Quote Originally Posted by NYCfixie View Post
- Do not spend your capital (assume it will be needed for rainy days, medical emergencies, grand-kids, leaving money to others, etc)
- You have no idea how long you and your significant other are going to live so plan for the worst (that you may live to 100 and beyond)

Based on this, a person would need $1,000,000 in capital/investments to produce $50,000 of income per year before taxes (remember you still need to pay taxes on those IRA and 401k plans that have been growing interest free for all these years)
Not spending any of your capital is a very conservative retirement strategy. More "liberal" ones allow some capital withdrawal. You could potentially outlive your capital of course. Someone once told me that the perfect retirement plan was to live well enough so that your estate's check to the undertaker bounces.