How Long Will My Retirement Savings Last?
Estimate how long your retirement savings could last based on what you want to spend after tax, your income, retirement age, inflation, and investment assumptions. Federal income tax on your withdrawals is estimated for you.
Based on these assumptions
Your retirement savings are projected to last through age 95.
Projected remaining balance at 95: approximately $624,000.
To spend about $113,100 after tax in your first year of retirement, the model withdraws $122,500 before tax and sets aside about $9,300 for federal income tax — a simplified estimate, an effective rate of 7.6%.
Once Social Security begins at 67, the portfolio withdrawal drops to about $80,100 a year — a 4.3% withdrawal rate on the projected balance of $1,844,000 that year.
Retirement years funded
31
Initial withdrawal rate
6.4%
Pre-tax withdrawal ÷ balance at retirement
Projected balance at 65
$1,914,000
First-year withdrawal
$122,500
Pre-tax, before Social Security starts at 67
Simplified federal tax estimate, year one
$9,300
Effective rate 7.6% · see note below
Projected balance at 95
$624,000
Projected portfolio balance
| Age | Baseline balance |
|---|---|
| 60 | $1,575,000 |
| 61 | $1,654,000 |
| 62 | $1,736,000 |
| 63 | $1,823,000 |
| 64 | $1,914,000 |
| 65 | $1,882,000 |
| 66 | $1,844,000 |
| 67 | $1,852,000 |
| 68 | $1,858,000 |
| 69 | $1,863,000 |
| 70 | $1,865,000 |
| 71 | $1,866,000 |
| 72 | $1,864,000 |
| 73 | $1,859,000 |
| 74 | $1,852,000 |
| 75 | $1,842,000 |
| 76 | $1,829,000 |
| 77 | $1,813,000 |
| 78 | $1,794,000 |
| 79 | $1,770,000 |
| 80 | $1,743,000 |
| 81 | $1,711,000 |
| 82 | $1,674,000 |
| 83 | $1,633,000 |
| 84 | $1,587,000 |
| 85 | $1,535,000 |
| 86 | $1,477,000 |
| 87 | $1,413,000 |
| 88 | $1,343,000 |
| 89 | $1,265,000 |
| 90 | $1,180,000 |
| 91 | $1,086,000 |
| 92 | $985,000 |
| 93 | $874,000 |
| 94 | $754,000 |
| 95 | $624,000 |
Optional stress test
See the impact of an early market downturn
A hypothetical 30% decline in your first year of retirement, with the market recovering to its previous level over the following 3 years. Your inputs stay the same; the chart above shows both paths.
Important: This calculator is provided for educational purposes only and is not intended to provide investment, tax, legal, or financial advice. Results are hypothetical estimates based on the assumptions entered and do not account for all factors that may affect an individual’s retirement. Actual results may differ materially.
What Determines How Long Your Retirement Savings Last?
The calculator uses nine things, and they do not carry equal weight. Spending, taxes and guaranteed income set the size of the annual withdrawal; returns, inflation, and the planning horizon decide how many of those withdrawals the portfolio can absorb.
- Starting savings
- The balance you begin retirement with, including whatever it earns between now and then.
- Spending
- The single biggest lever. Every after-tax dollar not covered by guaranteed income comes from the portfolio, every year, rising with inflation.
- Taxes
- Withdrawals from a traditional IRA or 401(k) are taxable income, so more has to come out than you spend. The calculator estimates the federal tax and grosses up the withdrawal to cover it.
- Social Security
- Reduces what the portfolio has to supply, and is inflation-adjusted. When it starts changes the early years.
- Pensions and other income
- Guaranteed income does the same job. A pension without a cost-of-living adjustment covers less each year as prices rise.
- Retirement age
- Each additional working year adds growth on one side and removes a year of withdrawals on the other.
- Investment returns
- Higher assumed returns stretch the money further — but the assumption matters more than most people expect, and the order of returns matters too.
- Inflation
- Compounds against you. Spending that rises 2.5% a year is 64% higher after twenty years.
