Beginning in October 2025, we published the first in a new series of posts that explains how those in the WCI community think about retirement.

You can find every reader retirement withdrawal post in this series here (including six posts from Dr. Jim Dahle), where readers who are in their post-career phase discuss everything from withdrawal strategies to how they live their lives without work. So far, more than 140 readers have responded to our survey, filling us in on their most intimate financial details, strategies, and worries so they could pay it forward to the next generation of retirees. If you're retired and interested in contributing your own game plan to those of us who are still working, you can find the questionnaire here (and don't worry, we'll keep you anonymous).

Something to note: we originally asked how old the survey-taker was when they retired, but we didn’t ask how old they were when they filled out our survey. From here on out, we’ll do our best to add both data points to these posts.

And thanks to a reader suggestion, we're going to add some more data at the end of this post, where we take the average, the highest, and the lowest numbers from those readers we have included thus far in this series when it comes to the following categories:

  • Annual spending during peak earning years
  • Annual spending in retirement
  • Peak net worth
  • Current net worth
  • Age at retirement

Today, we're unveiling part 4 of our reader retirement withdrawal series. Here's how four white coat investors are managing their retirement.

#1 The Pharmacist Who Retired at 63 Years Old

  • What was your approximate asset allocation when you were a wealth accumulator? Cash 15%-20%; US stocks 40%-45%; International stocks 15%-20%; Bonds 20%-25%.
  • What is your approximate asset allocation now in retirement? Cash 20%; US stocks 3o%; International stocks 8%;  TIAA Traditional 37%; Bonds 5%.
  • How did your asset allocations change over time as you got closer to retirement? I reduced my equity exposure as I went part-time and transitioned toward retirement to 35% equities. I was concerned about the Sequence of Returns Risk in my first 5-7 years of retirement.
  • How old were you when you retired, and how old are you now? 63 then and 63 now.
  • At what age did you begin taking Social Security, and why? If you haven't yet, at what age do you plan on taking Social Security? Originally, I was planning on 70, but I'm rethinking it and possibly may take it earlier.
  • How much did you spend per year in your prime earning years? How much do you spend now? I would estimate $150,000-$175,000 in my prime. I paid for my three childrens' college (plus two grad schools).
  • At its highest point, what was your net worth? What is your net worth now? Right now is my high point at $3.5 million; plus my residence is worth $750,000-$800,000.
  • What, if anything, are you doing (or what did you already do) to prepare for Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)? How worried are you (or were you) about the tax bill associated with RMDs? I am considering Roth conversions in the upcoming years. This year, I took some LTCGs (long-term capital gains) to the max of my 0% bracket. I would like to get my tax-deferred account down a bit, so I may do a combo of withdrawals and more LTCGs next year. I'm not worried per se, but I would like to be fairly efficient in my strategy.
  • Did you do any Roth conversions? When and how much? None yet. I'm definitely looking into the feasibility going forward.
  • How are you drawing down your accounts to fund your lifestyle? How are you creating your monthly paycheck? I'm using interest from money market funds in my retail accounts, plus cash from my retail account this current year. My wife started Social Security early at 62 as Open Social Security suggested.
  • How are you managing your money differently now than what you had planned to do? I'm following my plan so far. I do see a possible benefit to taking Social Security earlier, which would keep my withdrawals from my savings to a very safe 3% rate, with the security of having all my basic expenses met monthly.
  • What does your typical day look like now compared to when you were working? I have much more time and freedom to do what I want. I work out at the gym, run, or bike every day. I meet up with friends. I read, and I have done some writing. I'm always learning new things.
  • What did you not think about before retirement that you wish you had thought of? I had some mini-retirements during my career, so I feel I am prepared.
  • What's the best thing about retirement? What's the worst? The best: freedom. The worst: the loss of stature I felt as a pharmacist.

My observation: I guess the questioning about when to take Social Security never really stops, even if you think you already know the answer.

