Variable percentage withdrawal

 (VPW) is a withdrawal method that adapts to the retiree's retirement horizon, asset allocation, and portfolio returns during retirement. It combines the best ideas of the constant-dollar, constant-percentage, and 1/N withdrawal methods to allow the retiree to spend most of his portfolio using return-adjusted withdrawals. By adapting withdrawals to market returns, VPW will never prematurely deplete the portfolio.

The VPW spreadsheet uses a variable (increasing) percentage to determine withdrawals from a portfolio during retirement. Each year, the withdrawal is determined by multiplying that year's percentage by the current portfolio balance at the time of withdrawal.

The VPW method and spreadsheet were collaboratively developed and improved by a group of Bogleheads.

The spreadsheet allows backtesting on two data sets: U.S. (1871-2014) and Canada (1970-2014).

Download location
Download the latest VPW spreadsheet:

Dropbox

 * Click on: VPW Spreadsheet (version: January 28, 2015).

Google Drive

 * Click on: VPW Spreadsheet (version: January 28, 2015).
 * Hover your mouse near the top of the page and click on the Arrow-Download-4-icon.png icon to download the file.
 * Ignore the "Whoops! There was a problem loading more pages." message.

Spreadsheet compatibility
The spreadsheet is developed using the open-source LibreOffice Calc software, available here. As a result, some compatibility issues may arise when using other spreadsheet products.

Microsoft Excel

 * Microsoft Excel may raise an Office File Validation security error. This is because the spreadsheet was not built using Microsoft software; it was built using OpenOffice Calc and saved as Microsoft Excel format. Consequently, Excel raises a warning to the user. This error can be safely ignored.
 * There is a difference in the way Excel and LibreOffic Calc displays charts. Excel does a nicer job.

Google Drive

 * Google Drive is unable to display the spreadsheet correctly. Instead, download the file and use with LibreOffice Calc or Microsoft Excel.

Support
On-going discussion and support is in this forum thread: [ Variable Percentage Withdrawal]