Question
You want to be able to withdraw
each year for 15 years. Your account earns
interest. How much do you need in your account at the beginning?
interest. How much do you need in your account at the beginning?
Ask by Gray Hardy. in the United States
Mar 20,2025
Upstudy AI Solution
Tutor-Verified Answer
Answer
You need approximately $222,450 in your account at the beginning.
Solution
Given that you wish to withdraw
each year for 15 years and your account earns
interest per year, we need to determine the present value (PV) of this annuity. The formula for the present value of an annuity is
where
is the annual payment,
is the annual interest rate (in decimal form), and
is the number of years.
Step 1. Identify the variables:
Step 2. Plug the values into the formula:
Step 3. Simplify the expression:
First, calculate
:
Next, raise
to the power of
:
Step 4. Calculate
:
Using a calculator or logarithms, we find
Thus,
Step 5. Compute the numerator of the annuity factor:
Step 6. Divide by the interest rate
:
Step 7. Multiply by the annual payment
:
Thus, you need approximately
in the account at the beginning.
Answered by UpStudy AI and reviewed by a Professional Tutor
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Mind Expander
To find out how much you need in your account at the beginning, you can use the present value of an annuity formula. The formula is:
where
is the present value,
is the payment amount ($20,000),
is the interest rate (0.04), and
is the number of years (15).
Plugging in the values:
Calculating this gives:
So, you would need approximately $231,480 in your account at the beginning to withdraw $20,000 each year for 15 years at a 4% interest rate.
To confirm computations, applying financial calculators or programming languages like Python can help mimic manual calculations. Just remember to take care around rounding errors, which can sneak into long calculations!