I think you need to frame this issue a little differently. The amount you should have is pretty much a moot point right now as you’ve already retired. So the more pertinent question is how much can you withdraw from your nest egg each year to cover your retirement living expenses and still have a reasonable level of assurance that you won’t deplete your savings too soon?
Your first step toward answering that query is to determine how much you’re actually spending each year, and the best way to do that is to create a retirement budget. You can make a budget with pencil and paper, but I think you’re better off using an online budgeting tool like BlackRock’s Retirement Expense Worksheet , which allows you to enter some 50 separate expense items in eight categories, including household and medical costs as well as expenditures for discretionary outlays like travel and entertainment.
Your budget doesn’t need to be accurate down to the penny, and you can always update it later as necessary. But do the best you can so that your budget reflects your actual spending as closely as possible.
Related: How much will I need for retirement?
Once you have a decent idea of how much you’re spending each year, you can move on to seeing how likely it is that your nest egg will be able to support you the rest of your life if you continue your current level of spending. An online tool like T. Rowe Price’s retirement income calculator can help you estimate that likelihood.
The calculator employs Monte Carlo simulations to estimate the probability that income from Social Security plus withdrawals from your nest egg will be able to generate enough income for you to maintain your expected spending for the rest of your life.
(The tool’s default assumption is that you — or in your case either you or your husband — will live to age 95. You can choose a different age, but I consider 95 a reasonable assumption given today’s longer lifespans. If you like, you can get a more nuanced take on how long you might need your savings to last based on your age, sex and state of health by revving up the Actuaries Longevity Illustrator tool.)
If after going through this process you find that the chances that the combination of Social Security and draws from your nest egg are uncomfortably low — I’d say you want your chance of success to be at least 70% to 80% — then you can re-run the analysis and change a few assumptions to see how much your odds of success improve.
Not surprisingly, you’ll find that scaling back your spending will boost your odds of success the most. You may also be tempted to invest more aggressively in hopes of earning a higher rate of return on your savings that, in turn, could support a higher level of withdrawals from your nest egg and more spending.
But be careful. Devoting a higher portion of your savings to stocks can leave your nest egg more vulnerable to market downturns and potentially increase the risk of running through your savings too soon.
And even absent a serious market setback, investing more aggressively may not boost the chances of your money lasting the rest of your life as much as you might think.
Besides, there are other moves you can make that can be more effective than taking on more investing risk. For example, you might check out sites like RetiredBrains.com and Retirementjobs.com for part-time work that can generate more income. If you own a home, you might also consider tapping into the equity by taking out a reverse mortgage or downsizing to smaller, less expensive digs to come away with a chunk of extra cash that can supplement your nest egg.
If you’re really worried that you might run through your savings while you’ve still got a lot of living to do, you could also think about converting a portion of your nest egg to a guaranteed lifetime income stream via an immediate annuity or a longevity annuity .
Related: Are you behind on retirement saving?
It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that no tool or calculator can actually predict the future. So what you’re getting when you go through the analysis I outlined above are estimates, not promises, of how long your nest egg is likely to last given different levels of withdrawals based on forecasts of how the financial markets are expected to perform.
Still, by going through this process and running a few scenarios, you can get a pretty good sense of how your chances of your money running out go up and down given different levels of withdrawals.
If you’re not confident about doing such number-crunching on your own — or you want a more comprehensive assessment of your retirement prospects and how you might improve them — you can always hire a financial adviser to do the analysis for you.
Finally, this isn’t the sort of exercise you can do once and then forget about it. Lots of things can change — market conditions, your spending needs , the value of your nest egg, to name a few. So you should re-assess your situation every year or so with updated information about your expected spending, how many years of retirement you estimate are still ahead of you, your latest account balances, etc. You can then make adjustments, if necessary, to increase the odds that your savings will last as long as you do.

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The unemployment rate fell to 7.2% at the end of last year.
Official figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) revealed that 157,700 people were out of work in December – down 35,500 over the course of 2016.
The report also showed that the unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24 was 14.5%.
The CSO figures revealed that the number of people out of work is now at its lowest level since the country was in the grip of economic crisis in 2008.
The rate came down steadily in the second half of last year and compares to 8.9% in December 2015 and 8.4% in April 2016 and a peak of more than 15% in early 2012.
Ian Talbot, chief executive of business group Chambers Ireland, warned about the high levels of youth unemployment.
“High youth unemployment remains as a legacy of the recession and needs to be addressed. Increasing opportunities for young people starting out in the workplace is important not only for economic reasons but is essential for the future social cohesion of Ireland,” he said.
Mr Talbot called for youth unemployment to be a specific focus of the Government’s Action Plan for Jobs this year.

