Enter what you have saved and what you spend each month. You get the age the money runs out, an honest range around it, and — if you want it — the odds you are still here to spend it.
Everything here is in today's money
Your spending stays constant in real terms, so it already rises with inflation every year, and the return you pick is already after inflation. That is why there is no separate inflation box to fill in.
Your result
That is about 23.3 years of spending, starting today.
A rough run empties it around age 81. A good run stretches to age 111.
You are drawing 7.2% of the pot in year one.
That is above the 4% rule, which would allow about $1,667 a month.
The link carries your inputs only — nothing is saved on our side.
Add your life expectancy to see where the money question meets the mortality question.
The shaded band holds the middle half of modelled outcomes — a quarter land below it, a quarter above. The dashed amber line is the same pot spending exactly 4% of its starting value.
7.2%
High — above 5%. Expect to trim spending, earn something on the side, or accept a real chance of running out.
The marks are the usual 3%, 4% and 5% guidance posts. Your rate is the first year of withdrawals divided by the pot.
A short, honest description of the model — so you know exactly what the number above is and is not.
Survival data: SSA Period Life Table, 2021 (as used in the 2024 Trustees Report), published by the U.S. Social Security Administration, Office of the Chief Actuary. View the source table
Five inputs, two of which are optional. Start with the simple ones and only open Advanced if the presets do not describe your portfolio.
Enter your age and the pot you can spend
Count the money you would genuinely draw down — investments, accessible pensions, cash. The house you live in does not belong here unless you intend to sell it and rent.
Enter what you spend each month
Use today's prices and subtract anything already covered by a pension, state benefit or rental income. The calculator only needs the gap your savings have to fill.
Pick an expected return after inflation
Conservative (3%) suits a bond-heavy pot, Balanced (5%) a classic mixed portfolio, Aggressive (7%) an equity-heavy one. These are real returns, so inflation is already handled.
Read the headline, then the band
The big number is the middle outcome. The shaded band beside it is the middle half of results — read them together, because the band is the honest part.
Add your life expectancy if you want the real answer
Open Advanced and pick male or female to overlay the odds you are still alive. "Runs out at 88" reads very differently once you can see the chance you reach 88.
Six levers, roughly in order of how much they move the answer.
Spending is the strongest lever by far. Cutting the monthly figure by 10% buys far more runway than squeezing another half a percent out of your returns.
Flexibility beats precision. Retirees who trim spending in bad years and top it up in good ones survive sequences that would sink a rigidly fixed withdrawal.
Keep one to three years of spending in cash or short bonds. It is the simplest defence against selling equities into a crash in your first few years.
Delay what you can. Every year you do not draw is a year of compounding kept and a year of withdrawals removed — it moves the depletion age by more than most people expect.
Count guaranteed income properly. A state pension starting at 67 does not lengthen the pot, it shrinks the gap the pot has to cover from 67 onward — model that as lower spending from that date.
Fees come straight off your real return. A 1% annual fee on a 5% real return is a fifth of your growth, and on a long horizon that is years of runway.
Not retired yet? Our FIRE planner works the other way round — how long until you can stop.
Deeper guides on our blog that build on the topics in this tool.
The middle outcome for a $500,000 pot at three real returns, with spending held flat in today's money. Notice how the answer stops being a number entirely once the withdrawal rate drops below the return.
