Retirement Calculator — Will Your Savings Be Enough?
Project your savings to retirement age — in real buying power, not headline numbers.
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| You will have contributed | — |
| Investment growth | — |
| Sustainable income (4% rule, today's money) | — |
| Age | Contributed so far | Balance | Today's money |
|---|
Project what your retirement savings could grow to: current balance plus monthly contributions, compounded to your retirement age. Alongside the headline figure you get the number that actually matters — what it's worth in today's money — and the yearly income it could sustainably provide.
A year-by-year table shows the whole path, which makes the most important pattern in retirement saving visible: how little the early balance seems to move, and how violently it grows at the end.
How to use Retirement Calculator
- Enter your ages — where you are now and when you plan to stop.
- Add current savings and the monthly amount you're putting away.
- Set expected return and inflation. 7% nominal return and 2.5% inflation are reasonable long-run defaults for a diversified portfolio.
- Read the today's-money figure and the 4% income line — those are the honest answers to "is it enough?".
Why the today's-money number is the real one
A million in 35 years is not a million. At 2.5% inflation it buys what about $420,000 buys today; at 3%, about $355,000. Headline projections flatter, which is why this calculator puts the inflation-adjusted figure beside the nominal one and quotes the sustainable income from the adjusted number. Plan in today's money and the plan means something.
The 4% rule, briefly and honestly
The classic retirement studies found that withdrawing 4% of the starting balance each year (adjusted for inflation thereafter) survived essentially every historical 30-year period. It's a planning benchmark, not a law — lower expected returns or a longer retirement argue for 3–3.5% — but as a first answer to "what income does this pot buy?", it's the standard one. Divide by 25 in your head: a $600k pot ≈ $24k a year.
Starting early beats saving hard
Open the year-by-year table and look at where the growth lives: in the last third. That's compounding's signature, and it's why a 25-year-old saving $300/month typically retires with more than a 40-year-old saving $700. The table also shows the crossover year where growth starts adding more than your contributions do — after that point, time in the market is doing the heavy lifting.
What this deliberately leaves out
Employer matches (add them to your monthly figure — they're free money), taxes (account types differ too much by country to guess), state pensions, and sequence-of-returns risk — the real-world fact that a crash early in retirement hurts far more than the average return suggests. For the raw mathematics of growth, the compound interest calculator is the general-purpose version of this tool.
Frequently asked questions
What return rate should I assume?
For a diversified stock-heavy portfolio, long-run history supports roughly 7% nominal (about 10% minus inflation drag is the often-quoted figure; this calculator handles inflation separately, so enter the nominal number). Bond-heavy portfolios: lower. If you want conservatism, run it again at 5% and plan to the gloomier result.
What is the 4% rule?
A benchmark from historical studies: withdrawing 4% of the pot in year one, inflation-adjusted afterwards, survived essentially every 30-year retirement in the data. Divide the pot by 25 for annual income. It's a planning yardstick, not a guarantee — longer retirements or low-return eras argue for 3–3.5%.
Why show the balance in today's money?
Because inflation quietly halves buying power every ~28 years at 2.5%. The nominal number 35 years out is flattering fiction; the today's-money number is what your life would actually feel like. All income figures here use the adjusted number for exactly that reason.
Should I include my employer match?
Yes — add it to the monthly contribution; it compounds identically and it's the best return you'll ever get (an instant 50–100% on matched money). If you're not contributing enough to capture the full match, that's almost always the first thing to fix.
Is it too late to start at 40? At 50?
Later starts lose compounding's best years, but the arithmetic still works — it just asks for more. Run your real numbers: 20 years of $800/month at 7% is still ~$415,000. The projection table makes the trade-offs concrete, which beats the despair-or-denial default. More contribution, later retirement, or lower expenses: some mix closes the gap.