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The S&P 500 ‘s newest sector isn’t getting much love.
Real estate , which was broken out of the financials at the end of the summer to create an 11th distinct sector, is the most underweighted sector by active managers, according to research from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Not only is real estate the sector managers are least exposed to relative to their benchmarks, but it is also the sector that the smallest number of managers overweight.
Interestingly, the moderate positioning in real estate stocks could actually serve as a contrary indicator. With so little money in the group, marginal funds may flow out of heavily owned sectors like consumer discretionary and tech, and into the high-yielding real estate stocks.
In fact, the BofAML research team has found that overweighted stocks tend to outperform and underweighted to underperform; unsurprisingly, two of the three most under-owned stocks now are Realty Income Corp . and Federal Realty Investment Trust , they found.
It is no secret that the yield environment has served as the major problem for real estate names. Bond yields have recently risen substantially, hurting these high yielding stocks. And with the Federal Reserve expected to continue to raise rates in 2017, few appear to see a powerful reason to buy.
“This is an interest-rate sensitive sector, and that scares away a lot of investors,” commented Chad Morganlander, portfolio manager at Stifel Nicolaus.
Still, Morganlander is not one of those managers who is underweighting real estate.
“We believe that overall for 2017, this sector is going to catch a bid, and we would be buyers here,” he said Tuesday on CNBC’s ” Trading Nation. ”
He advises keeping it simple. Rather than picking individual real estate investment trusts, “I would just go out and buy the actual ETF and I wouldn’t go into specific names. I think you have a broad-based win by allocation 3 to 5 percent to the real estate sector in one’s portfolio. ”
The Real Estate Select SPDR Fund ( XLRE ), which tracks the sector, offers a dividend yield of nearly 4 percent. However, the amount of diversification it offers is limited; the ETF tracks just 29 stocks, and the two largest ( Simon Property Group and American Tower ) make up more than 18 percent of the fund.

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President-elect Donald Trump can influence stock prices and change corporate plans simply by tweeting, and few companies are as dependent on the government as the big contractors.
About 61 entities earned $1 billion or more from federal contracts in the 2015 fiscal year, and 34 of those are publicly traded companies, according to data from the federal procurement data system. As you would expect, the biggest recipients are defense contractors, which already had good reason to watch Trump closely after he was involved in a deal to keep Carrier jobs in Indiana.
Companies like Lockheed Martin may top the list at $36 billion in contractual obligations, but companies across several other industries are getting a huge amount of their revenue from the government, according to data from the federal system and FactSet.
For the energy sector, Exxon Mobil is the biggest contractor with almost $800 million in petroleum contracts, mostly for the Defense Logistics Agency. That may seem like a lot, but it’s a negligible fraction of the energy giant’s revenue each year. The same is true for the telecom leader, AT&T , and shipping leader FedEx , which each made a little over $600 million from the government in 2015.
The situation is completely different for the leading firm in information technology, SAIC , which depends on government contracts for 78 percent of its revenue. Private prisons firm GEO Group lead the real estate sector, making about 71 percent of its $1.8 billion in sales from government contracts.
In health care, McKesson Corp . made over $8 billion, most of which came from its lucrative relationship with Veteran’s Affairs. That’s about 4 percent of the pharmaceutical distributor’s revenue.
For companies classified as financial firms, Berkshire Hathaway was the largest government contractor. But the company didn’t earn that position through its financial businesses — most of its government revenue came from its nonfinancial holdings, including providing metals to the U. S. Mint, mobile homes for FEMA and flight training for the FAA, according to government data.
Not counting state or local spending, the federal government paid almost $240 billion to its top 100 contractors in 2015. Those are big sums, and those companies are going to be noticing everything Trump says.

