For those of us turning 70 this year (as my wife and I are), the question is whether we might outlive our RMDs. The easy answer is "no". By definition, RMDs are based on life expectancies. The table runs from age 70 to age 115+. The table is here: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/...d_wksht.pd.
However, our cash went down 26K. If we can keep that up, we'll run out of cash when we're in our early hundreds. This would be a joke if it wasn't for the fact that some of our relatives have actually made it into their 90's and early 100's. Of course, the wife's solution to this is to spend more money. And, she's probably got a good point. You can't take it with you.
Eventually some sort of medical disaster will occur to one or both of us. Our solution to that is to make like an Eskimo and hop on the next ice flow that passes by. It's like the Jack Benny "Your money or your life" comedy routine. My reply is like Jack's, "I'm thinking about it." I don't see the point in bankrupting the surviving spouse with medical bills. And, that happens all the time.
With the new laws in California, when things get terminal you can check-out ahead of time. You're not forced into relying on hospice care whose palliative measures might not be able to control pain for certain diseases. I was exposed to a lot of death early in my life. After seeing what they went through I decided a long time ago to bail-out ASAP when things start going south.
The big exception to this is Alzeimer's disease - or, any other age related dementia. By the time these diseases become terminal you can't legally commit suicide since you're deamed incompetent. So, the trick is to check-out before it's too late to do so. That's a rather dicey proposition. In both of our families that hasn't been an issue (so far, anyway).
I'm thinking of writing a financial planning book called "Suicide: The Only Guaranteed Method To Prevent Outliving Your Money".