#2 The Orthopedic Surgeon Who Retired at 42 Years Old

  • What was your approximate asset allocation when you were a wealth accumulator? Outside of my emergency fund, I was 100% equities (70% US, 30% international) until the last two years of working.
  • What is your approximate asset allocation now in retirement? I don’t have a percentage that I follow. I have 4-5 years of living expenses in cash equivalents (high-yield savings, money market, CDs), and the rest is 100% in equities.
  • How did your asset allocations change over time as you got closer to retirement? I steadily increased cash equivalents in my last two years of practice to have 4-5 years of living expenses outside of the market.
  • How old were you when you retired, and how old are you now? 42 then and 47 now.
  • At what age did you begin taking Social Security, and why? If you haven't yet, at what age do you plan on taking Social Security? 70 or whatever the most advantageous oldest age is then (I'm still several decades away still).
  • How much did you spend per year in your prime earning years? How much do you spend now? When working, it was probably about $200,000-$250,000. Now, it's $300,000-$350,000.
  • At its highest point, what was your net worth? What is your net worth now? The highest is now and continues to grow at just under $9 million.
  • What, if anything, are you doing (or what did you already do) to prepare for Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)? How worried are you (or were you) about the tax bill associated with RMDs? I contributed to a Backdoor Roth IRA every year when working since 2011. In my first year of practice, both my wife and I converted our residency 403(b)s into Roth IRAs. During my career, I did Roth 401(k) contributions as we were supersavers. In 2022, I did a larger Roth conversion as I retired and had significant tax losses to offset it. I still have about $400,000 in an IRA (from my 401(k) rollover) that I haven’t converted yet, but we have about $1.8 million in Roth IRAs. I plan to convert the remaining IRA to Roth in a future down market year(s) to be offset by tax losses.
  • Did you do any Roth conversions? When and how much? As stated above.
  • How are you drawing down your accounts to fund your lifestyle? How are you creating your monthly paycheck? I started selling short puts about 10 years ago, gradually increasing. I retired in 2021 after I realized that I was generating enough cash flow from this to fund our living expenses. I also have a five-year cash bucket for years when the market doesn’t cooperate, and I then replenish in good years.
  • How are you managing your money differently now than what you had planned to do? No changes as of yet.
  • What does your typical day look like now compared to when you were working? Wake up at 6:30am (I used to wake up 5am to work out before work), take my son out to school, and then work out. Do some reading, work on investments if needed, and work on volunteer duties as a board member of a soccer club. Pick my son up from school in the afternoon. I coach soccer or basketball most evenings.
  • What did you not think about before retirement that you wish you had thought of? My days are surprisingly busier than anticipated.
  • What's the best thing about retirement? What's the worst? Best: I have the freedom to travel now with only the constraints of kids’ school and sports. We took two European trips last year (Switzerland in summer and Iceland in winter), and we are going to the UK over Thanksgiving to see a Liverpool game and Morocco over winter break. I am writing this in a car after landing at Newark on a vacation to see the US Open and a Broadway show this weekend. Worst: Almost three years in and nothing so far. Once my wife and I are empty-nesters in nine years (the youngest is about to start fifth grade), we will need to find a purpose. But for now, the kids are the purpose of our lives, and our social network revolves around their activities. I'm not worrying about that now, but it is at the back of my mind.

My observation: Retiring at 42 sounds awesome, and at least this couple has plenty of time to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives when their kids leave the house.

#3 The Peds ER Doc Who Retired at 59 Years Old

  • What was your approximate asset allocation when you were a wealth accumulator? 70% US stocks, 25% real estate, 5% cash.
  • What is your approximate asset allocation now in retirement? 70% stocks (55% US and 15% international), 15% bonds, 15% cash. I am comfortable with 70% because of my pension.
  • How did your asset allocations change over time as you got closer to retirement? Increased cash/CDs to live off of from 60-65.
  • How old were you when you retired, and how old are you now? 59 then and 65 now.
  • At what age did you begin taking Social Security, and why? If you haven't yet, at what age do you plan on taking Social Security? I plan to defer until 70.
  • How much did you spend per year in your prime earning years? How much do you spend now? $200,000 then, $120,000 now. I am single.
  • At its highest point, what was your net worth? What is your net worth now? Net worth is at its highest now, five years into retirement at $2.3 million.
  • What, if anything, are you doing (or what did you already do) to prepare for Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)? How worried are you (or were you) about the tax bill associated with RMDs? I am doing large Roth conversions each year of retirement, up to the top of the 24% single tax bracket.
  • Did you do any Roth conversions? When and how much? Yes, $80,000-$160,000 per year to fill 24% bracket
  • How are you drawing down your accounts to fund your lifestyle? How are you creating your monthly paycheck? Lived off cash and real estate proceeds from age 60-65. My pension started at 65.
  • How are you managing your money differently now than what you had planned to do? I am on track with my plans. I laid it out in advance.
  • What does your typical day look like now compared to when you were working? New and old hobbies, volunteering, and socializing. I avoid over-scheduling my days and love that my time belongs to me!
  • What did you not think about before retirement that you wish you had thought of? I wish I had started learning financial literacy sooner—I had a crash course after my divorce. Also, I did not appreciate the difficulty of overcoming frugality.
  • What's the best thing about retirement? What's the worst? The best: the time freedom and sleeping in my own bed (former EM doc). The worst: facing mortality, knowing more years are behind me than ahead.

