The upshot, though, is Warshawsky concluded that while an annuity didn't always outperform
systematic withdrawal, an annuity provided more inflation -
adjusted income throughout retirement often enough (with little risk of ever running out) so that «it is hard to argue against a significant and widespread role for immediate life annuities in the production of retirement income.»
You can take a
systematic approach to
adjusting withdrawals or you can play it by ear, so to speak, by periodically going to a tool like T. Rowe Price's Retirement Income Calculator and seeing how many years your savings are likely to last if you continue withdrawing money at your current pace and then raise or lower
withdrawals as necessary.