & Bill perspective from a previous post. Assume the 1st guy has a strong pension but limited assets. Second guys has no pension but a couple of $M in investments. How do you know who is better off? If you can estimate the value of the pension you can make a much more informed decision. I think that is why they differentiated with the term “Future” Net Worth in the summary paragraph.
The Boldin website has another page titled “Analysis Paralysis: When Too Much Planning Gets in the Way of Retiring.” It’s the same argument seen in these threads, ‘what is the best way to do this,’ and ultimately, we find there isn’t one best way. After years of working with actuaries I am convinced that given enough billable hours, you can get a number to support anything. Use net worth in the right context and it’s fine.
Those things sure add to financial security, but they can mostly be tapped in a stream or as needed, they should not be thought of as net worth.
They should be considered when thinking about out of pocket spending in retirement. For example, Medicare and Medigap can reduce spending to the Part B deductible and premiums, which are reasonably predictable.
Those so-called hidden asset values mean nothing in terms of net worth and are based on any number of variables and assumptions.
Net worth should be based on facts and immediate usable value.
If you are going to add future benefits such as SS, then you have to deduct future obligations such as, real property leases, auto leases, future long term care premiums, future Medicare Supplement premiums, and anything else that you have contracted to pay in the future. Discounting future income streams to create an “asset” only does one thing; it helps you understand the huge role these income streams represent in your financial life.
Which is precisely why I use Quicken and the Lifetime Planner it includes. There are other ways to do this, of course. For me, Net Worth is but one metric. It should be apparent that a $1 million net worth added with a $50,000 annual income stream via SS or a pension, but with annual expenses of $125,000 is a formula for shortfall. I find Net Worth useful for monitoring my overall financial health because it looks beyond the retirement accounts and includes other assets including savings and a home. When retirement accounts run out, such other assets can be sold to extend one’s retirement, or provide the down payment for assisted living.
Auto leases? Never for us. We bought new vehicles in 2020- Toyota Tacoma with 40K miles (before the computer chip surge in prices), and late last year (before tariffs). At 67 years old these may be the last vehicles we buy as we keep until no longer reliable
I agree that calculating the Present value of future income streams demonstrates the role them play in your retirement finances. I tend to think this is valuable, especially for folks who don’t have a lot of experience with financial planning. It helps demonstrate the value of their future SS income.
Then what do you do with that information? If I knew the PV of my pension how would it change anything I may be doing finance wise. It’s still only an income stream.
We’ve been through this topic before, and you got your answer then. Among other things, knowing the present value of a retirement income stream helps you to settle on an appropriate stock-bond allocation. Have a hugely valuable pension? That’s like owning a big bond, and you might want to allocate more to stocks. Don’t have a pension? You should probably hold more bonds.
Jonathan says I am stubborn, but it appears I am just stupid about this.
The only value my pension and SS have is the amount of the regular income stream. I can’t change the pension and SS changes are dictated by law and inflation.
That income tells me what I have to spend and what additional amount, if any, I need to generate from investments.
The amount I need to make up provides an indication of the type of investment mix I need consistent with the risk I want to take.
Presumably if there is a wide gap I need to be more aggressive or have a larger pool of investments, or if not, I can be conservative such as bonds.
But in either case, how does the PV of my pension affect these decisions as long as I cannot change the fixed income stream the pension provides? The PV is not real in this scenario.
In our case, we live only on a pension and SS. They are more than sufficient. In theory we can do whatever we like with investments, but as Jonathan said we won’t be able to grow much if we are heavy into bonds. On the other hand, I want to also generate income if and when we need it to offset inflation.
I must be missing something, but I don’t know what.
I’ve read the paper a few times now and will respond in the context of the paper’s results. This is my interpretation of the results – I think there is a bot of confusion and possibly a mislabeling in Table 3.
In the comment above you said” “The amount I need to make up provides an indication of the type of investment mix I need consistent with the risk I want to take.”
That’s correct. But all the recommended portfolio allocation are based on the PV of the annuitized income. The 2nd paragraph under the RESULTS section gives a good numerical example.
In Table 3, the top row of each section is labelled “SS % of Wealth”.I find this title confusing. I searched the paper for a clean definition, but could not find one. I think it may indicate that the % Wealth values of 5 to 95 include all sources of annuitized income (SS, pension, and commercial annuities). The discussion in the paper seems to support that. Either way, the independent value in the analysis is the present value of the annualized income.
This statement in the 2nd paragraph under the Annuities in The Balance Sheet section explains it well:
“This analysis begins by accounting for the value of annuitized assets most households already have on their balance sheet, for example Social Security. To determine the value of a stream of guaranteed income, the mortality-weighted net present value of future guaranteed income retirement benefits (VIt) must be estimated.”
I don’t have a balance sheet, a budget or a spreadsheet or any understanding of this concept.
I have a pension, SS, an IRA and a brokerage account in a growth allocation.
I’m happy in my ignorance.
This reminds me of the time I was making what I thought was a simple presentation to our new CEO – a scientist/engineer – and he started writing formulas on a flip chart. I knew I needed to think about retirement.
Dick, the reality is you don’t need to understand this. You worked long and hard, earned and saved, and produced a more than adequate retirement for you and Connie, and to help your kids, and likely leave a legacy to them and the grandkids. I would characterize it that you built up a significant financial margin of safety and you have no need to optimize. Some of us like to optimize, and I think some folks who have marginal retirement resources could benefit from results like the paper provides.
Some of us like vanilla and some like chocolate. I like analysis and spreadsheets and figuring stuff out. I have no expectation that many others will – and that’s fine by me. When I read a paper like Blanchette’s I’m compelled to read it until I understand it. I’m pretty sure there is a mislabeling of the % wealth in Table 3. I’ve been looking for a way to contact him all afternoon to ask him about it. I know that’s a bit wacky, but Ive learned to live with my wackiness. You’ve clearly won the game, enjoy it.
