How to Live Off Your Investments: Withdrawals, Tax, and Regular Income | RFS 2026

If you say there isn’t a dividend fairy, a kitten gets ill somewhere

Diversification vs. ConcentrationVWRP offers a "buy the whole world" approach. If US tech sectors experience a prolonged downturn, VWRP hedges this risk by spreading capital across European, Asian, and emerging economies.VUAG focuses purely on large-cap US equities. Because the S&P 500 is market-cap weighted, a huge portion of your investment is tied directly to the performance of top tech giants like Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia.2. Cost and Fee DragVUAG boasts a rock-bottom fee of 0.07%.VWRP charges 0.14%. While 0.14% is still very cheap for global coverage, it is double the cost of the US-only fund, compounding over multi-decade investing horizons.

Over the past decade, the Vanguard S&P 500 UCITS ETF (VUAG) has outperformed the Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF (VWRP). Driven by mega-cap U.S. tech dominance, the S&P 500 averaged roughly 13.5% per year over 5-to-10-year periods, outpacing the broader global index's ~11.7%.

People don’t want to hear the truth about becoming wealthy because the truth is that it’s slow, boring, and requires discipline, consistency and sacrifice. If you have a genuine interest in investing, it becomes easier. But What’s most valuable that you'’re actually investing in is peace of mind.

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Fantastic session. Thank you so much !!💕🎉

Thank you for this session. It answered a question I had after doing your previous course.

Hi from Littlehampton, West Sussex ❤

My first time seeing your content. I have just retired at 55 and am trying to understand where the money comes from and how to keep a balance of investment, so this really helped.
The missing piece for me is understanding how to control the investment split in my pension between stocks and equities and what is the difference between a drawdown account and an untouched pension. Especially as it relates to withdrawal and investment management.

Awesome last session, tied everything together beautifully, answered some burning questions – thank you Alan and Katie for all your generosity sharing with us what you have learned and doing it so well – we love you too! xx (and the ninjas!)

So what happens if the market falls, and you need to rebalance ? Do you sell bonds for cash and transfer some bonds to stocks?? Bit confused!

Absolutely love your videos. Your explanations and humour are in perfect balance to keep the content both informative and engaging. Thank you!

Do we just turn up at party or need registered at restaurant?

Fantastic session. Thank you so much. I loved the enhancements from last year's session – specifically seeing the examples of dividends coming in and the cash transfered out and the selling of stocks. These allowed me to visualise what I'll be doing for the first time (eek) in a couple of month's time.

Derek is a great ninja!

Thank you for doing this session! It completes the picture and makes me more confident knowing what to do once I get to the retirement 🙏

Thanks so much A&K – amazing session with simple to follow explanations. I might have missed this but is there the link somewhere to the financial forecasting tool?

Thank you two and all the Ninjas – Your positive spirit and helpful info are beyond belief. THANKS AGAIN!!

Fab session, thank you guys! I'm early on in the 'build it' phase – with realistically 10 years until Freedom, with brutal head down investing until then! BUT it was great to see 'behind the curtain' in this session, for future reference! I now have an understanding of the mechanics at the end game. Thanks again (again) for this year's course – and all that you and the ninjas have given us. Lot's of love & enjoy the BBQ!
Paul, London(ish) x

Great session – thank you! One question – you said that your IPS changes over time even in the Live It stage & that the available cash you want has increased as you’ve got older as you’re more cautious with age. I was wondering if your cash amount was higher when you first started drawdown due to SORR and then you decreased it once SORR had reduced? (But then chose to increase it again just due to whatever you felt comfortable with). So what was the % cash at the start of drawdown versus your current 3%? I’m struggling to figure out how much to keep for SORR mitigation versus what I’d keep if SORR has passed.

I’m a retired UK teacher who live in Canada. I started investing and trading a week ago. I started with $3,200 now I’m over $14,780 It's a great start for me with crypto and stocks market investment. Thank you for your great video

The market has been extremely challenging this year, and I learned the hard way that trying to predict every price movement only led to unnecessary mistakes. Once I adopted Shane Otto's structured day trading strategy, I became more disciplined, patient, and focused on Finance a clear plan rather than letting emotions drive my decisions. That consistency has made a significant difference, helping me grow my portfolio to 4.3 BTC even in the middle of a bear market.

Great lessons again wish I'd come across you guys years ago but onwards and upwards started my journey and can't wait to see how far I've come next year when it all happens again x

Great session. Very clear explanations Thank You

Today I'm 70 and retire in 3 weeks. SO wish I'd find this course long ago.

Loved the guardrails example – thanks for sharing !

Thanks

Been a really good course 👌👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 but this is not a case of making the Donegan's redundant, it's more about me being confident enough to part ways with my financial advisor who is taking far too much money from me for doing next to nothing apart from just confirming what I already knew 🤷🤦🏻

Great job 😊

So great! Thank you so much Katie and Alan for all you do to increase financial literacy all over the world! Your kindness, patience, generosity, and perseverance is EPIC! Thank you ninjas for all the amazing magic and effort you put into the background of RFS! 🥷 🍍 ❤❤❤🤩🤩🤩🫶🫶🫶

50k 🎉🎉🎉 so well deserved!