“T-Bills are around 5%
Thats $50K + SS and not state taxable in many states.”
T bills are good for a portion of your estate but not the whole thing. You should have growth investments to handle inflation - particularly with what we are facing now.
Agreed. Also, I believe a common mistake with retirement investment planning is not maintaining enough of the portfolio in equities to keep up with inflation. The usual strategies are to put something like 50% or more of the portfolio into bonds/treasuries to handle market downturns. I suggest a ratio of something like 25% bonds/treasuries with 75% in equities, but with the equities portion spread out into many mutual funds across about 30 asset categories. I've been suggesting this strategy since before Brandon and his higher than ever inflation. The idea is that with a 4% annual withdrawal rate, having 25% in bonds allows you to handle stock downturns and recoveries that last 6 years. And in case the bonds are also volatile during that period, being diversified across many asset classes helps you have at least a few investments that are up (that you can withdraw from to live on without selling low).
For example, during the downturn from Oct 2007 to March 2009, not only were PURLX (long-term treasury fund) and PRTIX (intermediate treasury) up, as is common during large stock downturns, but also PRGMX (a GMNA mortgage fund).
And during the March 2000 to fall 2002 downturn, the PRREX (real estate) fund was up, as was PRWCX (capital appreciation), TRMCX (mid-cap value), the aforementioned PRTIX and PRULX treasury funds, and PRSVX (small-cap value), PRGMX, PRTAX (municipal bonds), PRCIX (intermediate core bonds), and PBDIX (bond index fund).
Credit for this thinking lies mainly in Paul Merriman with his Ultimate Portfolio strategy (though I have a few asset classes that he doesn't suggest). https://paulmerriman.com/ultimate-buy-and-hold-strategy/