Project retirement accumulation, inflation-adjusted spending, optional income, portfolio withdrawals, fees, and how long savings may last.
This calculator models two phases: monthly saving and investment growth before retirement, followed by monthly spending, income, fees, and portfolio withdrawals during retirement.
The expected, conservative, and optimistic scenarios are hypothetical paths created from your assumptions. They are not forecasts or probabilities.
Today’s monthly spending × (1 + inflation rate)ʸmax(0, retirement spending − retirement income)Cash-flow timing follows the beginning- or end-of-month settings.
Balance + contributions or − withdrawals + gross return − feesStarting with $100,000 at age 35, contributing $800 at each month’s end with 2% annual increases, and using 7% pre-retirement return, 5% retirement return, 0.5% fees, and 2.5% inflation produces about $1,788,879.28 at age 65. Today’s $5,000 monthly spending becomes about $10,487.84 at retirement; $2,000 of today-dollar income begins at age 67. Under the smooth expected assumptions, about $635,082.92 remains at age 90. These are hypothetical estimates, not promises.
From age 40 to 65, $100,000 plus 300 monthly contributions of $500 produces exactly $250,000 at retirement when returns, fees, inflation, and contribution increases are all zero.
Savings, spending, retirement dates, income, fees, inflation, and market expectations change. Revisit the projection as circumstances change.
Review the three return paths without treating any one as a guaranteed outcome or assigned probability.
Fees are modeled here, but taxes, account rules, required distributions, and benefit rules are not.
Employment contributions stop at the planned retirement age. The model then switches to the entered retirement return and withdraws spending needs after generic user-entered income.
Spending and income are entered in today’s dollars. Both are inflated to retirement using the same assumption and continue increasing monthly during retirement, preserving their assumed purchasing-power amounts.
Gross return is applied monthly using the entered nominal annual assumption divided by 12. The annual fee is also applied monthly after gross return. Small assumption differences can compound substantially over long periods.
Actual returns, inflation, spending, income timing, longevity, taxes, and fees vary. Smooth monthly rates cannot represent market volatility or sequence-of-returns risk.
It depends on spending, retirement length, income, returns, inflation, fees, taxes, and personal circumstances. This calculator tests one set of assumptions rather than prescribing a target.
Inflation raises the nominal future cost of spending. The calculator inflates today’s spending and income to retirement and continues adjusting them monthly.
No return is guaranteed. Use assumptions appropriate to your portfolio and review conservative, expected, and optimistic illustrations.
There are fewer contribution months and more withdrawal months, which can materially reduce projected portfolio longevity.
Fees reduce the invested balance monthly, leaving less capital available to compound and fund withdrawals.
Enter any generic monthly income estimate and start age. CalcRocket does not estimate or verify government or pension benefits.
The projection records an estimated depletion age and continues tracking spending not covered by portfolio withdrawals.
It is the annualized initial portfolio withdrawal divided by savings at retirement. It is a reference statistic, not a guarantee of sustainability.
It is a historical rule of thumb based on particular assumptions and periods. It has important limitations and is not a universally safe or guaranteed rate.
Review it periodically and after meaningful changes to income, savings, spending, investments, fees, or retirement timing.
No. It does not model income taxes, investment taxes, account-specific tax rules, or required distributions.
No. All scenarios are smooth hypothetical illustrations; actual returns vary and may be substantially different.
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