The Boldin Financial Planner Take control of your plans. Retire earlier, with more security and find financial confidence.
Get expert support Make sure your plan is set up correctly with a coach. Or, talk to a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® from Boldin Advisors for even more guidance and support.
Resources Fuel your financial planning know-how
Blog Your guide to financial planning and retirement
May 20, 2026 • 10 minutes
If you’re trying to figure out how much you can safely spend in retirement, you’re not alone. It’s one of the hardest problems in financial planning. Each year, Morningstar publishes its State of Retirement Income report to help people answer a deceptively simple question:
How much can you spend without running out of money? It’s the question behind every safe withdrawal rate calculation, and one that Morningstar’s annual research tackles head-on.
The report’s 2026 findings reinforce something we believe deeply at Boldin: Retirement isn’t about a single “rule.” It’s about building a flexible, personalized plan.
Here are seven of the most important takeaways and what they mean for your future.
For decades, retirees were told they could withdraw 4% of their portfolio each year. William Bengen, who originated the 4% rule, has since revised his findings. In his book A Richer Retirement: Supercharging the 4% Rule to Spend More and Enjoy More, he writes that 4.7% is the true worst-case safe maximum for retirees today.
But Morningstar’s latest research suggests a more conservative starting point, 3.9%, depending on conditions.
Why the shift?
Rules of thumb are helpful starting points, but dangerous endpoints. Your safe withdrawal rate depends on your plan, not an average. Your retirement income goals and needs are highly dependent on a wide variety of factors.
Use the Boldin Planner to truly understand what you can safely spend.
The 3.9% starting point represents a conservative baseline, but Morningstar’s research shows that retirees using flexible strategies, like adjusting spending with market conditions, may be able to withdraw as much as 5.7%.
Morningstar emphasizes that a better way to plan retirement income is to allow your safe withdrawal to change with the market, instead of being static. The approach is:
We agree with this approach, and with the sentiment often attributed to Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
A static financial plan for the next 30 years of your life is inevitably going to fail. You need a plan that evolves as your life and the market change. That’s why maintaining a living plan with a tool like the Boldin Planner is so powerful.
One of the biggest insights from the report: Retirees who adjust spending over time can safely withdraw more. Flexible strategies like “guardrails,” or adjusting spending after market declines, increase both starting and lifetime income.
But there’s a tradeoff: More flexibility = more variability in income.
The goal isn’t rigid certainty, it’s confident adaptability. That’s where Boldin’s Guardrails tools come in: they help you set clear spending boundaries and dynamically adjust when markets or life circumstances change, so you can spend with confidence without putting your future at risk.
Just as important, your plan should reflect how your spending will actually evolve over time. Mapping out different phases of retirement — higher-spending years with travel or supporting children, followed by more moderate or healthcare-focused years, can dramatically improve the accuracy of your projections.
The more clearly you can envision what you’ll need and want at each stage, the more precise and empowering your plan becomes.
Retirement income is rarely funded entirely by portfolio withdrawals. In reality, it typically falls into two distinct categories:
Guaranteed lifetime income: These are reliable monthly payments you’ll receive for the rest of your life, regardless of market conditions. Sources include Social Security, pensions, and certain annuities. This income forms the foundation of your financial security, you can count on it being there as long as you live.
Flexible income: Flexible income comes from sources that can vary over time, primarily withdrawals from your investment portfolio, but also part-time work, rental income, or other discretionary cash flows. Unlike guaranteed income, these sources require active decision-making and adjustment based on markets, taxes, and your evolving needs.
To truly understand your retirement income potential, you need a holistic plan that integrates both types of income. Your portfolio doesn’t need to cover all of your spending, only the gap between your expenses and your guaranteed income.
That shift changes everything.
Your “safe withdrawal rate” is meaningless without context. What matters is how much of your essential spending is already covered by guaranteed income, and how much you actually need to withdraw, when, and under what conditions. The more clearly you define that gap, the more confident and flexible your retirement plan becomes.
The Boldin Planner is built for this exact task.
Most people believe that your allocation to stocks needs to be minimized or eliminated when you enter retirement. But this isn’t going to be true for the majority of retirees.
