--- title: How Much of My Retirement Savings Can I Safely Spend? | TIME description: The 4% rule means that, on average, if you take out 4% of what you own every year, you won't outlive your savings. canonical: https://time.com/video/CUd8uAyf/ og:title: How Much of My Retirement Savings Can I Safely Spend? og:description: The 4% rule means that, on average, if you take out 4% of what you own every year, you won't outlive your savings. og:url: https://time.com/video/CUd8uAyf/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/CUd8uAyf/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Much of My Retirement Savings Can I Safely Spend? twitter:description: The 4% rule means that, on average, if you take out 4% of what you own every year, you won't outlive your savings. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/CUd8uAyf/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # How Much of My Retirement Savings Can I Safely Spend? > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: How Much of My Retirement Savings Can I Safely Spend? [Watch (HLS stream): How Much of My Retirement Savings Can I Safely Spend?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/CUd8uAyf.m3u8) (1:13)  _Published 2016-01-20. The 4% rule means that, on average, if you take out 4% of what you own every year, you won't outlive your savings._ --- Jul 27, 2023 6:52 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Retirement Savings Strategies](/video/xXbBsuCF/) ### Retirement Savings Strategies [How Much Can You Save by Bringing Your Own Lunch?](/video/3Exm49TT/) ### How Much Can You Save by Bringing Your Own Lunch? [How to Save Your Retirement](/video/zJ7B8tfG/) ### How to Save Your Retirement --- ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] When you're thinking about how much money to take out of your retirement savings, probably the hardest part is determining how much you take out each year. Here's a quick and easy way to estimate whether you have enough money. To last through your retirement. Financial institutions have done studies called Monte Carlo simulations that after doing many different simulations of market conditions it's been determined [ MUSIC ] That on average one can safely withdraw approximately 4 % of their portfolio and pretty much be assured that over a 30 year time period in retirement that that money will last. So the idea is that let's say today you have a million dollars of investment assets in which you need to produce income from those assets. What the 4 % rule basically says is that if you withdraw $ 40, 000 or less per year, you will have a very, very low likelihood of ever out living assets. 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