Retirement Calculator
A quick version of our full retirement planner. Give it your age, what you have saved, what comes in and what goes out, and it runs the same simulation engine the full planner uses - including federal and state taxes, Social Security and required minimum distributions. It opens on an example so you can see the shape of an answer before entering anything of your own.
What This Calculator Does
Most retirement calculators apply a rule of thumb - a fixed withdrawal rate, a flat return, a single life expectancy - and give you one number. This one runs a Monte Carlo simulation: 2,000 versions of your retirement with different sequences of market returns, counting how many of them fund every year of your plan. The result is a percentage, and the percentage is the point. A plan that works in 90% of futures is a different plan from one that works in 60%, even when both look fine on average.
It also does the parts that quietly decide the answer. Your savings are split into tax-deferred, Roth and taxable because each is taxed differently on the way out, and the order they are drawn from changes what you keep. Required minimum distributions start when they start. Social Security is modeled from the age you claim, with spousal benefits where they apply. Federal and state income taxes are worked out year by year rather than assumed.
Everything runs in your browser. Your figures are never sent to us, and nothing is saved unless you choose to continue into the full planner.
What It Leaves Out
This page trades detail for speed, and it is worth knowing which detail. It models one spending figure before retirement and one after, rather than individual expenses that start and stop. It has no healthcare modeling beyond Medicare's standard premiums, no one-time costs, no mortgage or other debts, no property, and no Roth conversion strategy.
Those omissions mostly push the answer in the optimistic direction, so treat the number here as a starting point rather than a verdict. Continuing into the full planner keeps everything you entered and opens the rest.
How to Use It
- Change the example figures to your own - birth year, state, and when you plan to retire
- Enter your savings split across tax-deferred, Roth and taxable accounts. Rough totals are fine
- Add your monthly income and your Social Security estimate, and the age you plan to claim it
- Enter what you spend a month now, and what you expect to spend in retirement, in today's dollars
- Watch the success rate move as you change things. That sensitivity is more useful than any single number
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good success rate?
Most planners treat 85-95% as a reasonable target. Below about 85% the chance of running short is uncomfortable; pushing far above 95% usually means spending less than you could afford to, which is its own cost. Do not read small differences as meaningful - 88% and 91% are the same answer given how much the inputs themselves are estimates.
Why does it ask me to split my savings into three types?
Because tax treatment is the input this kind of calculator most often throws away, and it changes the answer materially. Tax-deferred savings are taxed as income when withdrawn and are subject to required minimum distributions from your seventies; Roth savings are not taxed and have no RMDs; taxable accounts are taxed on gains as you go. A million dollars split one way can support noticeably more spending than the same million split another. Rough totals are enough - the split matters more than the precision.
What Social Security figure should I enter?
The monthly amount you expect at the age you plan to claim, not your full retirement age amount unless those are the same. Your Social Security statement at ssa.gov shows estimates at several ages. If you are married and your spouse has little or no earnings record of their own, leave their amount blank - the calculator will model the spousal benefit they are entitled to based on yours.
Should I enter spending in today's dollars or future dollars?
Today's dollars. The calculator inflates your spending forward year by year using its own inflation assumption, so enter what that lifestyle costs at today's prices. The same goes for your Social Security figure and your income.
Do I need to include taxes in my spending?
No, and you should not. Income taxes are calculated for you every year of the plan, federal and state, based on where the money comes from. Adding them to your spending figure would count them twice and understate your result.
Is this the same engine as the full planner?
Yes. The number you see here is the number the full planner produces from the same inputs - there is no separate simplified model. What differs is how much detail you have given it. The full planner lets you enter individual expenses, healthcare, debts, property, one-time costs and Roth conversion strategies, all of which move the answer.
Is my information stored anywhere?
No. The calculation runs entirely inside your browser and your figures are never transmitted to us. If you choose to continue into the full planner, your plan is saved on your own device, not to a server.
How many simulations does it run, and why does that matter?
2,000. Each one draws a different sequence of market returns and runs your plan through it year by year. Running more would tighten the estimate slightly but not change the conclusion - your assumptions matter far more than the iteration count. What Monte Carlo captures that a flat-return projection cannot is sequence risk: a bad decade early in retirement does far more damage than the same decade later, even when the average return is identical.