Retirement Savings Calculator
Project where your retirement savings are headed. Enter what you've saved, your monthly contribution, expected return, and years to retirement to see your nest egg and the income it could produce.
Example: with Current savings $50,000 · Monthly contribution $500 · Annual return 7% · Years to retirement 30 yrs → Nest egg at retirement: $1,015,810.
- Annual income$40,632
- Monthly income$3,386
- Total contributed$230,000
Computed by the calculator below using its default values. Change any input to see your own numbers.
Deeper retirement-readiness projection
Projected nest egg
How you compare
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Check it outBuilding the nest egg
Your balance compounds monthly on both savings and contributions. At retirement, the '4% rule' is a common rule of thumb for how much you can withdraw annually with low risk of running out — so a $1,000,000 nest egg suggests roughly $40,000 a year. Returns aren't guaranteed and inflation erodes buying power, so revisit the plan regularly.
How it’s calculated
Savings and contributions compound monthly to retirement; annual income then applies the 4% withdrawal rule.
Readiness projection (needed vs. projected): Projected balance grows your current savings plus your combined contribution (your % + employer match, applied to current income as a level monthly amount) from your current age to retirement age at the pre-retirement return. Needed-at-retirement takes your income-replacement target (replacement % × current income) minus your expected annual Social Security/pension income to find the annual income gap your savings must cover, then multiplies that gap by a present-value-of-annuity-due factor built from the post-retirement return and inflation rate over your retirement horizon (retirement age to life expectancy) — this converts a growing (inflation-adjusted) stream of future withdrawals into a single lump sum needed on day one of retirement. Gap is needed minus projected (negative means a projected surplus). The extra monthly savings figure solves for the additional level monthly contribution, on top of what you already contribute, needed to close a positive gap by retirement age at the pre-retirement return.
Results update as you type and are estimates, not professional advice — verify important decisions with a qualified professional.
Year-by-year growth
Common mistakes
- Using an aggressive return and ignoring inflation.
- Forgetting taxes on traditional account withdrawals.
Frequently asked questions
What is the 4% rule?
A guideline suggesting you can withdraw about 4% of your portfolio in year one (adjusted for inflation after) with a good chance it lasts 30 years.
What return should I use?
Be realistic and conservative. Long-run diversified returns vary, and sequence-of-returns risk matters near retirement.
Does this account for inflation?
No — results are in nominal dollars. Reduce the return by your inflation assumption to think in today's dollars.
Is the 4% rule still safe?
It's a planning benchmark, not a guarantee: 4% initial withdrawal with inflation adjustments survived every historical 30-year US period in the original study. Recent research often suggests 3.5–4% for longer retirements; this calculator lets you set the rate.
How much do I need to retire?
A quick benchmark is 25× your planned annual spending (the inverse of the 4% rule) — $60,000/yr of spending implies about $1.5M, less any Social Security or pension income, which reduces the target substantially.
How is the "amount needed at retirement" figured?
We take your income-replacement target (e.g. 75% of current income), subtract your expected annual Social Security benefit to find the income gap your savings must cover, then multiply that gap by a present-value-of-annuity factor built from your post-retirement return and inflation rate over your expected retirement horizon (retirement age to life expectancy).
Why two different return rates?
Most people shift toward a more conservative mix after they retire, since they're drawing the balance down rather than adding to it and have less time to recover from a downturn — so this calculator lets you set a higher pre-retirement growth rate and a lower post-retirement (drawdown) rate separately.