It sounds about right to me. The person replying to you is assuming you don't want to spend any of the $2 mil and only live on interest and being very conservative. 5% a year historically makes sense. Years where you don't get that return, you can spend some of the bank to make up the difference. Other years you should get a little extra to add to the bank. During a drought maybe you reduce expenses. But you should still be able to target 100k most years, unless you get really unlucky. (We currently happen to be living in a time where I think you could get really unlucky, 7.5% inflation and all that.)