Is one bad week enough to ruin your retirement savings? How about 3 years?

The article examines how short-term market trouble and higher spending early in retirement can materially affect long-term retirement outcomes. Using a $1.5 million hypothetical couple with $8,000 monthly withdrawals, the author and retirement-planning coaches model scenarios: a three-year flat market cuts the plan’s success probability from 90% to 86% and leaves an estimated $750,000 less at the end of life; a cumulative 5% decline across three years drops success to 68%. Combined stressors (flat market plus an extra $500/month) lower success to about 85% and reduce terminal assets by roughly $80,000. The piece emphasizes behavior — avoiding panic shifts to overly conservative allocations, maintaining short-term cash reserves (about two years), and adjusting withdrawals — as key mitigants to sequence-of-returns risk.