Temporary income reduces early withdrawals but eventually stops. A positive ending balance in one deliberately simple 20-year path is not assurance that a retirement plan is sufficient.
Separate the first retirement date from the second
Our fictional couple starts with MYR1,000,000 and household spending of MYR60,000 each year. One person stops working now; the other supplies MYR24,000 of spendable outside income annually for ten years, then stops. Treat the amount as already available for this budget, without modelling payroll or account rules.
Use a twenty-year annual return sequence consisting of twenty zeros, zero inflation and zero annual fee. Choose fixed cash withdrawals, no one-off shock, and keep withdrawalPercent at four as an inactive input in this mode. These conditions isolate the income bridge. Zero returns are a teaching assumption, not a prediction that markets will remain flat.
Calculate the annual gap during the working years
For years one through ten, spending MYR60,000 minus outside income MYR24,000 requires MYR36,000 from the portfolio each year. The model withdraws at the start of each year, then applies that year’s return and fee to what remains. With both set to zero, ten withdrawals total MYR360,000 and the year-ten ending balance is MYR640,000.
Outside income is not added to the portfolio and then withdrawn again. It offsets the spending need directly. In this case all income is used for spending, so there is no excess-income saving question. If your own income exceeds spending, inspect the model’s surplus-income output rather than assuming it is automatically reinvested.
Mark the income stop instead of extending it forever
From year eleven, outside income is zero and the full MYR60,000 annual spending comes from the portfolio. Ten further withdrawals total MYR600,000. Starting from MYR640,000 at year ten leaves MYR40,000 at year twenty. Total portfolio withdrawals across the path are MYR960,000, with no unmet spending inside these twenty modeled years.
That ending amount does not fund an indefinite horizon. Extending a sequence, introducing inflation or adding a shock changes the test. Write down why twenty years was chosen and what lies beyond it. A temporary wage should not be copied into every future year merely because it makes the balance look comfortable.
| 20-year zero-return case | MYR24,000 income for 10 years | No outside income |
|---|---|---|
| Withdrawals, years 1–10 | MYR36,000 | MYR60,000 |
| Year 10 ending balance | MYR640,000 | MYR400,000 |
| Year 20 ending balance | MYR40,000 | MYR0 |
| First depletion year | None within 20 years | Year 17 |
| Total unmet spending | MYR0 | MYR200,000 |
Compare both stopping now, including unmet spending
The comparison case changes outside income to zero and income years to zero, leaving every other input unchanged. Sixteen MYR60,000 withdrawals consume MYR960,000. Year seventeen begins with MYR40,000, pays that amount and leaves MYR20,000 spending unmet. The portfolio depletes in year seventeen and does not recover in this zero-return path.
Years eighteen to twenty each have MYR60,000 unmet spending, giving MYR200,000 total unmet over the modeled period. A displayed zero balance alone would hide that gap. Compare the ending portfolio, first depletion year and unmet spending together, rather than describing every scenario with a single pass-or-fail retirement label.
Add risk assumptions without claiming a safe rate
Fidelity discusses risks that can affect retirement savings, including investment conditions. Our zero-return arithmetic is an original illustration, not an externally validated retirement forecast. Reversing twenty zeros gives the same sequence, so this particular control says nothing about the impact of differently ordered positive and negative returns. Use the existing sequence-risk lesson for that separate question.
If testing inflation, fees, a dated expense shock or different income duration, change and label the inputs explicitly. Switching to percentage mode changes the withdrawal rule and can leave spending unmet even before depletion. The four-percent field in this fixed-mode example is not a safe-withdrawal guarantee or a recommendation.
Background source: Fidelity: retirement risks (background only)
Inspect the transition years together
Load the staggered and both-stop examples in retirement stress test. Check the fixed mode, twenty zero returns, zero inflation and fee, and outside-income duration. Recalculate and inspect years ten, eleven and seventeen instead of looking only at the final balance. The manual CSV summarises the original endpoints and gaps.
Discuss which person supplies the income, whether it is dependable and how spending could change when work ends. Document access to actual accounts separately; the model does not check retirement-account access ages or benefit eligibility. A household decision needs both people to understand the bridge and the consequences if it ends earlier.
The JSON download is a fictional example book for this tool only. Before importing, export a backup of your existing local book. Read the import preview, check the tool and entries, and confirm only if you intend to replace the current book; importing is not a merge. Keep your backup separately. The companion CSV is a manual comparison worksheet, not an import file. Downloads do not connect to your accounts or sync devices.
Download the example book and manual comparison
Put it into practice
Inspect the income-stop year and the unmet-spending rows with your partner.
Open the decision tool