| Monthly spending | 3% real return | 5% real return | 7% real return |
|---|---|---|---|
| $2,000 (4.8% a year) | 32.5 years | Never runs out | Never runs out |
| $2,500 (6.0% a year) | 23.0 years | 34.6 years | Never runs out |
| $3,000 (7.2% a year) | 17.9 years | 23.3 years | 42.3 years |
| $4,000 (9.6% a year) | 12.5 years | 14.7 years | 18.2 years |
| $5,000 (12.0% a year) | 9.6 years | 10.8 years | 12.3 years |
Middle (p50) outcome from this calculator on a $500,000 starting pot. Figures are years of runway, not a promise.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Safe withdrawal rate | The share of your starting pot you can take in the first year, then keep taking in real terms, without running out over your planning horizon. It is a research finding about past markets, not a law. |
| 4% rule | Bill Bengen's 1994 finding that a 4% first-year withdrawal, raised with inflation each year, survived every 30-year US retirement window he tested. It assumes a 30-year horizon, a stock-heavy portfolio and no fees. |
| Sequence-of-returns risk | The risk that poor returns arrive early. Two retirements with identical average returns end very differently if one of them crashes in year two, because withdrawals lock in the losses. |
| Real return | Return after inflation. A 7% return with 3% inflation is a 4% real return — the only number that tells you what your money can actually buy. |
| Depletion age | The age at which the modelled balance first reaches zero. Here it is reported for the middle outcome, with the p25 and p75 ages either side of it. |
| p25–p75 band | The middle half of modelled outcomes. A quarter of outcomes land below the bottom edge and a quarter above the top edge, so the band is the range you should plan inside. |
| Volatility | The standard deviation of annual returns — how far results scatter around the average. It does not change the middle outcome, only how wide the band around it becomes. |
| Period life table | A table of one-year death probabilities at every age, measured in a single calendar year. This tool uses the U.S. Social Security Administration's 2021 period table, a public-domain federal dataset. |
It depends almost entirely on what you spend. Drawing $2,000 a month with a 5% real return, $500,000 never runs out — the growth covers the withdrawal. At $3,000 a month it lasts about 23 years, and at $5,000 a month only about 11. Spending is the lever, not the pot.
It comes from Bill Bengen's 1994 study: take 4% of your pot in year one, raise that amount with inflation every year afterwards, and in every historical 30-year US window the money lasted. It assumes a 30-year retirement, a stock-heavy portfolio and no fees or taxes, so treat it as a benchmark rather than a promise.
Yes, and it does it the cleaner way. Every figure is in today's money: your spending stays constant in real terms — which means it rises with inflation in cash terms — and the return you choose is already after inflation. That is why there is no separate inflation input.
Exactly twice as long as $500,000 at the same monthly spend, because the model is scale-invariant. What actually matters is the ratio: $1 million with $4,000 a month is the same 4.8% withdrawal rate as $500,000 with $2,000 a month, and both give the same number of years.
For a 30-year retirement in a balanced portfolio, 3% to 4% is the usual range, with 4% as the classic anchor. Retire early and the horizon lengthens, so a lower rate is warranted — many early retirees plan at 3% to 3.5%. The gauge on this page marks all three posts.
Only partly, and we would rather say so. The band shows a spread of outcomes, but each edge is a smooth curve rather than a real order of good and bad years. A crash in your first five years hurts more than anything drawn here, which is why the flexibility and cash-buffer tips above matter.
Switch on the life-expectancy overlay and the page answers it directly. It compares the chance you are still alive at each age with the chance the pot has run dry by then, and reports the probability that your money outlives you. Above 50% we say the money is likely to outlive you; below, that you may outlive it.
Use a real, after-inflation return you would defend to a sceptic. Broad global equities have delivered roughly 5% to 7% real over the very long run, a balanced portfolio a little less, cash and short bonds close to zero. If in doubt, run the number twice — once optimistic, once pessimistic — and plan against the worse one.
Not as savings. Guaranteed income does not add to the pot, it reduces what the pot has to cover. Subtract it from your monthly spending figure. If it starts later, run the calculator twice: once at today's full spending, and once from the start date at the reduced figure.
It is the middle half of the outcomes the model produces. The bottom edge is the 25th percentile — a rough run — and the top edge the 75th. A quarter of outcomes fall outside each edge, so treat the band as the planning range and the line through the middle as a single point inside it.
No. Taxes depend on your country, your account types and your income mix, and fees depend on your funds. The honest workaround is to build them into the two inputs you control: raise your monthly spending to cover expected tax, and lower the real return by your fund fees.
In order of impact: cut monthly spending, delay the day you start drawing, add guaranteed income, then take more investment risk — in that order, because the first two are certain and the last one is not. Re-run the calculator after each change and watch the depletion age move.
This calculator models one pot of money, one flat real spending level and one smooth return assumption. It ignores taxes, fees, lumpy one-off costs, guaranteed income that starts later, and the real-world order in which good and bad years arrive. The life-expectancy overlay uses a public U.S. period life table, which describes a population and cannot describe you. Treat every number here as an estimate to pressure-test, and run any decision about retiring or drawing down your savings past a qualified financial adviser first.
This calculator models a single pile of money and a single spending number. My Financial Freedom Tracker follows the real thing: every account, pension and property in one net-worth picture, with a lifetime projection built on top of it.
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