Retirement lifestyle calculator
How much will you need to save to support your lifestyle in retirement?
This calculator helps you estimate how much you need to save by your retirement age to fund your desired lifestyle throughout retirement.
Annual lifestyle spending in today's dollars. Monthly Social Security, pension, or rental income, etc. $0 Annual withdrawals and remaining balance from retirement through life expectancy. Your other income covers your spending, so no withdrawal schedule applies.Plan
Spending & Income
Growth Rate
How to use this retirement lifestyle calculator
Our calculator estimates how much you would need to save for retirement to support the lifestyle you want from your retirement age through your life expectancy.
The answer depends on the details you enter, including your current age, retirement age, life expectancy, yearly spending goal, other retirement income, inflation rate, expected investment return, and estimated tax rate at retirement. We project your spending to retirement using inflation, subtract other income, adjust for taxes, and use present value math to estimate the lump sum needed to fund rising withdrawals over your retirement years.
You can adjust any of the inputs to reflect your situation or test different assumptions. When you are ready, click Calculate to update your results, chart, and year-by-year table.
Plan
Current Age: Enter your age today.
Retirement Age: Enter the age when you expect to retire. It must be greater than your current age.
Life Expectancy: Enter the age through which you want your plan to last. It must be greater than your retirement age. The calculator uses this to determine how many years of retirement spending to fund.
Spending and Income
Yearly Spending: Enter how much you want to spend each year in retirement, in today’s dollars. The calculator projects this amount forward to your retirement age using your inflation rate, then increases it each year of retirement.
Other Retirement Income: Enter any steady monthly income you expect in retirement, such as Social Security or a pension. The calculator subtracts this from your spending need before estimating how much must come from your savings.
Growth Rate
Inflation Rate: Enter the annual inflation rate you expect between now and retirement, and during retirement. This affects how much your spending goal may rise over time.
Rate of Return: Enter the average annual return you expect on your retirement savings during retirement. Even after you retire, your balance stays invested and continues to earn this return in the model.
Tax Rate: Enter the income tax rate you expect to pay on withdrawals in retirement. If you are unsure, your current tax bracket can be a reasonable starting point.
Review your results
After you calculate, review your target at retirement amount and the summary stats below it. Use the Chart and Table views to see Taken Out and Balance Left year by year from retirement through life expectancy. You can export a CSV to download the full schedule.
What the retirement lifestyle results tell you
Target at retirement
This is the lump sum you would need saved by your retirement age to fund your planned lifestyle through your life expectancy. The calculator grows your yearly spending for inflation, subtracts other retirement income, adjusts for taxes, and estimates how much your portfolio would need at the start of retirement to cover annual withdrawals while your remaining balance continues to earn your expected rate of return.
Total to fund years of spending
This shows how many years of retirement spending your target is designed to cover. It is based on the gap between your retirement age and life expectancy, not a fixed number of years. If you change either age, this timeline updates along with your savings target.
Retire in
This is the number of years from today until the retirement age you entered. It helps you see how much time you have left to build toward your target.
Lasts
This shows how many years your savings target is meant to support spending after you retire. It reflects the years from retirement through your life expectancy.
Other income
This shows what share of your retirement spending could be covered by other income, such as Social Security, a pension, or rental income. If other income fully covers your spending need, the calculator will show that no additional savings target is required and the withdrawal schedule will not apply.
Spending in retirement
This is your annual spending goal adjusted for inflation to what it would likely equal in the year you retire. It reflects the lifestyle you want in future dollars, not today’s dollars.
Income before tax
This is the pre-tax annual income you would need at retirement to cover spending after accounting for other income and your expected tax rate. It shows how much must come from your portfolio each year before taxes are taken out.
Monthly spending today
This breaks your yearly spending input into a monthly amount in today’s dollars. It is a simple reference point for how your annual spending goal compares to a monthly budget right now.
Year-by-year withdrawal plan
This chart and table walk through each year from retirement to life expectancy. It shows how much would be taken out annually, how much would remain in your balance, and how withdrawals rise with inflation over time. You can switch between chart and table view or export the schedule as a CSV.
Run a full retirement calculation
How much money do you need to retire?
It’s a big task to prepare for retirement, but one thing you can’t afford to do is to put it off — another is to base your retirement savings assumptions on the wrong approach.
Some calculators suggest rules of thumb that base your retirement income on a percentage of your working income. But that approach is flawed.
Instead, you should decide how you want to live in retirement and determine what it will cost to support that lifestyle. See what that looks like, and then start to plan.
Remember that your expenses could change in retirement too, so you’ll need to refine and adjust your plan and assumptions all along the way.
Learn how to plan your retirement budget
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