Living Off a Portfolio: FIRE, Safe Withdrawal Rates and the Entnahmeplan
Learn how to turn a portfolio into a reliable income: the maths behind FIRE and safe withdrawal rates, sequence risk, dynamic rules and buckets, the German Entnahmeplan with its tax and health-insurance effects, and a written withdrawal plan you review every year.
Self-study course Self-study course: written lessons, videos and downloadable materials for independent learning. There is no supervision, assessment, individual feedback or tutoring. Self-check quizzes are evaluated automatically in your browser — we do not see your results.
All 13 lessons free
Before you start
- Basic knowledge of ETFs, asset allocation and rebalancing (course ETFs, Funds & Long-Term Investing)
- Familiarity with compound growth, real versus nominal returns and percentages
- A general idea of the German statutory pension and the taxation of fund gains
What you will be able to do
- Calculate years to financial independence from a savings rate and derive a target portfolio from a chosen withdrawal rate
- Explain the assumptions and limits of the Trinity study and international withdrawal-rate evidence, including German data
- Quantify sequence-of-returns risk and apply guardrail, floor-and-ceiling and CAPE-based withdrawal rules to a bad year
- Design a bucket or rebalanced withdrawal structure and compare their behaviour in a crash
- Run an Entnahmeplan in Germany, choose the order of sales, and calculate the tax and health-insurance cost of each withdrawal
- Combine pension timing, inflation, annuities and flexibility levers into a written withdrawal plan with a yearly review
Lessons in this course
FIRE variants and the maths: savings rate, the 25x rule and German cost realities
Turn a savings rate into years of work, apply the 25x rule, and compare lean, fat, coast and barista FIRE with realistic German living costs.
Safe withdrawal rates: the Trinity study, the 4 percent assumptions and international data
Understand what the Trinity study and Bengen actually tested, read failure rates correctly, and see why German and international history argue for caution.
Sequence-of-returns risk: why the order of returns matters and the vulnerable first decade
See with identical returns in different orders how withdrawals turn the order of returns into a decisive risk, and learn how to measure your exposure in the first years.
Dynamic withdrawal rules: guardrails, percentage-of-portfolio, floor-and-ceiling and CAPE-based rates compared
Apply four dynamic withdrawal rules to the same bad year, compare what each tells you to spend, and understand the trade-off between income stability and portfolio safety.
Bucket strategies and cash reserves: two- and three-bucket setups, refilling rules and the evidence versus plain rebalancing
Build a two- and a three-bucket withdrawal structure, define refilling rules, and compare it with a plainly rebalanced portfolio using numbers and published evidence.
The Entnahmeplan in practice: Auszahlplan products versus selling ETF units yourself, order of sales and the FIFO effect
Compare automatic Auszahlplan products with manual ETF sales, decide which position to sell first, and calculate how the FIFO rule changes the taxable gain of each withdrawal.
Taxes on withdrawals in Germany: gain share, Sparerpauschbetrag, Günstigerprüfung in retirement and health insurance on capital income
Calculate the tax inside each withdrawal from the gain share, plan sales around the Sparerpauschbetrag and the Günstigerprüfung, and budget health insurance on capital income as an early retiree (general orientation).
Pension Interplay: Statutory Pension Timing, Early-Retirement Deductions and Your Withdrawal Rate
Model the German statutory pension as a second phase of your withdrawal plan, price an early claim and an Ausgleichszahlung, and see how the pension start changes the rate you can take from the portfolio.
Inflation over a Forty-Year Retirement: Real versus Nominal Planning and the Rising Floor
Plan in today's euros, convert nominal returns to real ones, sort your income sources by how well they track prices and build a floor of spending that can only rise.
Annuities and Longevity Risk: Sofortrente, Deferred Annuities and the Rentenfaktor
Understand longevity risk and mortality credits, read a Rentenfaktor and a payout rate, apply the German Ertragsanteil tax and compare an annuity with self-withdrawal on a like-for-like basis.
Asset Allocation in Decumulation: The Rising Equity Glide Path, the Bond Tent and Property Income
See why the equity share can sensibly rise after retirement, build a bond tent around the retirement date, and place rental income inside the withdrawal plan with its real costs.
Flexibility Levers: Part-Time Income, Spending Cuts and Geographic Arbitrage
Put euro values on the three levers outside the portfolio, measure what a 10 percent cut in bad years is worth in extra years of survival, and know the German rules that frame each lever.
A Written Withdrawal Plan: Rate, Guardrails, Tax Plan, Pension Timeline and the Yearly Review
Assemble the whole course into a two-page written plan with fixed numbers, triggers and actions, and run the yearly review that keeps it honest.
Financing & Cash Management for Small Businesses
After this course, continue with Financing & Cash Management for Small Businesses to apply the same cash-flow discipline to a business.
View course outline