hthow one grandmother earns high yields on her 4 million retirement nest egg

[Jags4186]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurengensler/2014/12/10/how-one-grandmother-earns-high-yields-on-her-3-million-retirement-nest-egg/?partner=yahoomag

It's great that she's so into her investments but the S&P 500 has returned 9.15% 2003-2013 and that number should rise if we include this years gains...

Why is this news?

[dandarc]

7% is better than most people would have done I guess.  Still though - $2m to start with, 900/month from social security, and the goal is 100K income?    Works out to about a 4.5% withdrawal rate - a little worse than most shoot for here, but given that retirement started at 58, not a totally indefensible draw.  Good she has a hobby though.

[skyrefuge]

Assuming she actually withdrew $100k each year from 2004 through 2014, she's doing a little better than the S&P 500: she'd have only increased her nest egg from $2M to $2.5M, rather than $2M to $3M as the article states. But reducing her actual withdrawals to $75k/year would have been sufficient to result in the current $3M total.

So yeah, still nothing at all remarkable.

Given her apparent high concentration in oil-related stocks, I'd love to see a follow-up in a year or two!

[sol]

Given her apparent high concentration in oil-related stocks, I'd love to see a follow-up in a year or two!

Because you expect oil stocks to rebound strongly when the demand for gas rises next summer?