Retirement Calculator

A widely used starting point is 25 times your desired annual spending, which follows directly from a 4% withdrawal rate. The figure moves substantially once you account for Social Security, a pension, or a retirement shorter or longer than 30 years.

It is a guideline suggesting you can withdraw about 4% of your portfolio in the first year of retirement, adjust that amount for inflation each year afterwards, and have a strong chance of the money lasting roughly 30 years. It is a planning heuristic, not a guarantee.

No. Add your estimated benefit separately — the Social Security Administration provides personalised projections. Because benefits can cover a meaningful share of spending, ignoring them will overstate the savings you actually need.

Inflation erodes what a dollar buys, and these results are nominal. A projection that looks generous in 30 years may support a much lower standard of living, so it helps to model a real return by subtracting expected inflation from your assumed return.

In arithmetic terms, when your projected sustainable income meets the spending you want. In practice the date also depends on healthcare coverage before Medicare eligibility, when you claim Social Security, and how much flexibility you have if markets disappoint.

It is the risk of poor returns arriving in the first years of retirement, when you are withdrawing from a portfolio that has not yet recovered. Two retirees with identical average returns can face very different outcomes depending purely on the order those returns arrived.

Many guidelines suggest 15% of gross income including any employer match, though the right figure depends on your age, existing balance, and target date. Starting later requires a materially higher rate to reach the same destination.

The available levers are saving more, working a little longer, spending less in retirement, or some combination. Catch-up contributions from age 50 raise the annual ceiling, and delaying retirement helps twice by adding contributions and shortening the drawdown.

It depends on the withdrawal rate, the returns you experience, and how flexible your spending is. Lower withdrawal rates and a willingness to cut back during downturns both extend portfolio life considerably.

Claiming before full retirement age permanently reduces the monthly benefit, while delaying past it increases the benefit up to age 70. The right choice depends on health, other income, marital status, and whether you need the money sooner.

Withdrawals from traditional 401(k)s and IRAs are taxed as ordinary income, while qualified Roth withdrawals are not. A plan built on pre-tax balances alone will deliver less spendable income than the headline figure suggests.