My observation: After getting a divorce, it makes sense that this doc is spending 40% less in retirement than they did when they were working. I'm not sure if this doc is worried about spending too much from their $2.3 million nest egg (they did mention trying to overcome frugality in their survey answers), but it's got to be nice to have that pension, especially if they're the only person in the household.

#4 The Cardiologist Who Retired at 63 Years Old

  • What was your approximate asset allocation when you were a wealth accumulator? Stocks about 60%, with 80% in US; bonds 20% with munis and US Treasuries; real estate 15%; cash 3%; alternative investments 2%. I think any reasonable asset allocation will work; it is more about personal discipline, spending less than you make, and investing the difference in some reasonable diversified plan. I wish I had gotten into more real estate earlier, but as a busy professional, it is hard to do. I did not want to own property directly, and finding good, more passive opportunities can be hard if you don’t live in that circle.
  • What is your approximate asset allocation now in retirement? All about the same with no real change. We are pretty diversified, and then the plan will be to modify spending and not so much investments. With about $11 million in assets and no debt, we should be able to be flexible with our lifestyle as various things arise. Which they always will.
  • How did your asset allocations change over time as you got closer to retirement? It really didn't; it seems well-suited to ride out tides.
  • How old were you when you retired, and how old are you now? 63 then and 64 now.
  • At what age did you begin taking Social Security, and why? If you haven't yet, at what age do you plan on taking Social Security? I still work two days a month, so I can’t. I'm trying to wait as long as I can—maybe 70, but we will see. We have gotten various options. We have enough money that we are unlikely to run out, so some say spend the feds first! Others say a good bet against longevity is to wait. I think either way will work out OK for us. My wife, a former attorney, is six years younger, so the current thought will be for me to wait until close to 71 to get the max and then she will take early. She is retired, too. I guess she can jump on mine if something happens to me.
  • How much did you spend per year in your prime earning years? How much do you spend now? In my prime years, I earned $700,000, spent maybe $250,000, paid taxes (a lot), and saved the rest. We fully funded 529s for our kids, and we had a good taxable investment account. The money you save early is hard to do, but it's worth a lot more in the end than the money you save late. For the last few years before retirement, I cut back on work/call, etc., so my salary went down, but we just spent what I made and let investments grow. It worked out well; we funded some good adventures! Now, we spend about $30,000 per month ($360,000 per year).
  • At its highest point, what was your net worth? What is your net worth now? It's at $11 million, and right now, it's at the highest point it has gone. After retirement, once your investments make more than you spend, your net worth goes up pretty steadily.
  • What, if anything, are you doing (or what did you already do) to prepare for Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)? How worried are you (or were you) about the tax bill associated with RMDs? We are taking some out of our IRA to fund our current lifestyle. I guess I am not going to worry about stuff like that; it's far off and who knows what I or the world will be like by then. If I owe tax, I'll just pay it. The money will be there to cover it.
  • Did you do any Roth conversions? When and how much? We do the Backdoor Roth every year, but no Roth conversions yet. I'm not really worried about lowering my kids' tax burden. That will be their problem. I actually don’t worry too much about how much I leave them. Hopefully by the time I pass, they will be all set. We do pay for some vacations for them and small gifts, like $1,000-$2,000 a year. We donate $2,000 to a Roth IRA for them, and we put some in the grandkids' 529s every year.
  • How are you drawing down your accounts to fund your lifestyle? How are you creating your monthly paycheck? We use advisors—actually a couple—and they send us monthly checks. We do understand that we are being overcharged. But I really don’t enjoy monitoring or managing, and I pay to have someone else do that. We enjoy hunting, fishing, skiing, family, exercise, and travel, and we focus our time on that. The monthly deposits really help us budget. We know what we have and what we can spend. We take some from real estate payouts, some from the IRA, and some from non-qualified accounts. We try to take from the IRA to fill the 15% tax bracket at least.
  • How are you managing your money differently now than what you had planned to do? I guess I thought I might get more conservative with less stocks, but I don’t see a real reason to do that. If we go through a bad downturn, we will just spend less for a while. We'll fish the local rivers instead of Argentina, ski the local hills instead of Steamboat, hunt the local deer instead of Alaska brown bear. We have few fixed expenses other than property taxes, so we can be flexible. We are currently spending about $30,000 a month, but I think we can be pretty happy spending a lot less. Our house/cottage and hunting property are all paid off.
  • What does your typical day look like now compared to when you were working? Each one is different with travel, family adventures, etc. But when we are at home, we read email for 1-2 hours, then exercise, then the day's activities or chores, and then nap! Then, activities, dinner, and a movie together. Then, we sleep on our Eight Sleep mattress cover, and see who gets the best sleep number. Then, we do it all over again.
  • What did you not think about before retirement that you wish you had thought of? Each day is so varied, with grandkids, family, and travel. I was really worried about being bored, and so far, not. That being said, going from a busy cardiology practice, accomplishing many tasks in a day, to a slower pace, where I don’t necessarily have to accomplish a million things, was nice. But it was also stressful. It felt awkward to have more time and a slower pace. I felt like I was forgetting or missing something, or that I was wasting my time and day. I am starting to realize that that can be the point of this phase, that you can take a day or two and not accomplish a million things. The next day might be very busy, so relax. Maybe play an unscheduled golf game or have lunch with a buddy or take your wife on a hike. I think many people focus on the retirement “number” or money or assets, when it is really not about that. It is about living a purposeful, meaningful life, and/or having friends and family relationships. Life is not about a number. It is about an experience—for you and those around you.
  • What's the best thing about retirement? What's the worst? The best thing is being able to do something when one of my kids/grandkids calls and says, “Hey, can we do this”? Usually, the answer was no because of work and schedules set months in advance. Now, I can make it happen sometimes. The worst thing is still having to say no sometimes, because of competing activities.

