Retirement Calculator

Most free retirement calculators quit the day you retire. They project your savings up to your last day of work, show you a big number, and stop, which is the half that fools people. A projected 1.3 million looks like a fortune right up until you spread it across a 30 year retirement, adjust for inflation, and see what it pays you each month. This one carries on past that point, growing your money to retirement and then drawing that pile back down year by year, so you watch the whole arc: the balance rising while you save, then drawing down through retirement.

The field that makes it worth using is "desired income." Leave it blank and the tool shows the monthly income your savings can safely support. Fill it in with what you actually want to live on, and it flips to a verdict: on track, or your money runs out at 84. That second answer is the one most tools never give you, and it's the one that changes what you do next. Everything runs in your browser, nothing you type is uploaded.

1. Enter your current age and the age you want to retire. The gap is your saving window, so 30 to 67 is 37 years of compounding. Quick buttons cover 62, 65, and 67.
2. Enter your current savings. Add up everything earmarked for retirement, your 401k, an IRA or Roth, long term brokerage money. Leave out the emergency fund and cash you'll spend soon.
3. Enter your monthly contribution and your expected return before retirement, and enter it before inflation, because this page takes inflation out on its own line. The 7 percent default sits below the long run stock average of roughly 10 percent a year, which makes it the cautious end of a stock-heavy assumption. The buttons flip between 5, 6, 7, and 10 so you can see how much that one guess moves everything.
4. Read the top line, your projected savings at retirement, with the same figure in today's dollars right beneath it.
5. Open "More options" for the pieces that turn an estimate into a plan: employer match, a yearly raise on your contribution, inflation, a gentler return during retirement, your Social Security, and the desired-income field.
6. Watch the chart. It climbs through your working years, hits the dashed retirement line, then bends down as you spend. Hover any point to read the balance. Then copy a summary, download the year-by-year table, or press Share. The Share link carries the return and inflation assumptions on its own. Your ages, savings and contributions ride along only if you tick the box beside the button first, which is off every time you open the page.

Saving is the easy half to model. Your balance compounds, your contributions stack on top, and a calculator that stops there hands you a satisfying number. The trouble starts once the paychecks stop. Now you're pulling money out instead of adding it, your return usually drops because most people shift toward bonds for safety, and inflation keeps pushing your cost of living up every single year. That is three forces working against the balance at the same time. A plan that looks healthy at the peak can quietly run dry at 80, and a calculator that ends the day you retire will never warn you.

This one runs that second phase month by month. It grows whatever is left at your during-retirement return, subtracts your spending, raises that spending with inflation, and repeats until you reach your planned age or the account hits zero. If it hits zero early, it tells you the exact age. That's the number worth knowing while you can still do something about it.

The desired-income field is where this becomes a real stress test. Blank, it answers "how much can I spend?" Filled in, it answers "does my plan survive?" Punch in the monthly income you want, in today's dollars, then drag your retirement age or your contribution around and watch the run-out age move. That moving number tells you more than any single static one.

Using the same aggressive return for your working years and your retirement years is one of the most common ways people quietly overstate how long their money lasts. Both boxes want the return before inflation, since inflation is a separate figure here and gets taken out of the answer for you. A stock-heavy portfolio has historically returned around 10 percent a year before inflation, so the 7 percent default is deliberately short of that. Once you retire you probably can't stomach that risk, a bad year right after you stop working does real damage because you're selling into the dip to eat, so most people move toward bonds and cash where a 5 percent figure is the more honest one. This calculator keeps the two rates separate on purpose. If your plan holds together at 5 percent, it won't fall apart when the market underdelivers. Set both to 10 and you have assumed the long run stock average holds straight through a retirement you are spending out of.

Inflation is the quieter one. At 3 percent, prices roughly double every 24 years, so a dollar of spending at 67 costs close to two dollars by 91. The tool reports your nest egg in today's dollars and grows your withdrawals with inflation as you age, so a big nominal number won't make you feel richer than you really are.

Take the tool exactly as it loads. Age 30, retiring at 67, 20,000 saved, adding 500 a month. Returns of 7 percent while working, 5 percent once retired, inflation at 3 percent, planning through to 95.

By 67 the projection lands near 1.31 million. Impressive, until you strip out 37 years of inflation, which leaves about 440,000 in today's buying power. Of that total, you personally put in 222,000 of contributions on top of your 20,000 start. Everything else, over a million dollars, is growth. That gap between what you added and what you ended with is the whole case for starting early and leaving it alone.

Then the spend-down. Spread 440,000 of real savings across a 28 year retirement at 5 percent, and it supports roughly 1,700 a month in today's dollars, or about 1,470 under the stricter 4 percent rule. That's the jolt for a lot of people. A seven-figure projection can still come out to a fairly modest monthly income once inflation and a long retirement take their cut, which is exactly why looking only at the peak misleads. Add Social Security on top and the picture climbs fast.

One honest caveat. Treat this as a fast first look rather than a finished financial plan. It assumes steady returns rather than the market's real lurching path, and it doesn't model taxes, fees, or a precise Social Security benefit from your earnings record. For those, a fee-only advisor is the next step. What it does well is show you which lever moves the number most, in seconds.