What If I Spend More in Retirement?

You’ve been disciplined for decades — can you actually afford to enjoy it? A surprising number of retirees underspend out of fear — research finds retirees tend to draw down their savings very slowly, if at all. This recipe helps you find how much more you could spend while keeping your plan on solid ground.

New here? Build a baseline plan first with Getting Started.

The quick version

1. Let the Optimizer find your ceiling — search your withdrawal rate for the highest spending that still clears a success-rate floor you set (say, 90%). One run gives you the answer instead of guessing.
2. Save that winner as a named strategy and run it on the Compare tab — with Compare against baseline on, your current plan is drawn automatically, so the gap you see reflects the decision, not luck.
3. Fine-tune from there: trade a little success rate for more spending, or check the shortfall and legacy trade-offs.

Why start with the Optimizer

"How much more can I safely spend?" is a search, not a guess — and it’s exactly what the withdrawal-rate Optimizer is built for. Point it at your withdrawal rate, add a constraint like success rate ≥ 90%, and it returns the most spending that still clears your line — your ceiling in a single run, priced against your portfolio and taxes. That beats nudging the number up by hand and re-running each time.

Then hand the winner to the Compare tab: run it against your current plan on identical market sequences to confirm the gain is real and weigh the trade-offs (shortfall, legacy) side by side. Optimizer to find the number, Compare to trust it.

Prefer to feel the trade-off curve? Do it by hand

If you’d rather watch how each extra dollar moves the outcome — you often build more intuition this way — iterate manually instead:

1. Raise your spending. On the Strategy tab, raise your monthly spending target. For a more realistic picture, use spending phases to add the extra in your active early years (the "go-go" phase), when you’re most likely to travel and do more.

2. Save it as a named strategy (the Strategies button) — "Spend $1,000 more." Save a few spending levels if you want the whole trade-off curve.

3. Run Comparison on the Compare tab; with Compare against baseline on (the default), your current plan is drawn automatically beside each spend-more strategy, so you see the trade-off curve against your baseline in one view. Load Baseline (⤺) returns you to your plan.

What to look at

• Success Rate — the cost of spending more. Find the highest spending level that still keeps your success rate where you’re comfortable.
• Shortfall Rate — how often you’d have to pull back. A plan can have a decent success rate but still force uncomfortable mid-retirement cuts.
• Ending balance / legacy — if your baseline leaves a very large unspent balance in most outcomes, that’s often a sign you can safely spend more. A 99% success rate isn’t a trophy if it means living smaller than you needed to.

A reframe worth keeping in mind

A high success rate isn’t automatically "good" — it can mean you’re leaving money on the table. RetireRange is just as useful for discovering you can spend more as it is for warning you to spend less. If your plan is rock-solid, this is the question to ask next.

Spend more without sinking the plan

• Phase it — spend more now, taper later, matching how spending naturally falls in mid-retirement.
• Use Guardrails — let spending rise in good markets and ease back in bad ones automatically.