Millions of American workers spend a good portion of their careers focused on a single goal – building their retirement funds as robustly as possible. In recent years, with inflation at a decades-high, interest rates surging and everyday costs significantly elevated, this goal has taken on even more importance. While building a retirement account worth hundreds of thousands of dollars can certainly be achievable, there's another, arguably equally pressing concern for seniors and others to get right. And that concerns the amount of money that they will be forced to withdraw from these retirement accounts once they reach a certain age.

Upon reaching a certain age, federal law dictates that you'll need to start withdrawing money from your tax-deferred accounts. And that's true even if you don't want to or if you have an alternative funding source to first leverage. So it's critical to know in advance what the required minimum distribution (RMD) will look like. That figure will change based on age and the amount in the account. While the goal of many workers may be to save $1 million or more, the reality is that there's often far less saved for retirement. But even retirement accounts worth $300,000, for example, will be subject to the same parameters.

So, what will the required minimum distribution from a $300,000 retirement account actually be each year? Thanks to the IRS Uniform Lifetime table, this is easy to determine. Below, we'll outline the amounts that retirees will be required to take each year.

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What's the required minimum distribution from a $300,000 retirement account?

Under existing rules, retirees are generally required to start taking distributions from their retirement account at age 73. Retirement accounts are defined as those tax-deferred ones, such as a 401(k) or a traditional IRA. The specific amount you'll need to take is determined by a basic equation: Account balance ÷ life expectancy factor = RMD

How do you know what the life expectancy factor is? That comes from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table, which will have a different figure per age bracket. Utilizing those figures and a $300,000 retirement account, here are the required minimum distributions for a few different years:

• Age 73: $11,320 annually ($300,000 ÷ 26.5)
• Age 75: $12,195 annually ($300,000 ÷ 24.6)
• Age 77: $13,100 ($300,000 ÷ 22.9)
• Age 79: $14,218 ($300,00 ÷ 21.1)

While these amounts will vary as you age, one thing is unmistakable – you'll be expected to withdraw more later in life. So it makes sense to prepare for that inevitability sooner than later, as well as the accompanying tax bill that you'll be expected to pay alongside these distributions.

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How gold can diversify your portfolio now

While thinking about your retirement funds and the RMDs you'll be expected to make, it may also be worthwhile to consider the ways in which you can still effectively diversify your retirement portfolio. Historically, one of the best ways to do so is with a gold investment. While it should almost always be limited to a maximum of 10% of your portfolio (or less depending on how much time you still have to invest), gold serves as an effective diversification tool. That's mainly due to its historic ability to maintain value and even rise in price during inflationary periods. And that's precisely what many investors have seen in recent years as the price of the yellow metal surged even when inflation was at its highest level in decades. With the metal coming in a variety of forms ranging from bullion to stocks to gold IRAs, there's likely a type that both fits your budget and your retirement needs now. 

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The bottom line

Required minimum distributions on a $300,000 retirement account will start at around $11,000 for those aged 73 and will rise past $14,000 annually for those 79 and older. It's important to start thinking about these distributions in advance, however, both for retirement budgeting purposes and the tax implications that will be associated with them. Consider gold, too, both as an effective retirement diversification tool and as a way to boost and protect your retirement funds, especially if you're on the verge of having to start taking mandatory minimum distributions.