Retirement Calculator
Project your retirement savings and the income they'll sustainably produce. Includes the 4% safe withdrawal rule and a chart of contributions vs. investment growth.
Balance from age 30 to 65
Project the size of your nest egg at retirement — and the income that nest egg can sustainably produce — given your current age, target retirement age, current savings and monthly contribution. The chart shows your contributions vs. investment growth stacked over time, so you can see the year compound interest starts doing more work than you do.
We use a flat safe withdrawal rate(4% by default — the "Trinity rule") to translate the nest egg into annual retirement income. That's a rough but widely-cited heuristic for how much you can withdraw annually from a balanced portfolio without depleting it over a 30-year retirement.
How to use
- Enter your current age and the age you want to retire.
- Enter your current retirement savings and the amount you'll add each month.
- Enter your expected annual return — 6–8% is a common assumption for a balanced portfolio over long horizons.
- Optionally adjust the withdrawal rate (default 4%) and your target annual income to see whether your projected nest egg covers your goals.
- The chart shows contributions vs. investment growth over the years to retirement.
Frequently asked questions
- What's the 4% rule?
- The 4% ("safe withdrawal") rule is a heuristic from the 1998 Trinity Study suggesting that retirees who withdraw 4% of their initial nest egg in year 1 (then adjust for inflation) have historically had a high probability of not running out of money over a 30-year retirement. It's a starting point, not a guarantee — adjust for your situation.
- What return rate should I assume?
- For long-term, stock-heavy portfolios, 6–8% is a common assumption based on historical returns. More conservative balanced portfolios might use 5%. Subtract your expected inflation rate if you want results in today's dollars.
- Is the projected income inflation-adjusted?
- No — it's in nominal terms (the actual dollar amount in the year you retire). To get an inflation-adjusted figure, run the Inflation Calculator on the result.
Related tools
- Compound Interest CalculatorCalculate compound interest with monthly contributions and a year-by-year breakdown. See total interest earned and projected balance over any horizon.
- Savings Goal CalculatorTwo modes: how much to save monthly to reach a goal in N years, or how long it'll take given a fixed monthly contribution. Accounts for compound growth.
- Inflation CalculatorProject the future cost of an item and the lost buying power of money over time at any inflation rate. Common rate presets included.