Out of curiosity I went back and read the paper and stared in awe at the formulas not understanding much of anything. Then I got to the conclusion section which read
The results showed that when a retiree buys an income annuity, they should optimally take more investment risk with the remainder of their investment portfolio. Even risk-averse retirees should hold a significant allocation to equities if they have a large percentage of total wealth held in guaranteed income assets.
Just sounds like common sense to me. The less you need the money to live on the more risk you can take. That level of risk depending on the goal you have for those assets. Not a formal in sight😎
I agree that the paper’s general guidance makes sense. But just acknowledging the logic of the investment theme doesn’t tell you what amounts to invest and where to invest them. The authors also write:
The goal of this paper is to estimate the optimal asset allocation to stocks and bonds following the purchase of an annuity.
The authors wanted to go beyond the “common sense” guidance, and provide numerical guidance. To provide the numerical guidance, they use well-established formulas and data. They considered a wide range of real-life scenarios and variables, including range of income, annuitization percentage, withdrawal rate, and legacy wishes. They combined the results in a nomograph of the first order – Table 3.
I wonder if those of us who have pensions and significant SS benefits understand the significant challenge of converting retirement savings into income? It’s not enough to recommend someone purchase an annuity. The retiree has to decide what kind of annuity, how much, where to get the funds from, joint of single, COLA or not, and what company. They then have to decide what to do with the remaining assets in their portfolio. The Blanchett, et al , paper is trying to help retirees make a more informed decision.
Well you are right that those of us with a pension are in a different place, but a paper such as this won’t help the average retiree. I got the sense it was more written for advisors. But then how many people use advisors. Anyone who wants to help the great majority needs to keep it simple, very simple.
Yes the paper was written for advisors – it was published in the Financial Planning Association’s Journal, and the paper makes several references to providing guidance to advisors so they can help clients choose a better asset allocation once they have chosen to annuitize a portion of their assets.
The analytical methodology may be complicated, but the results are fairly straightforward, and encompassed in 2 tables. If you can add and divide, you can use the tables.
An article by the Pew charitable trust says that about 1/3 of retirees use a financial advisor. That is not the majority, but it is still millions of retirees who could be helped. Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research estimates that only 10% of retirees have annuities. But many retirement researchers believe that average retirees could benefit from annuities.
I don’t think it’s fair to be so dismissive about a paper that tries to encourage the use of annuities for retirees, and provide advisors a straightforward means of improving a retirees financial security.
But without numbers you’re just going to guess on the risk you should take? Like I said recently a financial advisor would really struggle with you as a client.
You are probably right about the financial advisor and if I didn’t have a pension, I would be a basket case every time the market moved in the wrong direction.
No matter what, my risk tolerance is minimal and always has been. I suspect most people have a risk tolerance of their own no matter what a formula may suggest.
But after 15 years retired my pension plus our SS still exceed our necessary and equally important our desired spending. The result of my much maligned notion of income replacement plus working to age 67.
Our investments kick off enough in interest and dividends to deal with inflation for the foreseeable future should we need that income.
My financial peace of mind comes from our steady income stream. I am fortunate it is a pension, but I like to think absent that I would have purchased an annuity – and saved more while working.
I don’t think you’re ever going to get it as you don’t have to. Just be very careful about advising your kids because they definitely are going to have to get it if, as you’ve told us they have no pensions and only 401Ks at best.
I’ll try one last time. If IRAs are your only source of retirement income beyond SS then you’ve already had a lifetime of having to live with market volatility in getting to their present value. Why flip a switch at retirement and say “I want no more risk, no more growth potential, I want peace of mind on a fixed flat income – give me an annuity right now, whatever the best rate is at this moment no matter how poor”. Doesn’t that lead to “Oh gosh that really isn’t enough income – maybe I need to work 5 more years etc etc”? Which if you’re already in your 60s isn’t necessarily what you want to or are in a physical state to do.
The reality of modern retirement is that IRAs aren’t just extra comfort or surplus – they are the key assets that will drive people’s financial lives and will need active decision making. Very few people relatively will have such huge amounts they can go safety first and replicate the same situation as your pension. Doesn’t mean they can’t live equally rewarding retirements.
This is what I don’t get. Why would you conclude the following?
”Why flip a switch at retirement and say “I want no more risk, no more growth potential, I want peace of mind on a fixed flat income – give me an annuity right now, whatever the best rate is at this moment no matter how poor””
I never said anything Iike that. All I said was that I can’t see how the present value of an income stream such as. Pension or SS fits into the investment mix calculation.
I am fortunate it is a pension, but I like to think absent that I would have purchased an annuity – and saved more while working.
I just more colourfully articulated it. Your arguments are entirely disingenuous. You adapt an entrenched position and then when someone exposes it you try to say you never said those things that your position and indeed own words do say.
You continually bang on about annuities being the solution to a lack of pensions but never offer any maths to back up the worth of your view. Numbers are readily available.
Then you offer vague indeterminate and indeed perhaps impossible solutions like “I would have saved more while working” – that’s more than a bit ex post when at retirement you discover you don’t have enough to buy the desired annuity stream.
A challenge for you which as you’ve highlighted you kids recently might enable your obvious interest in the subject of retirement provision to translate into tangible value for them.
Put yourself in their shoes. Give yourself a notional salary and starting 401k balance. Then model what they can afford to save while maintaining current lifestyle and produce a plan which shows roughly when they can retire and with what income including what and how they tap IRAs for that income.
I think that would help you understand their situation better and would make a way more interesting article/post than some general handwringing over how people don’t save enough for retirement.
The actual numbers don’t matter in all this unless you’re going to give them 7 figure salaries. But the principles certainly do.
I recognise it may be very hard for you to do this. But it’s at the root of why your comments get so many down arrows.
I have repeatedly said I would buy an annuity in the absence of a pension.
That does not mean you take all your investments and do that. I’m pretty sure I also said somewhere buy an annuity to cover all basic expenses and assure a steady income stream. In fact, others said the same.
