New Delhi, Sept. 6 -- Retiring with Rs.2 crore sounds reassuring, but the real question begins after retirement: how much can you withdraw every month without exhausting the corpus too early? There is no single answer because the outcome depends on your age at retirement, spending needs, investment mix, inflation, taxes and how long the money needs to last. Recent retirement guidance also stresses that a withdrawal rate is only a planning starting point, not a guarantee.

As a simple illustration, a 3 percent annual withdrawal from Rs.2 crore would provide about Rs.6 lakh a year, or Rs.50,000 a month initially. At 4 percent, the first-year withdrawal rises to roughly Rs.8 lakh, or Rs.66,667 a month. A 5 percent withdrawal would mean aroun...