Accurate Retirement Calculator
Introduction to the Retirement Calculator
Unique Retirement Calculator shows pre-retirement investing and post-retirement income in one schedule. Also optionally considers:
- Social Security, Pensions
- Inflation
- Change assumptions for pre and post-retirement
- Export analysis to XLSX/DOCX files
Speaking from personal experience: by the time you reach your 60s, you may be surprised by how quickly retirement arrives. It often feels much sooner than expected.
Still unsure?
Consider this data point from the National Council on Aging (NCOA), published in September 2024:
“An updated analysis by the National Council on Aging … finds that 80% of Americans 60 and older continue to have very few resources to pay for long‑term care or weather financial emergencies.”
If more people understood how quickly retirement approaches, would so many end up financially unprepared?
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Regardless, take a few minutes to explore this retirement calculator and project your own financial outlook. Avoid becoming part of this troubling trend. More below …
The Calculator – for planning before and after retirement
To set your preferred currency and date format, click the “$ : MM/DD/YYYY” link in the lower right corner of any calculator.
Information
How to Use This Retirement Calculator
This calculator evaluates your current retirement savings, your ongoing contributions from income, and—optionally—any projected wage growth. It then charts your projected income after retirement to assess whether you are on track to meet your financial goals.
The Calculator Has 13 Inputs; 4 Are Required:
- Your current age
- Annual income
- ROI for retirement savings (return on investment)
- ROI during retirement
Note: The “ROI during retirement” rate begins on the date of your final retirement contribution—not on the date of your first income withdrawal. Using the final contribution date as the start of post-retirement ROI provides a slightly more conservative projection when the post-retirement ROI is lower than the pre-retirement ROI. (It is less conservative when the reverse is true.)
The calculator can solve for any one unknown among the following. To do this, enter a value of 0 for one of the four, and provide a valid value for each of the other three:
- Your life expectancy
- Percent of income invested
- Your age at retirement
- Annual income required
There are five optional inputs. You may leave any or all of them set to 0:
- Annual income increase
- Current retirement savings
- Annual inflation rate
- Income from government
- Other annual income
Examples: Creating Your Retirement Schedule & Chart
Retirement planning includes many variables. Like other financial tools on this site, this retirement planning calculator can solve for multiple unknowns. The following are example questions it can answer, depending on your assumptions and input values:
- How much do I need to save to retire?
- Set "Percent of income invested" to 0.0%
- Hover over the gold contribution line in the chart to view the annual retirement contribution amount
- When can I retire?
- Do I have enough to retire?
- At what age can I retire?
- Set "Your age at retirement" to 0
- If the calculated age equals your current age, you already have enough saved to retire.
- Set "Your age at retirement" to 0
- How much do I need to retire?
- What will my retirement income be?
- Set "Desired retirement income" to 0
- After calculating, view "Savings at retirement" in the chart
- How long will my money last?
- Set "Desired retirement income" to the total income you want, including other sources
- Set "Your life expectancy" to 0
- The result will show the age at which your retirement savings will be depleted.
Click the calculator’s button for more details about each input.
Preparing for Retirement — Assumptions
In general, as individuals approach retirement, they tend to shift their investments toward more conservative options. These conservative investments typically offer a lower rate of return, yield, or interest. For this reason, the calculator allows you to enter two different rates of return: one for the period before retirement and one for the period after retirement. The rate change takes effect on the date of your final contribution.
Click the button to view details.
If you want to enter a specific dollar amount instead of a percentageWhen deciding how much to contribute toward retirement, some users may prefer to enter a specific dollar amount instead of a percentage of income invested. If you choose this method, set "Percent of income invested" to 100% and enter the amount you plan to invest as your "Annual income." The "Annual income increase" input will still function with this approach.
If you want to calculate the age at which you can retire based on your savings plan and desired retirement income, this calculator can do that. To make the calculation, the tool must know how long you want your retirement income to last. However, the calculator does not directly ask this question—so how does it determine this?
Behind the scenes, the calculator uses a default retirement age.
That default age is 66.
When you enter your life expectancy, the calculator assumes you want your retirement income to last from age 66 onward. For example, if you want the income to last 20 years (which involves 21 withdrawals), enter 86 for "Your life expectancy." Or, if you want income to last 25 years, enter 91 and set "Your age at retirement" to 0.
After calculation, the calculator will determine your retirement age. It will also adjust your life expectancy so that the duration between retirement and life expectancy equals the number of years you specified.
Desired retirement incomeA note about "Desired retirement income": Most users think in terms of their total income when planning for retirement, rather than its individual components.
Therefore, the value you enter as "desired income" should represent the total annual income you want during retirement. If you also enter amounts for Social Security or pension income, those amounts will be subtracted from your desired income when calculating required investment returns.
In other words, the chart and the retirement schedule both calculate based on your investment plan, before accounting for Social Security or pension income. If you want to calculate the full income target without offsetting other sources, leave the other income fields set to zero.
The average Social Security benefit changes over time. According to the Social Security Administration (as of January 2025):
“The estimated average monthly Social Security retirement benefit for January 2025 is $1,976.”
Also, according to U.S. News & World Report (Feb. 18, 2025):
“In 2023, the latest year for which data is available, U.S. households led by someone 65 or older spent an average of $64,326.”