Actually, I’m pretty sure the paper that was being discussed says that too.
Of course doing so is one part of the equation. Why would you conclude otherwise?
Actually, I am in the process of writing a post speculating what I might have done absent a pension so get your red arrows ready.
But be specific – you seem to blithely assume that you could readily afford the desired annuity and then have heaps of spare IRA available for growth. Which at your desired 100% gross income replacement would be a fairly heroic amount rolled up in IRAs. Maybe even an implied savings rate that would not have allowed you to have 4 kids let alone fully fund them through college.
That’s why numbers and actual real world annuity rates matter.
Free hint – there are numerous online calculators available at places like Firecalc to help you through the maths.
What you are missing is that in your obsession with what you narrowly see as income you might be forgoing wider opportunity.
If your income needs are covered you can probably afford to try to shoot the lights out in your investment portfolio by going for high growth = ultimately a greater legacy for your family or higher RMDs for cashflow tor them now.
If you constrain your portfolio by an income “need” that you don’t actually need right now you might end up with stodgier dividend paying stocks or bonds.
Of course high growth also brings higher risk which is why having your current income needs covered brings you peace of mind there.
But that’s not what we’re talking about. You talk about your investments needing to provide income in the future. In your narrow world that seems to mean dividends or interest ( natural yield).
For those who have to place more reliance on their portfolio to drawdown then selling stock can be a source of their income.
Maybe it’s best that you don’t try to include a PV of your pension and SS in your personal balance sheet because you’d see it going down every month as you age further which would then worry you.
There is a circular quality that needs to be present when thinking about how much you could potentially spend when retired. There have been many references to using 4% of investment assets as a rough estimate of what could be safely withdrawn over a 30 year retirement period without running out of funds. If you want to do this, then you must allocate around 60% (pick a number between 50-60) of your assets to equities with the balance to bonds and cash. The 60% allocation represents the reasonable investment risk position.
So the easy formula for estimating annual retirement spending is then SS plus pension and annuity income, plus 4% of investment assets. The caveat must be the “reasonable allocation to equities” within your investment portfolio.
Without a pension or annuity, you must have more investment assets to feel safe. Those who arrive at retirement without a pension and say $2M in financial assets might feel safer through using a portion of their assets to buy an annuity. Those with more than $4M (and potentially $160,000 in withdrawal income at 4%) might skip the annuity. However, all of this depends on the “reasonable allocation to equities”.
So go ahead, ignore the value of your pension and Social Security, and keep your entire portfolio in bonds. That’ll likely mean a smaller inheritance for your kids, but what the heck.
You acknowledge your ignorance on this. But I think many readers will see what I see: not ignorance, but stubbornness.
I’m not sure it’s either ignorance or stubbornness rather than a numeracy deficit. A lot of RDQ’s disagreements with others seem to arise because he simply won’t countenance doing the sort of calculations that others base their perspectives on.
He defaults to his absolutes of words not the numerical absolutes that others prefer to work with.
As you state: I posted this above yesterday, in case Dick missed it. Since I only have a small pension have not done the calculations yet, but will after we both claim SS In a couple of years. Will also calculate bucket values and see how they compare.
Here is an excellent article by David Blanchette and Michael Zinke on how to figure out an appropriate asset allocation in retirement taking into account your Social Security; and any annuity, and pension income:
Dave, thanks for the article link. The usefulness of valuing guaranteed income sources is beginning to penetrate my thick skull, but one thing befuddles. It indicates that someone with a fat pension should increase equities exposure; that makes sense. It says a retiree with little or no guaranteed income outside SS should be more conservative; I resemble this remark. 66% of our income is SS, 5% is pension, 28% is from IRAs (representing a 3% distribution rate), 1% from interest. The 71% we receive from SS and pension income cover 100% of spending, with the remaining income deposited into taxable savings and brokerage accounts. Why shouldn’t I be as comfortable with, say, a 70/30 mix as someone with substantial pension income?
The article says essentially what I said. The difference between the annuity income and total income requirements should be considered in the investment risk.
So, less guaranteed income stream, more bonds. But if your annuity covers all needs, then you can take more investment risk.
That all makes sense, but I fail to see what it has to do with the present value of the annuity.
Just wanted to be sure we weren’t lost on semantics and the present value is current worth of a future sum of money or stream of cash flows. That is for example, the current value of my future pension payments.
This is an interesting thought experiment. Everyone has their “known unknowns.” We have fewer than some because of receiving pensions with COLAs plus Medicare supplements from our former employers. But there’s still:
how much our retirement accounts might earn/lose in years to come
the future of Social Security (one or both of us will start drawing in 2030 at age 70; I might start at/after 67)
whether my mother (83) or our daughter (31) might need financial assistance from us
inheritance from the estate of my late mother-in-law and her husband (when, how much—could be a lot, could be less depending on how long and healthily he lives, could be nothing if things progress with the woman he’s started spending time with)
our own medical/long-term care needs (we have good insurance and LTC insurance, so there are some resources, but still)
Our situation is secure enough that I feel comfortable but not so unlimited that we can do whatever we want. For most of our adult lives we either couldn’t afford things, or, when we could, were aggressively saving instead of spending. I haven’t quite gotten my mind around the next phase yet.
In the “unknowns” I could include care for elder parents. I have accepted that there will always be unknowns. I think the best way to deal with this is to build-in some financial flexibility. I always assume there will be one or more retirement (stock and bond) hits of 20%, medical costs will go up, social security benefits may be reduced, and inflation may not always be benign and below 4%.
Here is an excellent article by David Blanchette and Michael Zinke on how to figure out an appropriate asset allocation in retirement taking into account your Social Security; and any annuity, and pension income:
Interesting article. It addresses something I’ve wondered about “The goal of this paper is to move beyond the assumption made by Finke and Pfau (2015) and estimate the actual optimal asset allocation to stocks and bonds following the purchase of an annuity.”
