How this calculator works:
This calculator creates a detailed estimate of your financial trajectory based on your
current savings habits and future spending plans.
To calculate how much you'll have at retirement, we take the current value of your
investments and determine, based on your expected annual return before retirement, what
they will be worth at your selected retirement age. We then apply the same process to
your contributions1, which are assumed to continue each year up to your
retirement age. The end result gives us your projected savings at retirement.
From there we use a similar process to see how long your retirement funds will last.
After retirement, we assume that your investments will continue to grow at the after
retirement rate of return. We then use the expected inflation rate to determine the
withdrawal amounts needed to provide the same purchasing power in the future as the
withdrawal amount you entered has today2. This allows us to calculate the age
at which you will exhaust your retirement savings.
If you include income from Social Security or a pension we reduce your withdrawals by
those amounts3.
1 Contributions/withdrawals are assumed to be made at the
end of each year.
2 One of the biggest mistakes individuals make in planning
for retirement is not accounting for the reduction in purchasing power caused by
inflation.
3 Social Security benefits begin at the age you select,
pension benefits begin immediately upon retirement. Both are scaled up over time at the
selected rate of inflation.