Retirement Calculator

How to Use This Retirement Calculator

This tool takes five inputs and shows you where you will end up financially at retirement. No guesswork, no fluff — just numbers.

Current Age — Enter the age you are right now. The calculator uses this as your starting point and counts every year forward until your target retirement age.

Retirement Age — When do you want to stop working? The default is 65, but early retirement at 55 or semi-retirement at 60 are perfectly valid inputs. Just know that earlier retirement means fewer years of contributions and more years of withdrawals.

Current Savings — Whatever you have saved right now across all retirement accounts: 401(k), IRA, Roth IRA, brokerage accounts earmarked for retirement. Include it all. If the number is $0, that is fine. Everyone starts somewhere.

Monthly Contribution — How much you plan to invest each month going forward. Be honest. It is better to enter a number you will actually stick to than an aspirational figure you will abandon by March.

Annual Return — The average annual return you expect on your investments. The S&P 500 has returned roughly 10% nominally and about 7% after inflation over the past century. We default to 7% because thinking in real (inflation-adjusted) dollars is more useful for planning.

Once you fill in these fields, the calculator updates instantly. No buttons to click. Adjust any input and watch how the projected balance changes in real time.

The 4% Rule Explained

In 1998, three finance professors at Trinity University in San Antonio published a study that changed how people think about retirement spending. They tested various withdrawal rates against historical stock and bond returns going back to 1926. The conclusion: if you withdraw 4% of your portfolio in year one and then adjust that dollar amount for inflation each subsequent year, your money has a high probability of lasting at least 30 years.

What does that mean in practice? If you retire with $800,000, you take out $32,000 in your first year. If inflation runs 3% that year, you withdraw $32,960 the next year. And so on. The idea is that your portfolio keeps growing enough to outpace your withdrawals — most of the time.

This calculator uses the 4% rule to generate your estimated monthly retirement income. It takes your projected savings at retirement, multiplies by 0.04, and divides by 12. Simple.

But the 4% rule has limits you need to understand. It was designed for a 30-year retirement. If you retire at 45 and live to 95, you are looking at 50 years — a very different math problem. The original study also assumed a portfolio split between U.S. stocks and bonds; results may differ if your portfolio looks different. And it is based on U.S. historical data, which includes the best-performing stock market in the world. Some researchers, like Wade Pfau, have argued that 3% to 3.5% is safer for current retirees given lower expected future returns.

Treat the 4% number as a starting reference, not a promise. Your actual safe withdrawal rate depends on your timeline, your asset allocation, and frankly, on luck.

How Much Do You Actually Need?

The quick-and-dirty answer: take your expected annual expenses in retirement and multiply by 25. That is the inverse of the 4% rule. If you spend $60,000 a year, you need $1,500,000. Spend $40,000? You need $1,000,000.

But "$1 million" as a magic retirement number is misleading. For someone living in rural Tennessee with a paid-off house and modest tastes, a million dollars might be more than enough. For someone in San Francisco with a mortgage, two kids in college, and a fondness for travel, it will not last long. Your number is your number. Nobody else's.

Social Security helps, but do not build your entire plan around it. The average monthly Social Security benefit was $1,907 in 2024, according to the Social Security Administration. That is $22,884 per year. Helpful? Absolutely. Enough to live on? For most people, no. Think of Social Security as the floor, not the ceiling. It covers groceries and utilities. Your retirement savings cover everything else — healthcare, travel, hobbies, the things that actually make retirement enjoyable.

If you are not sure what your annual expenses will be, start with what you spend today and subtract work-related costs (commuting, lunches out, professional clothing). Then add healthcare costs, because those go up dramatically after 65. Fidelity estimated in 2023 that an average retired couple at age 65 would need around $315,000 just for healthcare expenses throughout retirement.

3 Real Scenarios

Scenario 1: Starting Early at 25

Maya is 25. She just landed her first real job and has $5,000 in a Roth IRA she opened last year. She commits to investing $300 per month. Her portfolio earns an average of 7% annually after inflation.