I agree with the article that just considering present net worth (assets – liabilities) gives an incomplete financial picture. My approach in assessing my retirement readiness is to not ignore those future assets, but to include them as off-sets to needed withdrawals from my portfolio.
For example, if my expenses are $60,000/year, a rough estimate using the 4% rule-of-thumb, says I need a portfolio of $1.5 million. But if I have social security and a pension coming that reduces how much I need to have saved. So it might look more like this:
Total Annual Expenses: $60,000 Pension: $16,000 Social Security: $24,000
I subtract the $40,000 I can expect from the pension and social security and that leaves $20,000 that needs to be covered by my portfolio. Which puts the needed portfolio amount at $500,000. If I didn’t include those future sources of income, I’d have a much different picture!
I think both methods get you to roughly the same place, I just find looking at it in the way I’ve outlined more intuitive.
I haven’t used Boldin’s planner, but I’ve heard good things about it. My favorite online planners are:
What? What “it” are you referring to? I just agreed with the article that net worth alone doesn’t give a full financial picture. It’s just one piece.
As I mentioned above, I don’t include my future pension and Social Security in my net worth. However, I do include it in my assessment of financial readiness to retire.
The website article provides a good overview of things we might overlook when calculating net worth. Some experts suggest thinking of social security as a “bond”. If we take that approach and a 25 year retirement (age 65-90), assume our annual SS benefit is equivalent to a 4% withdrawal then a benefit that yields $3,000 monthly after deducting probable Medicare premiums would be a $908,400 bond. Concerned about a 20% decrease in benefits? Then that “bond” is only worth $726,720.
If we are of the opinion that social security is a bad deal for retirees, then I suggest we add the value of that SS bond to our retirement portfolio. A $1 million retirement portfolio becomes one valued at nearly $2 million if we do that.
Our SS payments (at current rates) would be the equivalent of 1.8MM in savings using the 4% rule.
I can’t say I’ve ever thought about Medicare in that respect, as I have no clue about the numbers involved.
As for inheritance, we’ll probably inherit roughly $150k from my parents. That’s not a life-changing amount, but at 4%/yr it’s $6k, which is more than a month’s worth of expenses for us.
Thanks for commenting David. Please be aware that the IRS has fairly complicated rules for how you must handle withdrawls if they are from your parents’ retirement accounts. You can’t just withdraw 4%. Luckily I was quite naive about the rules when I inherited my parents’ retirement accounts in 2019. Luckily I did not run afoul of the IRS rules.
Ed Slot who is considered one of this country’s IRA experts explains the rules about as concisely as is possible when dealing with government rules, in his book, The Retirement Time Bomb Tick Louder.
I use the funded ratio advocated by Wade Pfau to have a picture of where I stand. I match reliable income sources with essential liabilities to understand if I have adequate coverage or not. This help me arrives at my equities/bonds mix. I treat SS as a bond for this purpose as well.
I use Pralana to run “what-if” simulations on spending strategies to see how I can fund my lifestyle and realize any charity or legacy goals.
Before I started using the funded ratio, everything was vague with the Net Worth data.
Interesting article and lively discussion here regarding the Boldin approach to Net Worth calculations. After going thru the questions and answers, I got a 99.99% chance of success and not running out of money through out my retirement AND an offer to subscribe to the Boldin detailed net worth calculator for $120/ year. Has anyone here subscribed and did you find it worth while compared to other methods and your own spreadsheets?
What I did was sign up for a monthly trial, performed the calculations, and then, I think, downloaded the data. I then cancelled the subscription. I wanted to “compare” the data to information I obtained the same way from Maxifi Planner. I put compare in quotes as they are really different animals. I have trouble with wrapping my head around the concepts of Maxifi, and at the time I used it at least, with Boldin, I was not able to input inherited IRAs.
I plan in the future to possibly return to the Boldin platform to run my own Monte Carlo if I deem it necessary. At this time I don’t believe there is a need to hire a fee only financial advisor to perform this duty. I’ll probably only run the numbers in the future if there is a significant unexpected threat to our finances.
I have subscribed to Boldin’s online retirement planning software for the past 2 years. My recent renewal cost was $96 and our first year subscription ran $116.00, with tax included.
I find good value in Boldin (formerly called NewRetirement), particularly when comparing their retirement projections to similar reports I generated from pro-grade planning software I use as part of my day job. Boldin’s subscription cost is a fraction of that paid by financial planners for the software they use with investment clients.
Boldin’s HH net worth reports and long-term asset growth projections were within a few percentage points of the pro software at our end-of-plan (RIP) dates. Despite not having as many “what if” calculators as the software used by retirement planners, the Boldin user interphase is very intuitive and easy to navigate, at least for me. The ability to save multiple retirement date scenarios and then compare them side-by-side is a really great feature.
I plan to keep subscribing to Boldin after retirement, when my access to the professional-grade planning tools will end.
As I have mentioned before. I consolidated all investments with Fidelity and also linked all non Fidelity bank accounts. I log in and any info I want, including net worth, each asset performance, balances, allocations and more is there and up to date at the touch of a button. I let them do the work. No separate fees.
Let’s gently “poke the bear.”
Do you know how Fidelity calculated net worth? Is it the same as yours, or different?
I’ve done the same with Fidelity. I also use their 2% rewards VISA, and I utilize free checking and billpay from an account that is currently paying about 4% interest.
Total Look updates my net worth daily, and is linked to subtract our current credit card balances. Like Quinn, I update the value of our house 1 or 2 times per year.
I do use Morningstar Premium, but that’s more hobby than necessity.
That’s all I need. Anything more would violate my KISS philosophy.
I use Morningstar to monitor my portfolio. Use a spreadsheet for net worth. I update spreadsheet quarterly as we are living off our assets until claiming SS At 70. Once we have claimed will probably update semi annually.
Quite simple. All our investments and bank accounts are totaled.
You can enter other assets if you like I entered the value of our homes out of curiosity.
You can enter the total of all liabilities, but we don’t have any.
I don’t include cars, jewelry, etc.
