"Am I saving enough for retirement?" is really two questions: how much will you have, and how much will you need. This calculator answers both — and then goes a step further by simulating what happens after retirement, when your portfolio switches from growing to being drawn down.
How to Use This Retirement Calculator
Enter your current age, planned retirement age, current savings, and monthly contribution, along with any employer match as a percentage of your own contribution. In the assumptions section, set your expected returns before and after retirement (often lower after, reflecting a more conservative portfolio), expected inflation, your desired annual income in retirement in today's dollars, and the age you want your plan to cover.
How This Calculator Determines If You're "On Track"
First, it projects your balance forward to your retirement date using your contributions, employer match, and expected pre-retirement return. Separately, it takes your desired income — entered in today's dollars — and inflates it to what that same purchasing power will cost by your retirement date. From there, it calculates the lump sum needed at retirement to fund that inflating income stream for every year until your planned life expectancy, given your expected post-retirement return. If your projected balance meets or exceeds that target, you're on track.
Why the Drawdown Phase Matters
A portfolio in retirement is simultaneously growing (from continued investment return) and shrinking (from withdrawals that themselves rise with inflation each year). Whether the money lasts depends on the balance between those two forces, which is why this calculator simulates retirement year by year rather than applying a flat withdrawal-rate rule. If withdrawals outpace growth, it reports the exact age your money is projected to run out.
Example Calculation
Someone aged 30 with $40,000 saved, contributing $800 a month with a 50% employer match, expecting a 7% return before retirement and 5% after, planning to retire at 65 with a $60,000 annual income (today's dollars) through age 90, would see this calculator project their balance at 65, inflate the $60,000 target forward across 35 years of 3% assumed inflation, and compare the two — showing clearly whether the projected balance covers the inflated target.
What Affects Your Retirement Outlook
- Time until retirement — more years means more compounding on both your contributions and your employer's match.
- Employer match — effectively a guaranteed return on top of your own contribution; not taking full advantage of it leaves money on the table.
- Return assumptions — small changes to expected return compound significantly over a multi-decade horizon.
- Desired retirement income — a higher target requires a proportionally larger portfolio to sustain it through a full retirement.