Playing the Right Retirement Cards
Retirement is like a long vacation in Vegas.</br></br>The goal is to enjoy these years to the fullest, but not so fully that you run out of money. It is a dicey endeavor, involving tricky issues of longevity and investment returns.</br></br>As you try to figure out how much you can spend once retired, take a cue from the accompanying tables, which were put together by T. Rowe Price Associates, the Baltimore mutual-fund company.</br></br>To use the tables, you have to decide how long your retirement might last, what stock-bond mix you will hold and what percentage of your portfolio's value you might withdraw in the first year of retirement. After the first year, you are assumed to step up the amount you withdraw, along with inflation.</br></br>The tables don't provide definitive answers. Instead, like a gambler, you have to play the percentages. The answer you pluck from the tables is the chance that you will make it through retirement, without running out of money.