So, you can see all investment net worth or total net worth if you like.
I might update the house values once a year, but that’s it.
The usable net worth in terms of investments and cash is updated every day.
Has anyone considered how anticipated inheritance’s might impact current spending and employment?
I never considered potential inheritances in our financial plan, especially with my wife’s side where there was substantial longevity in her lineage, and a mother and aunt with cognitive issues requiring expensive long term care. When my wife inherited a modest sum from each it was icing on the cake.
So many bad things can happen to a potential legacy. Long term care, lousy investments, theft by fraud. In most cases I’d recommend giving future inheritance little to no weight in your planning.
To be fair, they use the term “Future” Net Worth and define it as a more accurate definition of a persons wealth. I think one of the easiest ways to understand this concept is to price what it would cost to replace a future income stream. This concept was in full view in the case of Joe and Bill, from a post a few days ago, Understanding the present value Joe’s pension , i.e., what it would cost to replace it with an annuity, made the choice obvious.
It depends on what you’re trying to calculate and how you’re going to use it.
If you’re projecting a possible estate you don’t necessarily care about the present value of a pension.
If you’re thinking about asset allocations, fixed income flows as a present value would be an important thing to think about.
I know retirees who have no or very little money in the bank, no IRA, but great pensions. Contrast that with a retiree that has a few hundred thousand bucks but no pension.
The 1st guy has no net worth, but is more financially secure than the 2nd guy.
The Boldin method may better describe someone’s actual financial security, but I wouldn’t call it an accurate method to calculate net worth.
Dan, look at it from the Joe & Bill perspective from a previous post. Assume the 1st guy has a strong pension but limited assets. Second guys has no pension but a couple of $M in investments. How do you know who is better off? If you can estimate the value of the pension you can make a much more informed decision. I think that is why they differentiated with the term “Future” Net Worth in the summary paragraph.
Which is precisely why I would prefer a pension with a COLA. Otherwise the pension’s future value diminishes over time.
Yup 👍
The Boldin website has another page titled “Analysis Paralysis: When Too Much Planning Gets in the Way of Retiring.” It’s the same argument seen in these threads, ‘what is the best way to do this,’ and ultimately, we find there isn’t one best way. After years of working with actuaries I am convinced that given enough billable hours, you can get a number to support anything. Use net worth in the right context and it’s fine.
Those things sure add to financial security, but they can mostly be tapped in a stream or as needed, they should not be thought of as net worth.
They should be considered when thinking about out of pocket spending in retirement. For example, Medicare and Medigap can reduce spending to the Part B deductible and premiums, which are reasonably predictable.
Those so-called hidden asset values mean nothing in terms of net worth and are based on any number of variables and assumptions.
Net worth should be based on facts and immediate usable value.
Here come the red arrows😱
If you are going to add future benefits such as SS, then you have to deduct future obligations such as, real property leases, auto leases, future long term care premiums, future Medicare Supplement premiums, and anything else that you have contracted to pay in the future. Discounting future income streams to create an “asset” only does one thing; it helps you understand the huge role these income streams represent in your financial life.
Which is precisely why I use Quicken and the Lifetime Planner it includes. There are other ways to do this, of course. For me, Net Worth is but one metric. It should be apparent that a $1 million net worth added with a $50,000 annual income stream via SS or a pension, but with annual expenses of $125,000 is a formula for shortfall. I find Net Worth useful for monitoring my overall financial health because it looks beyond the retirement accounts and includes other assets including savings and a home. When retirement accounts run out, such other assets can be sold to extend one’s retirement, or provide the down payment for assisted living.
Auto leases? Never for us. We bought new vehicles in 2020- Toyota Tacoma with 40K miles (before the computer chip surge in prices), and late last year (before tariffs). At 67 years old these may be the last vehicles we buy as we keep until no longer reliable
I agree that calculating the Present value of future income streams demonstrates the role them play in your retirement finances. I tend to think this is valuable, especially for folks who don’t have a lot of experience with financial planning. It helps demonstrate the value of their future SS income.
Then what do you do with that information? If I knew the PV of my pension how would it change anything I may be doing finance wise. It’s still only an income stream.
We’ve been through this topic before, and you got your answer then. Among other things, knowing the present value of a retirement income stream helps you to settle on an appropriate stock-bond allocation. Have a hugely valuable pension? That’s like owning a big bond, and you might want to allocate more to stocks. Don’t have a pension? You should probably hold more bonds.
I acknowledge ignorance on this, but, I cannot see how an income stream PV impact investments.
If a pension plus SS provide all needed income, I view investments as entirely separate and based on risk tolerance.
If the pension plus SS provide a portion of needed income shouldn’t the balance of income needed drive the investment mix?
A person lives on the stream, not the PV. The PV isn’t available for use no matter what happens investments.
Imagine you are running a small business. You need to know both your P&L (Income statement) and your Balance sheet (all your PVs).
The income statement tells you have you have done in the year. The PVs tell you what shape you are in for the future.
If you don’t reflect the debtor that is your future pension/SS receipts your personal balance sheet might cause you to make sub-optimal decisions.
Jonathan says I am stubborn, but it appears I am just stupid about this.
The only value my pension and SS have is the amount of the regular income stream. I can’t change the pension and SS changes are dictated by law and inflation.
That income tells me what I have to spend and what additional amount, if any, I need to generate from investments.
The amount I need to make up provides an indication of the type of investment mix I need consistent with the risk I want to take.
Presumably if there is a wide gap I need to be more aggressive or have a larger pool of investments, or if not, I can be conservative such as bonds.
But in either case, how does the PV of my pension affect these decisions as long as I cannot change the fixed income stream the pension provides? The PV is not real in this scenario.
In our case, we live only on a pension and SS. They are more than sufficient. In theory we can do whatever we like with investments, but as Jonathan said we won’t be able to grow much if we are heavy into bonds. On the other hand, I want to also generate income if and when we need it to offset inflation.
I must be missing something, but I don’t know what.
