The Ultimate Guide to Early Retirement Drawdown (2026)

BiggerPockets Money Podcast

BiggerPockets

Education, Investing, Business

4.5 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Building a $2.5 million portfolio is hard. Spending it without running out? That's even harder. Welcome to the 700th episode of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast! To mark this milestone, hosts Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench are tackling one of the most critical—and most overlooked—aspects of financial independence: decumulation. Most people obsess over building wealth but stumble when it's time to actually spend it. The withdrawal strategy you choose can mean the difference between a comfortable 40-year retirement and running out of money at the worst possible time. In this episode, we cover: Sequential vs. blended vs. cyclical withdrawal strategies—which is right for you? How to create a tax-efficient drawdown plan that could save you hundreds of thousands The role of Roth accounts, traditional IRAs, and taxable brokerage accounts in your withdrawal strategy When to do Roth conversions and how to time them for maximum benefit Healthcare planning in early retirement and how it affects your withdrawal strategy Estate planning considerations and maximizing what you leave behind Real-world scenarios: what withdrawal strategies look like in practice The biggest mistakes retirees make in the decumulation phase Whether you're just starting your FI journey or you're ready to retire next year, this comprehensive guide will help you spend your money strategically, minimize taxes, and make your nest egg last. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Building a $2.5 million portfolio is hard. Spending it without running out is even harder.
0:05.4	Decumulation strategies determine if your retirement succeeds or fails. Here's the ultimate
0:10.6	guide to decumulation.
0:17.1	Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen,
0:21.6	and with me as always is my nothing is certain co-host, Scott Trench.
0:26.2	Nothing is certain except for death and taxes, right? But I think that for the fire community,
0:30.4	only death may be certain. We might be able to totally avoid taxes, or for the most part,
0:35.9	avoid them with the right decumulation approach. I am super
0:39.8	excited to be here on the 700th episode of Bigger Pockets Money. That wow, what has that been like
0:45.5	eight years, Mindy, nine years? Almost nine. Crazy. What a privilege and a joy it is to get to do
0:52.7	this. Like this is like this is the ultimate possible way to work, have a semi-retired podcast hosting light, whatever. I'm just so grateful to you, Mindy, to Blake, our producer, to everybody who listens to this show. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for just enabling me to do what I love. Well, you're welcome, Scott, and right back at you.
1:12.0	I am so thankful as well to be able to do this with you twice a week, every week for the last
1:19.8	almost nine years. This has been a lot of fun. Before we get into today's episode, we wanted to
1:24.6	discuss some feedback we got on last week's content. We love getting feedback
1:29.5	from our listeners and we always want to make sure that the information we are sharing
1:32.5	with you is accurate and up-to-date and treats everybody fairly. So please continue to let us
1:37.8	know if anything we share is incorrect or you feel does not represent the reality of a situation
1:42.6	the way it ought to be. That said, we want to make two shoutouts today.
1:47.0	First, we discussed that the HSA is the worst account to inherit, which we still agree with,
1:53.0	but what we want to acknowledge is some nuance that a user was kind enough to remind us about,
1:59.0	which is that both spouses and non-spouses
2:02.0	can inherit that account. Non-spouses can use the deceased's HSA to fund tax-free any medical
	...

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