- Longevity
- The planning age is the horizon the money has to reach. A longer one is the safer assumption.
What this calculator leaves out, and why it matters
This is deliberately a simple model, and the simplifications are not small. Each of these can move the answer by years.
- Roth and brokerage accounts
- Every dollar is treated as pre-tax. Roth money comes out tax-free and brokerage accounts are taxed on gains, not income, so a real plan usually owes less tax than this one.
- Required minimum distributions
- From your early 70s the IRS requires withdrawals from pre-tax accounts whether you need them or not. They can raise the tax bill in years the model shows as quiet.
- State income tax
- Only federal tax is estimated. Illinois exempts retirement income, but most states do not, and a move changes the answer.
- Investment fees
- Not deducted. Fees compound against you as quietly as inflation does, and over thirty years the difference is real.
- Spending that is not smooth
- Spending is assumed to rise evenly with inflation. Real retirements are lumpier: healthcare and long-term care arrive late and large, and spending often dips in the middle years.
- Social Security and pension decisions
- Benefits are taken as entered. When you claim, a survivor’s benefit, and any change in the law can all move the result.
- How the pieces interact
- The account a withdrawal comes from changes the tax, which changes the withdrawal, which changes what is left to grow. That is why a projection like this is the start of a conversation, not a substitute for a full analysis.
- The order of your returns
- The largest thing left out is the one no calculator can enter. The projection assumes the same return every year. Real markets do not do that, and when the poor years come first the damage is out of all proportion to the average. That is sequence-of-returns risk, and it is the reason the downturn scenario exists.
Why Your Average Return Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story
A portfolio averaging 5% over many years does not necessarily produce the same retirement result as earning exactly 5% every year. While you are saving, the order of returns barely matters — the money compounds either way. Once you are withdrawing, it matters a great deal.
If the poor years come early, each withdrawal is taken from a portfolio that is already down, and the shares sold to fund it are gone before the recovery arrives. If the same poor years come late, the portfolio has had years of growth to absorb them. Same average, different outcome. This is called sequence-of-returns risk, and the first few years of retirement are where it bites hardest.
Use the market-downturn scenario in the calculator above to see how the timing of poor returns can affect the same retirement plan. It applies a 30% decline in the first year of retirement and a 3-year recovery, then compares the result with your baseline.
What If Your Savings Don’t Last as Long as You’d Like?
Four things move the answer. None of them is a recommendation — which lever to pull, and how far, depends on the rest of your situation.
Spending
Even modest changes can materially affect portfolio longevity, because a lower withdrawal compounds in your favour every year that follows.
Retirement age
Additional working years can simultaneously increase savings and reduce the number of years the portfolio has to fund.
Guaranteed income
Social Security or pension income reduces reliance on portfolio withdrawals. The timing of a Social Security claim is part of this.
Portfolio and withdrawal strategy
Asset allocation and withdrawal decisions can affect how a retirement portfolio responds to market conditions — including which accounts you draw from and when.
Questions people ask
How long will $1 million last in retirement?
It depends on what you spend, how much of that spending is covered by Social Security or a pension, and what your investments earn after inflation. Someone drawing $40,000 a year from $1 million, with Social Security covering the rest of their spending, is in a very different position from someone drawing $80,000. Enter your own numbers in the calculator above to see a projection for your situation rather than a rule of thumb.
How long will $2 million last in retirement?
The same principle applies. Doubling the savings does not double the answer if spending doubles too. What matters is the portfolio withdrawal — spending minus guaranteed income — as a share of the balance, and how that share grows with inflation over time. The calculator lets you test $2 million against your own spending, Social Security, and return assumptions.
What is a reasonable retirement withdrawal rate?
There is no single number that is right for everyone. A withdrawal rate that is comfortable for a 70-year-old with a pension may be too high for a 60-year-old with no guaranteed income and a 35-year horizon. The initial withdrawal rate shown in the calculator — the first-year portfolio withdrawal divided by the balance at retirement — is a useful reference point, but what makes it sustainable is the combination of spending flexibility, investment returns, inflation, and how long the money has to last.
