Money tools
Retirement Number Calculator (FIRE Planner)
Model your real situation — savings and salary today, raises, employer contributions, money arriving later, miscellaneous costs, inflation, different returns before and after you stop working, and Social Security — then see it as a chart, with a best/worst-case range, and a full drawdown that shows whether the money lasts.
Year-by-year: accumulation & drawdown
| Age | Phase | In / out (year) | Balance | Balance (today’s $) |
|---|
How this planner works
It runs your life in two phases, year by year, in nominal (future) dollars, then converts the chart and headline figures back to today’s purchasing power.
While you work (accumulation): each year your balance grows at the "return before" rate, then your contribution and your employer’s are added. Your salary grows by your raise, and — if you tick the box — your own contribution steps up with it. Any one-time inflow lands in the year you set.
Once you retire (drawdown): your core plus miscellaneous spending (inflated from today’s figures) is met first by Social Security or a pension once it starts, and only the shortfall is withdrawn from the portfolio, which now grows at the "return after" rate. The planner walks this to your planning age and reports whether the money lasts or the age it runs out.
The shaded band re-runs the whole projection with your return raised and lowered by the "return swing", so you can see the range of outcomes at a glance. The headline number is the flip side of the 4% rule — the portfolio-funded part of your spending in the year you retire, divided by your withdrawal rate. It ignores Social Security, so any pension income is a margin of safety.
The honest caveats
- Sequence risk: the band widens for the average return, but the order of good and bad years matters too — a rough first retirement decade is the real danger. Keep a cash buffer and stay flexible on spending.
- Taxes and healthcare are real costs — build them into your spending figures.
- Returns and inflation are assumptions, not forecasts.
- Next steps: model a single pot in the compound interest calculator, weigh pre-tax vs Roth with the Roth conversion calculator, or see how much to have saved by age.
Frequently asked questions
How much money do I need to retire?
A common starting point is 25 times your annual spending — the flip side of the 4% rule — net of any pension or Social Security. Someone who needs $50,000 a year from their portfolio needs roughly $1.25M. But that is just a target; this planner also runs a full year-by-year drawdown to your planning age so you can see whether the money truly lasts once inflation, a lower post-retirement return, and the timing of Social Security are all in play.
What is the shaded range on the chart?
The bold line is your central projection. The shaded band shows how the outcome changes if your average return runs higher or lower by the "return swing" you set — for example ±2% a year on both the accumulation and drawdown returns. It is a quick way to see how sensitive your plan is to returns, since markets never deliver a straight line. It is not a statistical confidence interval, and it does not capture sequence-of-returns risk (the order of good and bad years).
Why are there two different return rates?
Most people shift toward safer, lower-returning assets as they approach and enter retirement, so the return before retirement (accumulation) and after (drawdown) are usually different. Enter a higher growth rate while you are working and a more conservative one for the withdrawal years.
How does inflation work here?
The whole model runs in nominal (future) dollars: your salary grows, your contributions step up with it, and your spending and Social Security rise with inflation each year. The chart and the "today’s dollars" figures then convert back to current purchasing power so they are easy to relate to.
What are the one-time inflows and the miscellaneous line for?
One-time inflows are money you expect on a date — an inheritance, a home or business sale, vested equity — added to the portfolio that year. The miscellaneous / buffer line is extra yearly retirement spending on top of your core budget: travel, home repairs, healthcare surprises, gifts. Both make the plan more honest than a single clean number.
Is any of this guaranteed?
No. Returns are never a straight line, and a bad run early in retirement can break an otherwise fine plan even when the average is fine. Treat every figure as a planning estimate to stress-test, not a promise. This is general information, not personalised financial advice.
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