Can I pay myself a monthly salary from my portfolio?
Paying yourself from a portfolio is not one decision but two: how much leaves the portfolio each month, and how many years that has to continue. Raise the amount and the money runs out sooner; extend the horizon and the amount you can sustain falls. The assumed growth of whatever stays invested sits between them.
What shapes the amount
- The portfolio value today and which holdings the monthly withdrawal is taken from.
- The withdrawal amount and its start month, since both change how long the money lasts.
- The growth assumption applied to whatever remains invested after each withdrawal.
- The regular spending the withdrawal has to cover, and other income reducing what is needed.
- How many years the drawdown has to run before the final year of the plan.
Vary the amount, hold everything else
Compare withdrawal levels against each other, never against a plan that also differs somewhere else. Same portfolio, same growth assumption, same final year, same spending — only the monthly amount moves. The year the segment would empty is then a clean read on the amount you chose rather than on the setup around it.
Then run the same test with a growth assumption a couple of points lower. Drawdown is where an optimistic return hurts most, because every withdrawal removes principal that can no longer compound, and the shortfall appears years later, when there is little left to correct it with.
Questions worth testing
- In which year would the segment be empty at the amount you entered?
- How much smaller would the monthly amount have to be to reach the final plan year?
- What does a growth assumption two points lower do to that year?
- How much of regular spending still has to come from somewhere else?
How to read the result
This is an illustration of one deterministic path, not a safe withdrawal rate and not a recommendation. A single path shows no volatility and no sequence-of-returns risk, so a portfolio that survives here can still be exhausted by a poor run of early years. Yields, fees, taxes and inflation are only what you entered. It is not financial, investment or tax advice.
How it works in the app
An investment withdrawal pays you a fixed monthly amount out of an investment segment — the 4%-rule “paycheque from your portfolio”. Unlike paying out interest, this draws down principal, so the plan shows honestly how long the segment lasts and whether it outlives you.
- Open Investments → Edit portfolio and tap “Withdraw from this segment”.
- Set the monthly withdrawal — roughly your portfolio value ÷ 300 for a 4% yearly rate.
- Check the year the segment would last until, and your runway.
Model this yourself