Morningstar found that:
Here we differ slightly from Morningstar’s assessment. At Boldin, we believe that your ideal allocations will depend entirely on the details of your retirement plan.
This isn’t about picking a “perfect” allocation. It’s about aligning your portfolio with your:
The report highlights several overlooked levers:
Your withdrawal rate isn’t just about investments, it’s about strategy. And, small decisions can create years of additional financial security.
Everyone has many different levers that can potentially be more valuable to your retirement security than your savings withdrawals. Minimizing taxes, optimizing investments, and utilizing home equity are just a few of the powerful ways people can maximize and optimize retirement income opportunities.
Morningstar’s modeling shows a wide range of outcomes:
That’s a massive gap.
Boldin’s take: The numbers are important, but only because of the life they enable
The real risk isn’t spending too much or too little, it’s not knowing, and missing opportunities for your life because of that uncertainty.
When you build a holistic retirement plan, one that accounts for your income sources, spending over time, taxes, and different market scenarios, you replace guesswork with insight. You can see not just if you’re okay, but what’s possible.
We hear from people every day who retire earlier than they thought possible, spend more confidently, or make meaningful life changes, all because they took the time to understand their full financial picture.
Clarity about your retirement income needs doesn’t just reduce risk. It expands your life.
If there’s one takeaway from Morningstar’s research, it’s this: There is no universal “safe” number. Retirement income depends on:
And most importantly… Your ability to see how it all fits together.
Paying yourself in retirement isn’t about guessing a percentage. It’s about designing a plan that:
That’s where real financial confidence comes from. With the Boldin Planner, you can model your withdrawal strategy, test different scenarios, and see exactly how your decisions impact your future, so you don’t have to rely on rules of thumb.
Because the goal isn’t to follow a rule. It’s to build a plan you can trust will evolve with you.
A safe withdrawal rate is the percentage of your retirement savings you can spend each year without running out of money over a typical retirement horizon. It’s not a fixed number. It depends on your asset allocation, spending flexibility, guaranteed income sources, and how long your retirement lasts. Commonly cited starting points range from 3.7% to 4.7%, but your actual sustainable rate may be higher or lower depending on your specific financial picture.
Morningstar’s 2026 State of Retirement Income report puts the baseline safe withdrawal rate at 3.9% for retirees using a fixed spending strategy. Retirees who adjust their spending in response to market conditions (a flexible or “guardrails” approach) may be able to withdraw as much as 5.7% annually. The wide range reflects how much individual circumstances matter.
The 4% rule is a useful starting point, not a reliable plan. William Bengen, who developed it, has since revised his estimate upward to 4.7% as a worst-case safe maximum. Morningstar’s current research suggests 3.9% as a conservative baseline under current market conditions. Neither number accounts for your specific income sources, spending needs, or tax situation — all of which can shift your sustainable rate significantly.
Guaranteed income (e.g., Social Security, pensions, annuities) reduces how much your portfolio has to do. Your withdrawal rate only needs to cover the difference between your expenses and what your guaranteed income already pays. The larger that guaranteed income base, the more flexibility you have in how aggressively or conservatively you draw from investments. This is why two retirees with the same savings can have very different sustainable withdrawal rates.
Morningstar’s research finds that moderate equity allocations (roughly 30% to 50% stocks) tend to support stronger withdrawal rates than either very conservative or very aggressive portfolios. Too little equity limits long-term growth and increases the risk of outliving savings. Too much creates volatility that can damage a portfolio if you’re drawing from it during a downturn. The right allocation depends on your spending needs, timeline, income sources, and tolerance for fluctuation.
Take financial wellness into your own hands and do it yourself retirement planning: easy, comprehensive, reliable.
She was self-employed, single, and unsure she’d saved enough. Then the Boldin Planner showed the full picture, and the answer surprised her.
Most people do DIY retirement planning on their own. Here’s why a small peer group and tools you control can change everything.
Using ‘Atomic Habits’ to reach your financial goals — James Clear’s habit framework applied to wealth building and long-lasting confidence.
