Here is an empirical window into the real "4% rule"

So I was in a conversation yesterday with a couple financial advisors that have managed clients from average/normal to ultra high net worth over a period of decades.  When we were talking (ok, I was talking about it because this is a cause with me) about the outsize impact that spending behavior has on retirements -- over and above asset allocation or fees or even taxes -- one of them let slip that no small number of what we might call their "privileged" clients (esp the ones that had to traverse the early 2000s and 2008 and 9) had to go back to work at an age where they didn't want to, or even couldn't, go back to work because they had hewed way too closely to the 4% rule and it's supposed safety over longish retirements. Their clients destroyed themselves through over-consumption and overconfidence. RIP and QED on 4%! Me? I am not going down that path.  Wade Pfau makes a case that it might be closer to 2.6% now given current market conditions. Evan Inglis has a great super-simple rule of thumb that says divide age by 20 (so for a 60 year old, that's 3%; even I can do that math) for a safe spend rate per age that is also quite a bit below 4 for most of us.  Buyer beware and shame on advisors that have a plan for spending 5 or 6%.  Maybe it will work out for you and maybe they have super special ultra spending rules they put in that folder they are sliding towards you on a conference room table but I can guarantee you this: they will NOT be there for you when it doesn't work out. Maybe your kids will be there but even that is a long shot.   As much as I detest people quoting Buffett, I have to go back to the well: "We never want to count on the kindness of strangers in order to meet tomorrow's obligations."