Some good rules of thumb for the investment assumptions needed for retiring on $500k, consider the following items: - Investing in a diversified portfolio of 60% stock investments and 40% bond fund investments - Using more conservative historical returns, also accounting for potential economic uncertainties ahead - Expect to earn 5-7% on this portfolio with a rough 8% per year average in stocks and 4% in bonds- be cautious of overly aggressive return projections and also know that these are annual averages