I’ve read the paper a few times now and will respond in the context of the paper’s results. This is my interpretation of the results – I think there is a bot of confusion and possibly a mislabeling in Table 3.
In the comment above you said” “The amount I need to make up provides an indication of the type of investment mix I need consistent with the risk I want to take.”
That’s correct. But all the recommended portfolio allocation are based on the PV of the annuitized income. The 2nd paragraph under the RESULTS section gives a good numerical example.
In Table 3, the top row of each section is labelled “SS % of Wealth”. I find this title confusing. I searched the paper for a clean definition, but could not find one. I think it may indicate that the % Wealth values of 5 to 95 include all sources of annuitized income (SS, pension, and commercial annuities). The discussion in the paper seems to support that. Either way, the independent value in the analysis is the present value of the annualized income.
This statement in the 2nd paragraph under the Annuities in The Balance Sheet section explains it well:
“This analysis begins by accounting for the value of annuitized assets most households already have on their balance sheet, for example Social Security. To determine the value of a stream of guaranteed income, the mortality-weighted net present value of future guaranteed income retirement benefits (VIt) must be estimated.”
I surrender, Rick. It is beyond my understanding.
I don’t have a balance sheet, a budget or a spreadsheet or any understanding of this concept.
I have a pension, SS, an IRA and a brokerage account in a growth allocation.
I’m happy in my ignorance.
This reminds me of the time I was making what I thought was a simple presentation to our new CEO – a scientist/engineer – and he started writing formulas on a flip chart. I knew I needed to think about retirement.
Dick, the reality is you don’t need to understand this. You worked long and hard, earned and saved, and produced a more than adequate retirement for you and Connie, and to help your kids, and likely leave a legacy to them and the grandkids. I would characterize it that you built up a significant financial margin of safety and you have no need to optimize. Some of us like to optimize, and I think some folks who have marginal retirement resources could benefit from results like the paper provides.
Some of us like vanilla and some like chocolate. I like analysis and spreadsheets and figuring stuff out. I have no expectation that many others will – and that’s fine by me. When I read a paper like Blanchette’s I’m compelled to read it until I understand it. I’m pretty sure there is a mislabeling of the % wealth in Table 3. I’ve been looking for a way to contact him all afternoon to ask him about it. I know that’s a bit wacky, but Ive learned to live with my wackiness. You’ve clearly won the game, enjoy it.
Rick,
Out of curiosity I went back and read the paper and stared in awe at the formulas not understanding much of anything. Then I got to the conclusion section which read
The results showed that when a retiree buys an income annuity, they should optimally take more investment risk with the remainder of their investment portfolio. Even risk-averse retirees should hold a significant allocation to equities if they have a large percentage of total wealth held in guaranteed income assets.
Just sounds like common sense to me. The less you need the money to live on the more risk you can take. That level of risk depending on the goal you have for those assets. Not a formal in sight😎
I agree that the paper’s general guidance makes sense. But just acknowledging the logic of the investment theme doesn’t tell you what amounts to invest and where to invest them. The authors also write:
The goal of this paper is to estimate the optimal asset allocation to stocks and bonds following the purchase of an annuity.
The authors wanted to go beyond the “common sense” guidance, and provide numerical guidance. To provide the numerical guidance, they use well-established formulas and data. They considered a wide range of real-life scenarios and variables, including range of income, annuitization percentage, withdrawal rate, and legacy wishes. They combined the results in a nomograph of the first order – Table 3.
I wonder if those of us who have pensions and significant SS benefits understand the significant challenge of converting retirement savings into income? It’s not enough to recommend someone purchase an annuity. The retiree has to decide what kind of annuity, how much, where to get the funds from, joint of single, COLA or not, and what company. They then have to decide what to do with the remaining assets in their portfolio. The Blanchett, et al , paper is trying to help retirees make a more informed decision.
Well you are right that those of us with a pension are in a different place, but a paper such as this won’t help the average retiree. I got the sense it was more written for advisors. But then how many people use advisors. Anyone who wants to help the great majority needs to keep it simple, very simple.
Yes the paper was written for advisors – it was published in the Financial Planning Association’s Journal, and the paper makes several references to providing guidance to advisors so they can help clients choose a better asset allocation once they have chosen to annuitize a portion of their assets.
The analytical methodology may be complicated, but the results are fairly straightforward, and encompassed in 2 tables. If you can add and divide, you can use the tables.
An article by the Pew charitable trust says that about 1/3 of retirees use a financial advisor. That is not the majority, but it is still millions of retirees who could be helped. Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research estimates that only 10% of retirees have annuities. But many retirement researchers believe that average retirees could benefit from annuities.
I don’t think it’s fair to be so dismissive about a paper that tries to encourage the use of annuities for retirees, and provide advisors a straightforward means of improving a retirees financial security.
I never dismiss annuities. In fact, I promoted them on HD several times as a valuable income stream and have been criticized for doing so.
I recently wrote that if I didn’t have a pension I would buy an annuity.
But without numbers you’re just going to guess on the risk you should take? Like I said recently a financial advisor would really struggle with you as a client.
You are probably right about the financial advisor and if I didn’t have a pension, I would be a basket case every time the market moved in the wrong direction.
No matter what, my risk tolerance is minimal and always has been. I suspect most people have a risk tolerance of their own no matter what a formula may suggest.
But after 15 years retired my pension plus our SS still exceed our necessary and equally important our desired spending. The result of my much maligned notion of income replacement plus working to age 67.
Our investments kick off enough in interest and dividends to deal with inflation for the foreseeable future should we need that income.
My financial peace of mind comes from our steady income stream. I am fortunate it is a pension, but I like to think absent that I would have purchased an annuity – and saved more while working.
I don’t think you’re ever going to get it as you don’t have to. Just be very careful about advising your kids because they definitely are going to have to get it if, as you’ve told us they have no pensions and only 401Ks at best.