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Thieves reportedly penetrated a vault at FNB Parktown on New Year’s Eve and made off with R1.7-million in cash and valuables from about 30 safety deposit boxes.
This follows the heist pulled off at FNB in Randburg on December 18‚ when thieves made off with 360 safety deposit boxes after tying up the lone security guard on duty and then using a jackhammer to gain access.
Two days later police found 252 of the boxes dumped in a field outside the FNB stadium. They’d been forced open and emptied of jewellery‚ Krugerrands and other valuables‚ with only documents left behind.
No arrests have been made in either case.
FNB’s safety deposit contract states that the bank will not be legally responsible “under any circumstances for any loss or damage that may occur to the contents” and urges customers to insure the contents‚ but victims of the first heist are contemplating legal action‚ alleging that the bank was negligent in not securing the facility appropriately.
They were paying monthly fees of a few hundred rand to secure their valuables. Lee-Anne van Zyl‚ CEO of FNB Points of Presence‚ confirmed to ConsumerLIVE that the debit orders of “impacted” clients had been cancelled.
Asked what the bank was doing to return the passports‚ title deeds and other important documents that were recovered to their owners as soon as possible to spare them the schlep and expense of replacing them‚ Van Zyl said the documents were still in the police’s possession.
“FNB will be guided by the investigation process regarding the way forward‚” she said.
Another thing which several victims have expressed anger about is a letter they received from the manager of the FNB Randburg branch‚ stating “our recent telephone call to you..confirming that a burglary occurred..”
That’s because bank staff did not call them to inform them of the burglary. “I heard about it on the radio and called the Randburg branch for more information‚” said James Miles.
“We read about (the heist)‚ phoned and then went in‚” said “Nicole” on the victims’ WhatsApp group. “(The manager) gave us a letter confirming their call to us. I have written to them disputing this. It is call disinformation in the corporate world.”
Asked to respond‚ FNB told ConsumerLIVE: “Nothing further to add.”
Ironically‚ Miles opened his safety deposit box account with FNB Randburg more than two years ago‚ and was contacted in September to say that he had not been debited for the rental.
“In the almost two years that I unwittingly didn’t pay I never once received any sort of notification or demand from the bank whatsoever‚” he said.
“Rather than collect the contents of the box‚ my wife and I went in at the end of November to pay up the arrears – about R5000‚ and we’d been paying about R230 a month since.”
And now the box and its contents are gone – his late mother’s charm bracelet‚ all his wife’s valuable jewellery‚ expensive watches‚ valuable coins‚ many gold and silver coins and R160 000 in cash.
“It’s a massive blow to us – basically our life’s savings. We decided on the safe box in case we had a home invasion and they forced us to open the safe.”
* For information about the FNB bank heist victims’ support group‚ contact Kelly Fraser on 083 287 8897 or e-mail: kellyfraser03@gmail.com.

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Global shares rose Wednesday as gains in the U. S. and Asian markets carried over into European trading. The Tokyo benchmark jumped in the opening day for 2017, helped by a weak yen.
KEEPING SCORE: France’s CAC 40 edged up 0.2 percent to 4,910.99 in early trading, and Germany’s DAX was unchanged at 11,583.90. Britain’s FTSE 100 opened higher but was little changed at 7,175.43. U. S. shares were set to drift higher with Dow futures up 0.1 percent at 19,821. S&P 500 futures rose 0.1 percent to 2,255.60.
KIMONOS AND CLAPPING: The Tokyo Stock Exchange welcomed the new year in customary style as women in kimono clapped while Finance Minister Taro Aso rang a bell to celebrate this year’s first session. The Nikkei surged nearly 500 points, as the weak yen, a boon for exporters, pushed auto shares including Honda Motor Co. higher.
JAPAN MANUFACTURING: Investors were encouraged by Wednesday’s release of the Nikkei Japan Manufacturing PMI, a survey of purchasing managers. The reading of 52.4 for December was its highest in a year. The figure is based on a scale of 0 to 100, where 50 marks the cutoff between contraction and expansion. Manufacturers cited rising orders from the U. S., China and Europe as one factor behind the improvement.
THE QUOTE: “Strong sentiment at the start of the year coupled with volatility could be what 2017 has in store for the markets,” said Jingyi Pan, a market strategist at IG in Singapore.
ASIA’S DAY: Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 added 2.5 percent to close at 19,594.16, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.1 percent to 5,736.40. South Korea’s Kospi gained nearly 0.1 percent to 2,045.64. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dipped 0.1 percent to 22,134.47, while the Shanghai Composite index gained 0.7 percent to 3,158.79.
ENERGY: Benchmark U. S. crude added 57 cents to $52.90 a barrel in New York. It lost $1.39 to $52.33 a barrel on Tuesday. Brent crude, used to price international oils, rose 56 cents to $56.03 a barrel in London.
CURRENCIES: The dollar remained strong, rising to 117.80 yen from 117.39 yen. The euro slumped to $1.0430 from $1.0481.
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Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama
Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/yuri-kageyama

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