By age 60, Maya will have approximately $498,000. By 65, that number grows to about $680,000. If she bumps her contribution to $500 per month at age 30 (a reasonable move as her salary increases), she crosses the million-dollar mark before 65. Maya's biggest advantage is not skill or income. It is 35 to 40 years of compounding. Time does the heavy lifting.

Scenario 2: Mid-Career at 40

David is 40. He has $80,000 across a 401(k) and a rollover IRA. He is contributing $800 per month. Same 7% return assumption.

By 65, David will have roughly $693,000. Using the 4% rule, that gives him about $2,310 per month. Add Social Security and it is livable — but not luxurious. If David wants to retire more comfortably, he has two levers: increase his monthly contribution (even $200 more per month adds around $150,000 over 25 years) or push his retirement date to 67. Those two extra years add both contributions and compounding time.

Scenario 3: Catching Up at 55

Linda is 55 with $200,000 saved. She is finally earning enough to get serious and maxes out her 401(k) at $31,000 per year (the 2026 limit for those 50+, which works out to roughly $2,583 per month). She expects 6% returns since her portfolio is more conservative at this stage.

By 65, Linda will have about $618,000. That is not a fortune, but combined with Social Security and potentially a smaller home or part-time work, it is workable. Linda's story shows something important: even a late start with aggressive saving can produce real results. The catch-up contribution provisions in 401(k) plans exist for exactly this reason. Use them.

And starting in 2025, the SECURE 2.0 Act gives workers aged 60 to 63 an even higher catch-up limit of $11,250 for 401(k) plans — on top of the standard $23,500. That is $34,750 per year. If Linda hits that window, she can accelerate even further.

5 Retirement Mistakes That Cost You Thousands

1. Starting Late (Then Saying "It's Too Late")

The best time to start was 10 years ago. The second-best time is today. Yes, it is a cliche, but the math backs it up. Every year you delay costs you more than you think because you lose the compounding on all future growth of that year's contributions. Stop waiting for the "right time." It does not exist.

2. Not Getting the Full Employer Match

If you are not getting the full employer match, you are turning down free money. Period. A typical employer matches 50% of your contributions up to 6% of salary. On a $60,000 salary, that is $1,800 per year you are leaving on the table. Over 30 years at 7%, that one mistake alone costs you over $170,000.

3. Playing It Too Safe

Keeping your entire 401(k) in a money market fund or stable value fund feels safe. It is not. With inflation running 2-3%, you are barely breaking even — or losing purchasing power. If you are decades from retirement, you need stocks. Target-date funds are fine for 90% of people. Pick the one closest to your retirement year and move on with your life.

4. Ignoring Inflation

A dollar today is not a dollar in 2050. At 3% inflation, you will need $2.43 in 2050 to buy what $1 buys today. If your retirement plan does not account for inflation, you are planning to be poor. Use real (inflation-adjusted) returns when running projections, or add 3% to your annual expense estimate as a rough adjustment.

5. Raiding the Account Early

The 10% early withdrawal penalty from the IRS is bad enough. But the real damage is the lost growth. A $20,000 withdrawal at age 35, after the 10% penalty and 22% income tax, nets you about $13,600. But that $20,000 left alone until age 65 at 7% would have grown to roughly $152,000. You are not borrowing $20,000 from your future self. You are taking $152,000.

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me at 24

When I opened my first 401(k) at 24, I stared at a list of 30 fund options on Fidelity's NetBenefits portal and genuinely had no idea what to pick. I almost put everything in the "Government Bond Fund" because the word "government" sounded safe. A coworker told me to just pick the Vanguard Target Retirement 2055 Fund and forget about it. That was the best financial advice I ever received. Ten years later, that account had grown from $6,200 to over $89,000 — and I did nothing except contribute every paycheck.

I also ran the numbers once on what would have happened if I had started contributing at 19 instead of 24 — during college, even at just $100 per month. The difference was roughly $78,000 by age 45. Five years. A hundred bucks a month. Seventy-eight thousand dollars. Compounding is not magic. But it is the closest thing to it.