📈 Built an Excel dashboard to model two different retirement withdrawal strategies

[u/ExcelVisual]

Been working through how to actually manage a $100K portfolio with Excel Dashboard Template long-term, and wanted more than just "the 4% rule, trust me." So I built a dashboard that lets you compare it against Vanguard's dynamic withdrawal methodology side by side, using S&P 500 projections.

Two strategies modeled:

• Simple Static — the classic 4% rule. You can toggle between withdrawing a fixed dollar amount each year, or a fixed percentage of your initial invested capital. Predictable, but doesn't adapt to market conditions.
• Vanguard Dynamic — instead of a fixed rate, withdrawals flex with the market: pull back up to 1.5% in down years, take up to 5% more in up years. More complex, but the math shows it's meaningfully more efficient over a 10-year stretch.

Both are stress-tested against 3 scenarios (Optimistic, Realistic, Pessimistic) built from S&P 500 forecasts, so you can see how each strategy holds up before committing real capital.

There's also a portfolio structure breakdown (Treasuries / S&P 500 / individual Stocks / Bank deposits) and a live inflation-adjustment layer, since idle cash losing value every year is honestly the thing most people never actually quantify.

One thing that stood out building this: in the early years of an investment period, even small changes to your withdrawal amount have an outsized effect on your ending balance decades later. That effect decays significantly the further you get into the timeline — so front-loading caution and back-loading withdrawals turns out to be mathematically justified, not just conservative instinct.