Tonight we spent a little time looking at the pretty chart that the financial planner sent us. Basically, he wants me to start taking Social Security this year, and my pension, such as it is, next year, and to make up the difference between those and our monthly expenses by withdrawing from my 401(k) and other sources. Which, if followed to the limit he projects, would mean that one of my 401k(s) would be depleted in 10 years. This is not a bad thing, because I have another, and because it doesn't even touch my wife's 401(k), which is larger than both of mine. We;d start drawing from it after drawing mine down, and it would be handily supplemented by pension and Social Security. I know, numerically, that we'll be fine.
Still....it's unsettling to contemplate. Even knowing that we're projected to have a large number -- what we consider to be a large number, and thank you, belle-mere, for mentioning today that when you retired, you thought you had a comfortable amount, and now you're a little nervous; it's a big enough number that I joked to my wife that we ought to vote Republican -- doesn't help me feel calm. Which is why I am writing now instead of going to sleep as I'd originally planned.
