Don't get me wrong, I'm a long, long way off FI, but I've been wondering something and oddly I never really seem to trip across any articles written about it. When somebody gets to their magic number, let's say $800K, and they know they're fine, decide to kick off the job, and retire (or just permanently leave the rat race for other things), how does the money drawdown work? Like, we all know that 4% is a pretty safe bet (and it's repeated often in thousands of blog pages), but how do you do it? Do you sell of 4% of your investments a year? Bi-annually? Quarterly? Or do you convert big chunks into some sort of money market fund and use that almost as top tier bank account to filter down to others? Sell off equity funds *and* the icing off the bonds? I know most money control-freaks here (myself included) would never go the route of something as barbaric as annuities. ...Or do you? So, my stupid question of the day really is: How does the withdrawal from investments to liquid cash work?