As a rule of thumb, many retirees use 4% as their safe withdrawal rate—the so-called 4% rule. The 4% rule states that you withdraw no more than 4% of your starting balance each year in retirement, adjusted each year for inflation.
If you have $400,000 in the bank you can retire early at age 62, but it will be tight. The good news is that if you can keep working for just five more years, you are on track for a potentially quite comfortable retirement by full retirement age.
The $1,000 per month rule is designed to help you estimate the amount of savings required to generate a steady monthly income during retirement. According to this rule, for every $240,000 you save, you can withdraw $1,000 per month if you stick to a 5% annual withdrawal rate.
What is the 7 Percent Rule? In contrast to the more conservative 4% rule, the 7 percent rule suggests retirees can withdraw 7% of their total retirement corpus in the first year of retirement, with subsequent annual adjustments for inflation.
As a general rule, if you withdraw funds before age 59 ½, you'll trigger an IRS tax penalty of 10%. The good news is that there's a way to take your distributions a few years early without incurring this penalty. This is known as the rule of 55.
Using our portfolio of $400,000 and the 4% withdrawal rate, you could withdraw $16,000 annually from your retirement accounts and expect your money to last for at least 30 years. If, say, your Social Security checks are $2,000 monthly, you'd have a combined annual income in retirement of $40,000.
California. $500,000 will last: Years, Months, Days: 6 years, 2 months, 9 days. Annual expenditure: $80,771.75.
According to the $1,000 per month rule, retirees can receive $1,000 per month if they withdraw 5% annually for every $240,000 they have set aside. For example, if you aim to take out $2,000 per month, you'll need to set aside $480,000.
The ideal monthly retirement income for a couple differs for everyone. It depends on your personal preferences, past accomplishments, and retirement plans. Some valuable perspective can be found in the 2022 US Census Bureau's median income for couples 65 and over: $76,490 annually or about $6,374 monthly.
Just 16% of retirees say they have more than $1 million saved, including all personal savings and assets, according to the recent CNBC Your Money retirement survey conducted with SurveyMonkey. In fact, among those currently saving for retirement, 57% say the amount they're hoping to save is less than $1 million.
How much does a $400,000 annuity pay per month? As of January 2025, with a $400,000 annuity, you'll get an immediate payment of $2,400 monthly starting at age 60, $2,643 monthly at age 65, or $2,850 per month at age 70.
For example, if you have retirement savings of $1 million, the 4% rule says that you can safely withdraw $40,000 per year during the first year — increasing this number for inflation each subsequent year — without running out of money within the next 30 years.
The time-honored - and sometimes controversial - 4% rule suggests that a retiree should be able to withdraw 4% of their savings and investments in their first year of retirement and then adjust the dollar figure based on their updated balance every year thereafter.
The requirement to report large withdrawals, along with certain other financial activities, was designed to help detect and prevent criminal activities, like money laundering and terrorism financing. Transactions involving cash withdrawals or deposits of $10,000 or more are automatically flagged to FinCEN.
Probably 1 in every 20 families have a net worth exceeding $3 Million, but most people's net worth is their homes, cars, boats, and only 10% is in savings, so you would typically have to have a net worth of $30 million, which is 1 in every 1000 families.
According to the Social Security Administration, or SSA, the monthly retirement benefit for Social Security recipients is currently $1,783.55 in 2024 on average. Several factors can drag that average up or down, but you have the most control over the biggest variable of all — the age that you decide to cash in.
The 4% rule is a popular retirement withdrawal strategy that suggests retirees can safely withdraw the amount equal to 4% of their savings during the year they retire and then adjust for inflation each subsequent year for 30 years.
By age 35, aim to save one to one-and-a-half times your current salary for retirement. By age 50, that goal is three-and-a-half to six times your salary. By age 60, your retirement savings goal may be six to 11-times your salary.
Kevin O'Leary: By Age 33, You Should Have $100K in Savings — How To Get Started. If you're just starting out in your career, $100,000 might seem like a lot of money. After all, the median salary of a 20- to 24-year-old, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, is just $37,024.
Bottom Line. If you have $400,000 in the bank you can retire early at age 62, but it will be tight. The good news is that if you can keep working for just five more years, you are on track for a potentially quite comfortable retirement by full retirement age.
Retirement planning centers on one crucial aspect: determining a safe withdrawal rate (SWR) from your retirement savings to ensure it lasts as long as needed. A common benchmark, known as the 4% rule, was introduced by financial planner William Bengen in 1994.
It is 100% possible to retire with $400,000, provided you're not looking to enjoy a particularly expensive retirement lifestyle or hoping to leave the workforce notably early.