[Caymus]

Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy

This question should not be difficult:

The answer should be something like this:
1) What are your annual expenses before ANY discretionary spending?
2) what are, if any, pension payouts, annually?
3) what is, if taking, your social security payout, annually?
4) what is your non qualified, taxable investment interest?
5) what is line 1 minus line 2 minus line 3 minus line 4 to cover all living expenses?

6) What percent is line 5 of your IRA + taxable account total?
7) if less than 4%, then rule of thumb, great!

7) take 4% of your IRA , and subtract line 5 and that is your discretionary, fun spendable amount. .

Note: this calculation is only a starting point, and doesn't take into account the taxable implication of your income less the standard deduction times the income bracket rate of say 12% (estimate)

I am not an advisor, but can help you create an excel workbook model to start to estimate this over your lifetime. . background experience includes corporate finance forecasting and operational spending model building. .. which is a bit more complex than you as an individual or as a couple.

Once you actually see the assumptions, and the balances and outflows. . the light bulb should go on to answer the question: How much should you pay yourself? prior to RMDs?

excluding any conversions to ROTH IRAs. . DM me if you want to do it yourself prior to seeing a fee based advisor just to have perspective of how many zeros should the answer be. .

finance guy

I understand all that. The problem (as I see it) is that I have always lived too fugally and have done so for years. Doing my work years most of my income went into investments or taxes. I was hoping to find a mathematical model that tells me how much to spend based on my assets. Maybe I need a psychoanalyst instead.