Assuming your life went well and you made good decisions, you are now ready to retire. In addition to old-fashioned retirement products, you have a personal investment portfolio, a tax-free account filled to the brim with ETFs you love and some cash. Now what?

Selling shares for income can’t be a pleasant experience - especially when earning an income is no longer an option. You are eating into wealth accumulated over a lifetime. It’s easy to forget that this is what all that wealth accumulation was all about.

In this episode of The Fat Wallet Show, Simon and I discuss the 4% rule, so beautifully explained by our friend Stealthy Wealth here. Then we try to work out how you should go about deciding which assets to chop to make up the 4% you are allowed to take every year. We deal with the somewhat more philosophical problem of dying with your entire fortune intact and wonder if anybody actually knows a successful, happy, active retiree.

This episode is slightly longer than usual, because we also try to work out how to spot a scam and how to choose between different listed companies in the same industry. Somewhere in there I confess something that I’ve successfully kept under wraps for many years.

If you know of or are a successful retiree, please tell us your story. If you have a question, even if you think it’s stupid, ask us. You can do both of those things at [email protected].

We are, as always, grateful for your time and attention.

Kris