Your withdrawal rate

The Withdrawal rate tile says how much this plan takes from your pots in an average retirement year, as a share of what the pots hold when retirement begins, in today’s money. A year the plan runs short still counts all of its spending, so a plan that runs dry shows the rate it asked for.

The pots are everything the plan can draw on, with any one-off receipt due in retirement added in. The home is not a pot. The State Pension and guaranteed income are not in the rate. They cut what the pots have to pay for, which is how they bring it down.

The rate shows how heavily a plan leans on its pots. Low, and growth does most of the work. High, and the pots are being spent, so the plan rests on how long they have to last. Neither is right or wrong by itself. A short retirement, a pension due later or a plan that means to leave nothing can each make a higher rate the plan’s own choice.

People set the figure beside published safe withdrawal rates, the share of a pot that lasted a set number of years through the worst markets on record. Landfall does not judge your rate against them, because the projection already answers what they estimate: whether this plan lasts to the end. What those rules rest on, and why a longer retirement changes them.