Retirement Calculator
Project your retirement savings from current balance and monthly contributions, then estimate the yearly income it could safely provide at retirement.
How to use this calculator
- 1Enter your current age and the age you plan to retire.
- 2Enter your current savings and how much you add each month.
- 3Enter the annual return you expect, and optionally a safe withdrawal rate.
- 4Read the projected nest egg and the yearly income it could sustainably provide.
How it works
Retirement accumulation
balance = P·(1+i)ⁿ + PMT·((1+i)ⁿ − 1)/i i = annual return ÷ 12, n = years × 12 safe income = balance × withdrawal rate P = current savings, PMT = monthly deposit
Retirement saving combines two engines. The money you already have grows on its own at compound interest, P·(1+i)ⁿ, while each new monthly contribution starts its own smaller compounding journey — summed together, those deposits form the future value of an annuity, PMT·((1+i)ⁿ − 1)/i. Adding the two gives the projected balance. The 4% rule then turns a lump sum into an income: withdraw 4% of the starting balance in year one and adjust for inflation thereafter, and historically a diversified portfolio has lasted at least thirty years. The rule is a rough guide, not a promise, but it grounds the abstract nest-egg figure in a spendable number.
Worked example
A 30-year-old with $20,000 saved, adding $500 a month at a 6% annual return, reaches about $875,000 by age 65. Of that, roughly $230,000 is money they put in and the rest is growth. At a 4% withdrawal rate that supports about $35,000 a year — the power of starting 35 years early.
Retirement Calculator: the complete guide
Why starting early beats saving more
The single most powerful lever in retirement saving is time, not the amount you set aside. Because returns compound, a dollar invested at 25 has decades to double and redouble, while a dollar invested at 45 has only a fraction of that runway. Someone who saves modestly from their twenties often ends up ahead of someone who saves aggressively but starts in their forties, purely because the early money spent longer growing.
This is why the projection above is so sensitive to the years-until-retirement figure. Push the current age down by ten years and the nest egg can nearly double, even with identical contributions. The uncomfortable corollary is that catching up later is expensive: the shorter the horizon, the more of the final balance has to come from contributions rather than growth, and contributions are limited by what you can afford.
The 4% rule and what it really means
The 4% rule comes from studies of historical US market returns showing that a retiree who withdrew 4% of their portfolio in the first year, then adjusted that amount for inflation each year, would very rarely run out of money over a 30-year retirement. It is a way of translating a lump sum into a sustainable income: a million-dollar portfolio implies roughly $40,000 a year.
It is a guideline, not a law. It assumes a specific asset mix, a specific retirement length, and a future that resembles the past. A run of poor returns early in retirement — sequence-of-returns risk — can undermine it, which is why some planners prefer 3.5% or a flexible rule that spends less in bad years. Treat the income figure here as an order-of-magnitude estimate that tells you whether your savings plan is roughly on track, not a budget to be trusted to the dollar.
Nominal returns, real dollars, and inflation
A projection that shows a seven-figure balance can be misleading if it ignores inflation. A 6% return in a world with 3% inflation is really only about 3% of extra buying power a year. The dollar figure decades out looks impressive partly because those are future, cheaper dollars — the same reason a salary that would have been princely in 1990 is ordinary today.
There are two honest ways to handle this. One is to enter a real (after-inflation) return — perhaps 4–5% for a stock-heavy portfolio instead of 7% nominal — so the result is already in today's buying power. The other is to project nominally and then mentally discount the result. What you must not do is mix a nominal return with today's spending needs, which flatters the plan. This calculator does the arithmetic either way; the interpretation is up to the rate you feed it.
Frequently asked questions
How much do I need to retire?
A common rule of thumb is 25 times your desired annual spending, which is the inverse of the 4% withdrawal rule. If you want $40,000 a year from savings, you need roughly $1 million. This calculator works forward instead, showing what your current plan is likely to accumulate.
What is the 4% rule?
It is a guideline that you can withdraw 4% of your portfolio in the first year of retirement, then adjust that amount for inflation each year, and historically a diversified portfolio has lasted at least 30 years. It turns a lump sum into an income estimate but is not guaranteed.
What return should I assume?
Historically, a diversified stock-and-bond portfolio has returned roughly 6–7% a year nominally over the long run, or about 4–5% after inflation. Younger savers with more stocks might assume the higher end; those near retirement, the lower. Entering a real return gives a result already in today's buying power.
Does this account for inflation and taxes?
Not directly. To see the result in today's buying power, enter a real (after-inflation) return rather than a nominal one. Taxes depend on the account type — a Roth grows tax-free while a traditional account is taxed on withdrawal — so treat the balance as pre-tax unless it is all in a Roth.