Does Social Security help retirement savings last longer?
Yes. Social Security reduces the amount that has to come from your investment portfolio each year, and because benefits are adjusted for inflation, that support keeps pace with rising costs. When you start benefits matters too: in the calculator, a later start age means more years of drawing from the portfolio before Social Security arrives, in exchange for a larger benefit that this simplified model does not adjust for.
How does inflation affect retirement savings?
Inflation raises the amount you need to withdraw every year. At 2.5% a year, $100,000 of spending today becomes roughly $128,000 in ten years and about $164,000 in twenty. Because the withdrawals compound upward while the portfolio has to keep funding them, a plan that looks comfortable in year one can tighten considerably by year twenty. That is why the calculator inflates spending every year rather than holding it flat.
Does this calculator account for taxes?
Federal income tax, yes — as a simplified estimate. You enter what you want to spend after tax, and the calculator assumes your withdrawals come from a pre-tax account such as a traditional IRA or 401(k), so it takes out enough to cover the spending and the federal tax on it. It uses the current standard deduction and tax brackets, the extra deduction for each person 65 or older, and the temporary senior deduction that under current law ends after 2028, and it applies the IRS rules for how much of Social Security is taxable. On a joint return it uses your spouse’s age for their deductions. It models only the income you enter here — not state income tax, Roth or brokerage withdrawals, itemized deductions, credits, or other household income — so it is an estimate for planning, not a tax return.
Why do market losses early in retirement matter?
Because withdrawals continue while the portfolio is down. Selling investments to fund spending after a decline locks in losses on the shares sold, and there is less left to benefit from the recovery. The same average return with the poor years at the end instead of the beginning can produce a very different outcome. The optional market-downturn scenario in the calculator shows this on your own numbers.
Want to Look at the Full Retirement Picture?
This calculator intentionally simplifies retirement. A complete analysis can account for taxes, IRA and Roth balances, Social Security timing, investment risk, Roth conversions, RMDs, healthcare costs, and other decisions that may affect your retirement income.
Calculator assumptions and disclosures
Important: This calculator is provided for educational purposes only and is not intended to provide investment, tax, legal, or financial advice. Results are hypothetical estimates based on the assumptions entered and do not account for all factors that may affect an individual’s retirement. Actual results may differ materially.
The federal income tax shown is a simplified estimate, not a tax calculation for your return. It assumes every withdrawal comes from a pre-tax retirement account and is fully taxable, treats pension income as fully taxable, and applies the IRS provisional-income rules to Social Security. It models only the income sources entered in this calculator: it does not model taxable brokerage gains, tax-exempt interest, Roth withdrawals, itemized deductions, tax credits, state income tax, Medicare premium surcharges (IRMAA), required minimum distributions, or other household income. It uses the 2026 federal tax brackets and standard deduction, indexed forward at your inflation assumption, plus the additional standard deduction for each person 65 or older. It also includes the temporary senior deduction of up to $6,000 per person 65 or older, which under current law applies only to tax years 2025 through 2028 and phases out above $75,000 of income ($150,000 on a joint return); the model removes it after 2028. On a joint return your spouse’s age is used for your spouse’s deductions.
The market-downturn scenario is hypothetical and is intended only to demonstrate how an early market decline and subsequent recovery could affect portfolio withdrawals. It is not a forecast or prediction of future market performance.
Not modelled
- State income tax — Illinois exempts retirement income, but most states do not
- Roth and taxable-brokerage accounts — every withdrawal is treated as fully taxable, as from a traditional IRA or 401(k)
- Capital gains, dividends, itemized deductions, tax credits, and Medicare premium surcharges (IRMAA)
- Investment fees and expenses
- Actual market volatility — returns are assumed to be the same every year except in the optional downturn scenario
- Changes in spending over retirement, including healthcare and long-term care costs
- Changes to Social Security or pension benefits, and any survivor or spousal benefit rules
- Required minimum distributions, Roth conversions, and other tax-timing decisions
- Future changes to tax law — the temporary senior deduction is assumed to end after 2028 as currently scheduled