Retirement Calculator
Project your retirement savings and estimated monthly retirement income.
Projected Savings at Age 65
$1,475,835
$524,487 in today's dollars
The 4% rule is a guideline suggesting you can withdraw 4% of your savings annually in retirement. This is an estimate, not financial advice.
How Much Should You Save for Retirement?
Fidelity's benchmarks (based on maintaining your current lifestyle in retirement):
| Age | Savings Target |
|---|---|
| 30 | 1x your annual salary |
| 40 | 3x your annual salary |
| 50 | 6x your annual salary |
| 60 | 8x your annual salary |
| 67 | 10x your annual salary |
These are targets, not minimums. Your actual need depends on your expected expenses, Social Security benefits, any pension income, and how early you want to retire.
Why Starting Early Matters More Than Saving More
Consider two people, both earning $70,000/year and saving $500/month at 7% annual returns:
Person A starts at age 25 and stops at 65 (40 years): ends with ~$1.32M
Person B starts at age 35 and stops at 65 (30 years): ends with ~$606K
Person A contributed only $60,000 more over their lifetime but ends up with $714,000 more. That's the power of compound growth over time. Use our investment return calculator to model your own scenario.
The 4% Rule
The 4% rule, from the Trinity Study, suggests you can withdraw 4% of your portfolio in your first year of retirement and adjust for inflation each year, with historically high probability of not running out of money over 30 years.
For example: a $1M portfolio would generate $40,000/year in initial withdrawals, or about $3,333/month. The calculator above uses this rule to estimate your monthly retirement income.
Some planners now suggest 3--3.5% for longer retirements or low-yield environments. The 4% figure is a useful starting benchmark, not a guarantee.
Free Retirement Calculator
Planning for retirement requires understanding how your savings will grow over decades and what that money will actually be worth when you need it. This calculator projects your retirement savings using compound growth with monthly contributions, then adjusts for inflation to show your purchasing power in today's dollars. The 4% rule estimate shows how much monthly income your savings could sustainably provide.
The projection uses: FV = PV × (1 + r/12)^n + PMT × [(1 + r/12)^n - 1] / (r/12), where n is months until retirement. The inflation-adjusted value divides by (1 + inflation)^years to show real purchasing power.
The 4% Rule
The 4% rule suggests you can withdraw 4% of your retirement savings annually (adjusted for inflation each year) with a high probability of your money lasting 30+ years. This translates to dividing your target retirement income by 0.04 to find your savings goal — for example, $60,000/year requires approximately $1.5 million saved. The rule is a starting point, not a guarantee — actual safe withdrawal rates depend on market conditions, asset allocation, and retirement length.
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