Same Million Dollars. Same Plan. Two Years Apart. $278,000 vs $3.36 Million.

Same million dollars. Same 60/40 portfolio. Same 4% withdrawal, adjusted for inflation. One retiree started drawing at the end of 1973 and had roughly $278,000 left after 30 years. The other started at the end of 1975 and finished with about $3.36 million. Two years apart. Same plan. Same discipline. Most people pick a retirement date for human reasons — a birthday, a pension window, a spouse's schedule — and only then start the financial work. This video argues that the order is backwards, using a 2026 analysis by Georgios Argyris published on Michael Kitces' site, which ran 97 historical 30-year retirement cohorts through one question: how much does your start year actually matter? The answer: roughly three-quarters of the variation in retirement outcomes traced back to which market era the retiree entered (cohort risk). Only about a quarter came from the order of returns inside it (pure sequence risk). Your withdrawal rate, your allocation and your guardrails all operate INSIDE the era you already walked into. The date is the only lever that changes which era that is. We also cover the uncomfortable finding: in that model, the households that ran out of money had nearly twice the wealth at retirement ($2.01M average) as the ones that survived ($1.02M). Big balances get built in long bull markets — and high valuations have historically meant thinner returns in the decade that followed. Then the part nobody scripts for you: how your exit year quietly prices your health coverage, your Medicare premium two years later, and your Social Security. SOURCES (every number in this video) Kitces.com — Georgios Argyris, "Creating A Flexible Retirement Date 'Window' To Mitigate Cohort And Sequence Of Return Risk": https://www.kitces.com/blog/retiremen... William Bengen (1994), "Determining Withdrawal Rates Using Historical Data": https://www.financialplanningassociat... Determining Withdrawal Rates Using Historical Data.pdf CMS — 2026 Medicare Part A & B premiums and deductibles: https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-she... Medicare.gov — 2026 costs / IRMAA brackets: https://www.medicare.gov/publications... SSA — Form SSA-44 (life-changing event): https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-44.pdf SSA — Request to lower an IRMAA: https://www.ssa.gov/medicare/lower-irmaa SSA — 2026 COLA fact sheet (2.8%; $2,071 average): https://www.ssa.gov/news/en/cola/fact... SSA — 2026 earnings test amounts ($24,480 / $65,160): https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/rtea.html EBRI/Greenwald — 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey, Fact Sheet #2: https://www.ebri.org/docs/default-sou... Congressional Research Service R48290 — enhanced premium tax credit, 2026 exchange premiums, Smith County KS example: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/... KFF Health System Tracker — why 2026 ACA premiums are rising: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/b... KFF — 2026 Marketplace enrollment, premiums, deductibles: https://www.kff.org/affordable-care-a... DISCLAIMER This channel is for educational and informational purposes only. I am not a financial advisor, tax advisor, attorney or insurance agent, and nothing here is personalized financial, tax, legal or investment advice, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All figures cited are from the public sources linked above and reflect historical data or rules current as of publication; laws, premiums, thresholds and market conditions change. Historical results do not predict future returns, and models are not guarantees. Your health, taxes, family situation and actual numbers change the answer. Please consult a qualified professional before making any retirement, tax or insurance decision. TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS: what year are you aiming for? Just the year. #RetirementPlanning #4PercentRule #SequenceOfReturnsRisk #RetirementIncome #SocialSecurity2026 #Medicare #IRMAA #EarlyRetirement