I’ll try one last time. If IRAs are your only source of retirement income beyond SS then you’ve already had a lifetime of having to live with market volatility in getting to their present value. Why flip a switch at retirement and say “I want no more risk, no more growth potential, I want peace of mind on a fixed flat income – give me an annuity right now, whatever the best rate is at this moment no matter how poor”. Doesn’t that lead to “Oh gosh that really isn’t enough income – maybe I need to work 5 more years etc etc”? Which if you’re already in your 60s isn’t necessarily what you want to or are in a physical state to do.
The reality of modern retirement is that IRAs aren’t just extra comfort or surplus – they are the key assets that will drive people’s financial lives and will need active decision making. Very few people relatively will have such huge amounts they can go safety first and replicate the same situation as your pension. Doesn’t mean they can’t live equally rewarding retirements.
This is what I don’t get. Why would you conclude the following?
”Why flip a switch at retirement and say “I want no more risk, no more growth potential, I want peace of mind on a fixed flat income – give me an annuity right now, whatever the best rate is at this moment no matter how poor””
I never said anything Iike that. All I said was that I can’t see how the present value of an income stream such as. Pension or SS fits into the investment mix calculation.
You literally said
I am fortunate it is a pension, but I like to think absent that I would have purchased an annuity – and saved more while working.
I just more colourfully articulated it. Your arguments are entirely disingenuous. You adapt an entrenched position and then when someone exposes it you try to say you never said those things that your position and indeed own words do say.
You continually bang on about annuities being the solution to a lack of pensions but never offer any maths to back up the worth of your view. Numbers are readily available.
Then you offer vague indeterminate and indeed perhaps impossible solutions like “I would have saved more while working” – that’s more than a bit ex post when at retirement you discover you don’t have enough to buy the desired annuity stream.
A challenge for you which as you’ve highlighted you kids recently might enable your obvious interest in the subject of retirement provision to translate into tangible value for them.
Put yourself in their shoes. Give yourself a notional salary and starting 401k balance. Then model what they can afford to save while maintaining current lifestyle and produce a plan which shows roughly when they can retire and with what income including what and how they tap IRAs for that income.
I think that would help you understand their situation better and would make a way more interesting article/post than some general handwringing over how people don’t save enough for retirement.
The actual numbers don’t matter in all this unless you’re going to give them 7 figure salaries. But the principles certainly do.
I recognise it may be very hard for you to do this. But it’s at the root of why your comments get so many down arrows.
I have repeatedly said I would buy an annuity in the absence of a pension.
That does not mean you take all your investments and do that. I’m pretty sure I also said somewhere buy an annuity to cover all basic expenses and assure a steady income stream. In fact, others said the same.
Actually, I’m pretty sure the paper that was being discussed says that too.
Of course doing so is one part of the equation. Why would you conclude otherwise?
Actually, I am in the process of writing a post speculating what I might have done absent a pension so get your red arrows ready.
But be specific – you seem to blithely assume that you could readily afford the desired annuity and then have heaps of spare IRA available for growth. Which at your desired 100% gross income replacement would be a fairly heroic amount rolled up in IRAs. Maybe even an implied savings rate that would not have allowed you to have 4 kids let alone fully fund them through college.
That’s why numbers and actual real world annuity rates matter.
Free hint – there are numerous online calculators available at places like Firecalc to help you through the maths.
What you are missing is that in your obsession with what you narrowly see as income you might be forgoing wider opportunity.
If your income needs are covered you can probably afford to try to shoot the lights out in your investment portfolio by going for high growth = ultimately a greater legacy for your family or higher RMDs for cashflow tor them now.
If you constrain your portfolio by an income “need” that you don’t actually need right now you might end up with stodgier dividend paying stocks or bonds.
Of course high growth also brings higher risk which is why having your current income needs covered brings you peace of mind there.
“narrowly see as income?” Please explain. I wasn’t aware it was that complicated.
A non dividend paying stock/fund is convertible to “income” almost on demand. You simply sell the required quantity. Cash is 100% fungible.
It’s pretty simple.
But a pension and SS are not cash beyond monthly income.
But that’s not what we’re talking about. You talk about your investments needing to provide income in the future. In your narrow world that seems to mean dividends or interest ( natural yield).
For those who have to place more reliance on their portfolio to drawdown then selling stock can be a source of their income.
Maybe it’s best that you don’t try to include a PV of your pension and SS in your personal balance sheet because you’d see it going down every month as you age further which would then worry you.
There is a circular quality that needs to be present when thinking about how much you could potentially spend when retired. There have been many references to using 4% of investment assets as a rough estimate of what could be safely withdrawn over a 30 year retirement period without running out of funds. If you want to do this, then you must allocate around 60% (pick a number between 50-60) of your assets to equities with the balance to bonds and cash. The 60% allocation represents the reasonable investment risk position.
So the easy formula for estimating annual retirement spending is then SS plus pension and annuity income, plus 4% of investment assets. The caveat must be the “reasonable allocation to equities” within your investment portfolio.
Without a pension or annuity, you must have more investment assets to feel safe. Those who arrive at retirement without a pension and say $2M in financial assets might feel safer through using a portion of their assets to buy an annuity. Those with more than $4M (and potentially $160,000 in withdrawal income at 4%) might skip the annuity. However, all of this depends on the “reasonable allocation to equities”.
So go ahead, ignore the value of your pension and Social Security, and keep your entire portfolio in bonds. That’ll likely mean a smaller inheritance for your kids, but what the heck.
You acknowledge your ignorance on this. But I think many readers will see what I see: not ignorance, but stubbornness.
I’m not sure it’s either ignorance or stubbornness rather than a numeracy deficit. A lot of RDQ’s disagreements with others seem to arise because he simply won’t countenance doing the sort of calculations that others base their perspectives on.
He defaults to his absolutes of words not the numerical absolutes that others prefer to work with.
Some truth to that, but when numbers are needed I’m open to them.
Jonathan,
As you state: I posted this above yesterday, in case Dick missed it. Since I only have a small pension have not done the calculations yet, but will after we both claim SS In a couple of years. Will also calculate bucket values and see how they compare.
