[David]

Spreadsheet seems the safe way to go. I look at how much I’ll have at retirement, how much return I’ll make on that money a year minus what I’ll spend a year and then back calculate how much I can spend a year ending with zero when I die. Using 5% growth and dying at 85, this results spending about 7% of savings first year but that increases every year after. As far as living longer or wife living longer and leaving something for my one child, I figure my spending won’t actually increase all the way to my death so there would be substantially more money left towards the end.