My observation: I like the fact that this retiree is a little more laissez-faire with their attitude about money in retirement. “Eh, I don't really feel like managing my money, so I'll get somebody else to do it, even if it costs me more . . . You know, if we hit a downturn, I can be happy spending less . . . Nah, I'm not worried about my kids' tax burden at all.” There's got to be real comfort in not really giving a crap about certain things in retirement.

Even More Reader Retirement Withdrawal Data

From the 16 anonymous WCIers who we've featured so far in this series of articles, here's some extra data on how they compare:

Annual Spending During Peak Earning Years

  • Average: $177,000
  • Highest: $400,000
  • Lowest: $70,000

Annual Spending in Retirement

  • Average: $196,071
  • Highest: $360,000
  • Lowest: $70,000

Peak Net Worth

  • Average: $7.11 million
  • Highest: $28 million
  • Lowest: $1.1 million

Current Net Worth

  • Average: $7.10 million
  • Highest: $28 million
  • Lowest: $1.1 million

Age at Retirement

  • Average: 59.12
  • Oldest: 73
  • Youngest: 42

Do you want even more examples of how WCIers live, worry, and withdraw money in retirement? You can find every post in our retirement withdrawal series here.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Here at The White Coat Investor, we know our readers love having real-life examples of portfolios and how people accumulate their money and then eventually spend it. That's why we want to hear from those who have already retired and who are living their lives in a post-work world, so those of us who are still working can be inspired and learn how to get where you are right now. Please fill out this form and inspire us with your wisdom. Don't worry, we'll keep your identity a secret. Already, more than 140 people have sent in their answers, and with them, we're planning to create even more content for those who want to learn about how to spend in retirement. Help us help others!]

What do you think about these retirement stories? Do you think their withdrawal strategies are the right ones? Feel free to ask questions, and our anonymous participants might answer.