Here is an excellent article by David Blanchette and Michael Zinke on how to figure out an appropriate asset allocation in retirement taking into account your Social Security; and any annuity, and pension income:
https://www.financialplanningassociation.org/article/journal/NOV18-anuitized-income-and-optimal-equity-allocation
Dave, thanks for the article link. The usefulness of valuing guaranteed income sources is beginning to penetrate my thick skull, but one thing befuddles. It indicates that someone with a fat pension should increase equities exposure; that makes sense.
It says a retiree with little or no guaranteed income outside SS should be more conservative; I resemble this remark. 66% of our income is SS, 5% is pension, 28% is from IRAs (representing a 3% distribution rate), 1% from interest.
The 71% we receive from SS and pension income cover 100% of spending, with the remaining income deposited into taxable savings and brokerage accounts. Why shouldn’t I be as comfortable with, say, a 70/30 mix as someone with substantial pension income?
The article says essentially what I said. The difference between the annuity income and total income requirements should be considered in the investment risk.
So, less guaranteed income stream, more bonds. But if your annuity covers all needs, then you can take more investment risk.
That all makes sense, but I fail to see what it has to do with the present value of the annuity.
The annuity’s present value will guide how much you allocate to bonds. Or you could just ignore the present value and make a wild, uninformed guess.
You aren’t using present value as the income being generated and guaranteed are you?
I’m not sure what you’re asking.
Just wanted to be sure we weren’t lost on semantics and the present value is current worth of a future sum of money or stream of cash flows. That is for example, the current value of my future pension payments.
Yes, that’s what present value is.
This is an interesting thought experiment. Everyone has their “known unknowns.” We have fewer than some because of receiving pensions with COLAs plus Medicare supplements from our former employers. But there’s still:
Our situation is secure enough that I feel comfortable but not so unlimited that we can do whatever we want. For most of our adult lives we either couldn’t afford things, or, when we could, were aggressively saving instead of spending. I haven’t quite gotten my mind around the next phase yet.
In the “unknowns” I could include care for elder parents. I have accepted that there will always be unknowns. I think the best way to deal with this is to build-in some financial flexibility. I always assume there will be one or more retirement (stock and bond) hits of 20%, medical costs will go up, social security benefits may be reduced, and inflation may not always be benign and below 4%.
Thanks for commenting Dana.
Here is an excellent article by David Blanchette and Michael Zinke on how to figure out an appropriate asset allocation in retirement taking into account your Social Security; and any annuity, and pension income:
https://www.financialplanningassociation.org/article/journal/NOV18-anuitized-income-and-optimal-equity-allocation
Interesting article. It addresses something I’ve wondered about “The goal of this paper is to move beyond the assumption made by Finke and Pfau (2015) and estimate the actual optimal asset allocation to stocks and bonds following the purchase of an annuity.”
Thanks, David!
I agree with the article that just considering present net worth (assets – liabilities) gives an incomplete financial picture. My approach in assessing my retirement readiness is to not ignore those future assets, but to include them as off-sets to needed withdrawals from my portfolio.
For example, if my expenses are $60,000/year, a rough estimate using the 4% rule-of-thumb, says I need a portfolio of $1.5 million. But if I have social security and a pension coming that reduces how much I need to have saved. So it might look more like this:
Total Annual Expenses: $60,000
Pension: $16,000
Social Security: $24,000
I subtract the $40,000 I can expect from the pension and social security and that leaves $20,000 that needs to be covered by my portfolio. Which puts the needed portfolio amount at $500,000. If I didn’t include those future sources of income, I’d have a much different picture!
I think both methods get you to roughly the same place, I just find looking at it in the way I’ve outlined more intuitive.
I haven’t used Boldin’s planner, but I’ve heard good things about it. My favorite online planners are:
They each allow the user to input future income (e.g., SS, pension) as well as future expenses (e.g., LTC).
Thumbs up for Firecalc!
You are right, but it is not your net worth.
What? What “it” are you referring to? I just agreed with the article that net worth alone doesn’t give a full financial picture. It’s just one piece.
As I mentioned above, I don’t include my future pension and Social Security in my net worth. However, I do include it in my assessment of financial readiness to retire.
The website article provides a good overview of things we might overlook when calculating net worth. Some experts suggest thinking of social security as a “bond”. If we take that approach and a 25 year retirement (age 65-90), assume our annual SS benefit is equivalent to a 4% withdrawal then a benefit that yields $3,000 monthly after deducting probable Medicare premiums would be a $908,400 bond. Concerned about a 20% decrease in benefits? Then that “bond” is only worth $726,720.
If we are of the opinion that social security is a bad deal for retirees, then I suggest we add the value of that SS bond to our retirement portfolio. A $1 million retirement portfolio becomes one valued at nearly $2 million if we do that.
Our SS payments (at current rates) would be the equivalent of 1.8MM in savings using the 4% rule.
I can’t say I’ve ever thought about Medicare in that respect, as I have no clue about the numbers involved.
As for inheritance, we’ll probably inherit roughly $150k from my parents. That’s not a life-changing amount, but at 4%/yr it’s $6k, which is more than a month’s worth of expenses for us.
Wow, that’s a lot of SS income, that’s crazy! Well done 👍
But that’s $500 a month isn’t it?
Thanks for commenting David. Please be aware that the IRS has fairly complicated rules for how you must handle withdrawls if they are from your parents’ retirement accounts. You can’t just withdraw 4%. Luckily I was quite naive about the rules when I inherited my parents’ retirement accounts in 2019. Luckily I did not run afoul of the IRS rules.
Ed Slot who is considered one of this country’s IRA experts explains the rules about as concisely as is possible when dealing with government rules, in his book, The Retirement Time Bomb Tick Louder.
Of course withdrawals aren’t required from a taxable account. And I always enjoy Ed Slott’s conversations with Christine Benz on Morningstar.