I’m 71, retired, with ~$500K in assets and house paid off. Should I take 401(k) disbursements?

Good morning and congrats on retirement! Huge win for you. It’s going to be difficult to give an answer based on the information you’ve shared. You gave us an idea on your balance sheet, but we have no idea what cash flow looks like. I think it would be helpful for you to go through an income and expense list to give you an idea what monthly income needs to look like in order to cover the lifestyle expenses you desire in retirement. Start here:

Income Sources:

• Social Security
• Non-401(k) Pension, if applicable
• Income (dividends and interest) produce by the assets you listed

Expenses (household budget):

• Utilities
• Taxes
• Insurance: homeowners, auto, medical, etc.
• Dining & Entertainment
• Groceries & personal supplies
• Travel & Transportation
• Pets
• Subscriptions
• Anything else you routine spend on

Going through the budgeting exercise above will shed light on where and how you’re spending. From there, you can back into what kind of income you need your portfolio to produce and this will help answer your question. If you need $2,000 for example, then you’d need to structure your portfolio allocation to produce that kind of income/return. It would then beg the question of whether it’s a type of return that’s sustainable based on your life expectancy and tolerance for risk within the markets. Said another way, completely hypothetical and I’m making this up….if the income you need is 7% of your total portfolio but your allocation is likely to only produce 4%, then you run the risk of running out of money. Again, just hypothetical here…just wanted you to get a little insight into how we financial planners would address your question.