Retirement number

calculator

How much do I need, and am I on track?

Builds a target from your desired spending and a withdrawal rate you choose, with the assumptions behind each rate spelled out.

Your target

Annual spending you want

In today's money. Spending is what has to be funded, not a multiple of income.

Other guaranteed annual income

State pension, defined-benefit pension, annuity — in today's money.

Target retirement age65

Monthly contribution

Withdrawal rate

3.5% — cautious. A common adjustment for early retirement, non-US return assumptions, or real-world fees.

Your number

Sized to fund $30,000 a year from the portfolio at 3.5%.

Target pot (today's money): $857,143
Projected pot: $514,751
Shortfall: $342,392

Years to go: 33 years
Needed monthly: $1,238
Coast age: —

Not there yet on current contributions

You would need about $1,238 a month rather than $720. The three levers are saving more, working longer, or wanting less — and a small change in retirement age moves the answer more than most people expect, because it adds contributing years and removes withdrawing ones at the same time.

Choosing a withdrawal rate

The single assumption that moves the target most.

Rate	Pot needed	When it applies
3.0%	$1,000,000	Suits retirements longer than 30 years, or plans with no room to cut spending in a bad decade.
3.5%	$857,143	A common adjustment for early retirement, non-US return assumptions, or real-world fees.
4.0%	$750,000	The original result: a 30-year horizon, US historical returns, no fees, rigid inflation-linked spending.
4.5%	$666,667	Defensible only if you can genuinely cut spending after a bad year. Flexibility buys more than allocation does.

Why this matters

The 4% rule comes from testing fixed inflation-adjusted withdrawals against every historical 30-year window of US returns. It survived all of them, including retirements beginning in 1929 and 1966. That is a real result, and it rests on three assumptions that frequently do not hold.

A 30-year horizon — retire at 50 and you need 40 or more. US returns — the same method on other developed markets gives 3 to 3.5%. And zero fees — a 1% all-in cost consumes a quarter of a 4% withdrawal. That is why this tool defaults to 3.5%.

The most useful finding in this literature is usually skipped: flexibility matters more than allocation. A retiree who can cut spending by ten percent after a bad year raises their sustainable rate more than any plausible change in stock-bond mix does.