When Can I Retire?
Enter your financial details to project your FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) path and see when you can achieve your retirement goals.
You Can Retire At Age
67
Nest Egg Required
$900,000
in today's dollars
Projected Savings at Retirement
$1,236,323
in today's dollars
How this works
Growth is projected using the real (inflation-adjusted) return — the nominal annual return you enter (default 7%), deflated by your inflation input (default 2.5%) — compounded monthly, and every dollar figure is shown in today's purchasing power rather than future inflated dollars.
Finds the earliest age at which your portfolio, growing at the accumulation-phase real return, covers your desired retirement spending net of Social Security. After that age, it simulates the drawdown at a separate (typically lower) post-retirement real return.
Each retirement year's spending is withdrawn from the portfolio first, and only the remaining balance grows for the rest of that year — growing a full year before withdrawing would assume you live on nothing for twelve months and flatters the result.
Key assumptions
- Post-retirement return defaults to 5%, more conservative than the 7% accumulation default, reflecting a typical shift toward bonds.
- Social Security is entered in today's dollars and applied once you reach your entered claiming age, with no further inflation adjustment (since the whole projection is already in real terms).
- The drawdown simulation runs up to 60 years past retirement or until the portfolio is exhausted.
What this leaves out
- Sequence-of-returns risk — growth is a constant rate, not a real market path.
- Fees — expense ratios and advisory fees are not deducted from the return.
- Taxes in retirement — withdrawals are treated as spendable in full; account type (traditional, Roth, taxable) is not modeled.
- Income growth — savings and contributions stay flat in real terms.
- Irregular spending — no college costs, home purchases, medical shocks, or windfalls.
- Social Security uncertainty — the benefit you enter is taken at face value, with no modeling of future benefit cuts or claiming-age tradeoffs.
Related calculators
A worked example: retiring at 67 with Social Security in the mix
A 30-year-old with $25,000 invested saves $1,000 a month, expects a 7% nominal return against 2.5% inflation while working and a more conservative 5% after retiring, wants $60,000 a year to live on, and expects $2,000 a month of Social Security starting at 67.
Social Security changes the target rather than the timeline. Once it starts, it covers $24,000 of the $60,000 spending goal, leaving $36,000 for the portfolio to fund. At a 4% withdrawal rate that is a nest egg of $900,000, not the $1,500,000 the full $60,000 would require. The model finds the earliest age at which the portfolio covers spending net of Social Security, and here that is age 67.
The reason 67 and not earlier is worth sitting with: retiring before the claiming age means funding the entire $60,000 from the portfolio, which needs the full $1,500,000, and this saver does not get there sooner. Every figure is in today's dollars, and the Social Security estimate is taken at face value with no further inflation adjustment, since the projection is already in real terms.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the model withdraw before growing each year?
Because the alternative flatters the result. In the drawdown simulation the year's spending comes out first and only the remaining balance grows for the rest of the year. Growing a full year before withdrawing would assume you lived on nothing for twelve months, which quietly adds a year of compounding to every year of retirement. The difference is small annually and large across a 30-year drawdown.
Why is the post-retirement return lower than the accumulation return?
It defaults to 5% against 7% during accumulation, reflecting the typical shift toward bonds as the horizon shortens and sequence risk starts to matter more than growth. It is a separate input because the shift is a real choice, not a law — if you intend to hold the same allocation through retirement, set them equal and see what that does to the timeline.
Should I trust the Social Security figure I enter?
Treat it as a planning input with real uncertainty attached. The model takes your number at face value in today's dollars and applies it from your claiming age onward; it does not model benefit cuts, the earnings test, taxation of benefits, or the tradeoff between claiming at 62 and at 70 (which changes the benefit substantially in both directions). Pull a personalized estimate from SSA.gov, then try the projection again with a lower figure to see how much of your plan depends on it.
What does it mean when the calculator says retirement is not reachable?
That the portfolio never covers your spending net of Social Security before age 100, the point at which the search stops. It is not a rounding artifact. The usual causes are a spending goal that is high relative to income, a contribution too small to reach the target, or a withdrawal rate low enough to make the required nest egg very large. Change one input at a time to see which is binding.
Does this account for taxes in retirement?
No, and it is the largest omission here. Withdrawals are treated as spendable in full, and account type — traditional, Roth, taxable — is not modeled at all. A traditional 401(k) balance is worth meaningfully less than the same number in a Roth. If most of your savings are pre-tax, consider entering a higher desired retirement income to approximate the tax you will owe on withdrawals.
Sources
- Determining Withdrawal Rates Using Historical Data
William P. Bengen, 1994, Journal of Financial Planning — checked 2026-08-12
The paper that established the '4% rule' — the foundational research this site's safe withdrawal rate defaults trace back to.
- Retirement Savings: Choosing a Withdrawal Rate That Is Sustainable
Philip L. Cooley, Carl M. Hubbard, Daniel T. Walz, 1998, AAII Journal — checked 2026-08-12
The 'Trinity study,' which expands on Bengen across a range of withdrawal rates and portfolio mixes. Only Table 3 in the original paper is inflation-adjusted — the commonly-quoted near-100% success rates come from the nominal-withdrawal Tables 1-2.
- Safe Withdrawal Rate Series
Big ERN, Early Retirement Now — checked 2026-08-12
A practitioner blog, not peer-reviewed — the most detailed public research on SWR sensitivity to horizon length and asset mix.
- State of Retirement Income: 2025
Morningstar — checked 2026-08-12
Forward-looking base-case starting withdrawal rate, cited for context alongside the fixed 4% default this site uses. The ~3.9% figure is search-attested rather than directly confirmed against the source — treat it as a data point, not a recommendation, and worth checking whether a newer edition has superseded it.
- Consumer Price Index
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — checked 2026-08-12
Backs the long-run inflation figures behind this site's 2.5% default inflation input.
- Retirement Estimator
Social Security Administration — checked 2026-08-12
For a personalized Social Security benefit estimate to use as this calculator's input, rather than the flat figure you'd otherwise guess.
*The calculations provided are for illustrative purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Please consult with a qualified financial professional before making any decisions.