According to the most recent Consumer Expenditure Survey from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2023), by age of household head:
“Average pre-tax income for households led by someone:
- Aged 65–74: $63,212 per year (approximately $5,268 per month)
- Aged 75 and older: $48,342 per year (approximately $4,028 per month)
Retirement Plans Compared
Click on any of the plans below. The calculator’s input fields and chart will automatically update.
The goal is to demonstrate how three slightly different sets of inputs can produce significantly different outcomes—highlighting the impact of seemingly small changes in retirement planning.
Retirement Plan 1 — this scenario illustrates an uncomfortable retirement outcome. It assumes starting at age 35, saving 5% of a $50,000 annual income, with a 3% income increase per year. At retirement (age 65), the user begins withdrawing $25,000 annually with a 2.5% inflation adjustment. Under these assumptions, the invested funds begin depleting immediately at retirement, as shown by the red bars. The income does not last for the entire life expectancy.
Retirement Plan 2 — in this case, the retirement funds still begin to decline immediately after retirement, but they do not run out. Compared to Plan 1, this plan reduces the desired retirement income by 12.5% ($22,000 vs. $25,000) and delays retirement to age 66.
Retirement Plan 3 — this plan yields the strongest results. After retirement, the investment balance continues to grow—even after contributions have stopped—because withdrawals are initially less than the portfolio’s return. This is illustrated by increasing bar heights and the gold withdrawal line. In this example, the only reason the retirement balance begins to decline later is the 2.5% annual inflation adjustment on withdrawals. (To test this: set "Annual inflation rate" to 0 and click . You'll see that the balance continues to grow.)
Hover over any bar in the chart to view data for that age. The blue line represents annual contributions, and the yellow-gold line shows retirement income withdrawals. Hovering over a data point will display detailed values.
This retirement calculator is one of the most important financial tools on this site. Feel free to revisit and use it as often as you wish.
Other Retirement Calculators
As explained above, the calculator on this page can solve for multiple unknowns and can help answer a wide range of retirement planning questions. However, the following three calculators are simpler and more compact, making them especially suitable for smaller screens or mobile devices. Each is focused on answering a single question and requires less effort to use. You may wish to explore them as well:
- Retirement Income Calculator — estimates your projected retirement income
- Retirement Savings Calculator — calculates how much you need to contribute to your savings
- Retirement Age Calculator — estimates your retirement age based on your inputs
Retirement Calculator Help
While many of the inputs are likely self-explanatory at a basic level, we recommend reviewing the information below. Several important details are included to help ensure you understand how each input affects your results.
Your current age — the age you are now, or the age at which you plan to begin saving or investing for retirement.
Your life expectancy — expressed as an age. Your retirement funds must last from your retirement age until your life expectancy, plus one year to cover your final year of retirement. For reference, a 20-year-old male in the U.S. currently has a life expectancy of 77 years; a 20-year-old female can expect to live to 81. You may enter different values based on your own expectations or refer to the U.S. Social Security Administration’s life expectancy table.
Annual income — your expected annual income at the time you begin saving for retirement. If you’ve already started saving, enter your current income.
Annual income increase — your expected average annual income growth. To adjust for inflation, enter the expected income increase minus your projected inflation rate. For example, if you expect a 3% raise each year and expect 2% inflation, enter 1% to reflect real income growth.
Percent of income invested — the percentage of your income you plan to contribute toward your retirement savings. In general, the older you are when you begin saving, the higher this percentage will need to be to meet your retirement goals.
Current retirement savings — if you’ve already started saving, enter the current total balance of your retirement accounts.
ROI for retirement savings — your expected average annual return on investment (ROI) before retirement. For example, if your funds are in a standard savings account, this would be the interest rate—though this may not be the most effective investment option.
Your age at retirement — the age at which you plan to retire.
ROI during retirement — your expected average return on investments after retirement. This can be the same as your pre-retirement ROI, but typically, retirees shift to more conservative investments that generate lower returns.
Annual inflation rate — your estimate of the average annual inflation rate. This value will be used to increase your projected retirement income over time.
Desired retirement income — the total annual income you expect to need when you retire. This includes income from all sources.
Expected income from gov’t — the amount you expect to receive annually from Social Security or a government pension. This amount, along with other external income, will be subtracted from your “Annual income required” to determine how much income your retirement savings must generate.
Other annual income — any other annual income expected during retirement, such as a pension from a former employer. This income, along with government benefits, will be subtracted from your “Annual income required” to calculate how much income your savings must support.
Mark says:
You still have the best calculators…. I’ve had to take your calculators and dump to a spreadsheet and to breakout the SS amounts and dates. The issue is the wife and I have different SS FRA dates and I would like to see a break-out of SS in your calculators for her, and a separate input for me. This allows decisions on taking SS first (or last), and leaving the tax defered $$$$ to grow…. or let the SS grow to age 70…. and what total numbers look best.
Carl D says:
Is this broken? I’ve been using this awesome calculator in the past but when I now click on ‘calculate’ with the default values I get error ‘e.getSchedule().data[0] is undefined’
Karl says:
It seems that it is broken. I’ll take a look and let you know when it’s fixed (which hopefully will be tomorrow, or possibly Monday).
Thank you for letting me know.
Karl says:
Carl, I fixed the Retirement Calculator.
I have one concern, the error message that you reported is not the same error I saw. If you still have a problem (I don’t think you will), please let me know.
NOTE:
If you do not see the change right away, you may have to perform a hard refresh of the page:
Depending on your operating system, all you need to do is type the following key combination: