How To Retire on $300K And Not Run Out Of Money (2024) (2024)

FAQs

How To Retire on $300K And Not Run Out Of Money (2024)? ›

$300,000 can last for roughly 26 years if your average monthly spend is around $1,600. Social Security benefits help bolster your retirement income and make retiring on $300k even more accessible. It's often recommended to have 10-12 times your current income in savings by the time you retire.

How long will $300,000 last in retirement? If you have $300,000 and withdraw 4% per year, that number could last you roughly 25 years. That's $12,000, which is not enough to live on its own unless you have additional income like Social Security and own your own place. Luckily, that $300,000 can go up if you invest it.

You Have a Diversified Portfolio

“You will not spend 100% of your money in the year you retire,” Biancavilla said. “Money not intended for spending within the next 10-plus years should be invested accordingly.”

One example is the $1,000/month rule. Created by Wes Moss, a Certified Financial Planner, this strategy helps individuals visualize how much savings they should have in retirement. According to Moss, you should plan to have $240,000 saved for every $1,000 of disposable income in retirement.

Retiring without savings requires sacrifices and strategies. Social Security may not provide enough money for most people to maintain their pre-retirement lifestyles. For some, downsizing or working part-time can provide a supplement to Social Security.

As a result, an oft-stated rule of thumb suggests workers can base their retirement on a percentage of their current income. “Seventy to 80% of pre-retirement income is good to shoot for,” said Ben Bakkum, senior investment strategist with New York City financial firm Betterment, in an email.

Retiree Debt Is Real, and Growing

Debt in retirement is a complicated issue, as discussed in a recent publication by Boston College's Anqi Chen, Siyan Liu and Alicia Munnell. Retiree debt is growing and has been since the mid-90's. Today about 60% of Americans over 65 owe money.

The 7 Percent Rule is a foundational guideline for retirees, suggesting that they should only withdraw upto 7% of their initial retirement savings every year to cover living expenses. This strategy is often associated with the “4% Rule,” which suggests a 4% withdrawal rate.

As an estimate, aim to withdraw no more than 4% to 5% of your savings in the first year of retirement, then adjust that amount every year for inflation.

What is the average Social Security check? ›

Social Security offers a monthly benefit check to many kinds of recipients. As of December 2023, the average check is $1,767.03, according to the Social Security Administration – but that amount can differ drastically depending on the type of recipient. In fact, retirees typically make more than the overall average.

With the $1,000 per month rule, if you plan to withdraw 5% of your savings each year, you'll need at least $240,000 in savings. If you aim to take out $2,000 every month at a withdrawal rate of 5%, you'll need to set aside $480,000. For $3,000, you would aim to save $720,000.

Living on $2,000 per month is doable, but you won't be able to live just anywhere. This is important because at the time of writing the average Social Security benefit paid is $1,701 per month.

The average retirement savings for all families is $333,940 according to the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances. Taken on their own, those numbers aren't incredibly helpful. There are a variety of decent retirement savings benchmarks out there, but how much money other people have isn't one of them.

There is no one-size-fits-all plan when it comes to how much you'll need to retire, but there are a few rules of thumb. Some strategies call for having 10-12 times your final working year's salary, or specific multiples of your annual income that increase as you age.

Renting may make sense if you're an empty nester, ready to downsize, or unsure of where you'll spend your retirement years. You may want to move away for better weather or a lower cost of living for some years, but also be easily able to move closer to your family later on.

£300k in a pension isn't a huge amount to retire on at the fairly young age of 60, but it's possible for certain lifestyles depending on how your pension fund performs while you're retired and how much you need to live on.

Most people in the U.S. retire with less than $1 million. $500,000 is a healthy nest egg to supplement Social Security and other income sources. Assuming a 4% withdrawal rate, $500,000 could provide $20,000/year of inflation-adjusted income.

Bottom Line. Most people will be perfectly capable of supporting a $5,000 monthly retirement budget on $3 million, as long as it's adequately liquid and properly diversified.

A $3 million portfolio will likely be enough to allow a retired couple to spend reasonably and invest with moderate caution without any worries of running out of money. However, if expenses rise too high, it's entirely possible to drain a $3 million portfolio in well under 30 years.