Project your retirement nest egg and see whether you are on track
Enter a valid age (16-80)
Retirement age must be greater than current age
$
Enter a valid amount (0-100,000,000)
$
Enter a valid amount (0-100,000,000)
%
Enter a valid return rate (0-20)
$
Enter a valid amount (0-100,000,000)
Projected nest egg at retirement
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Sustainable monthly income --
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Years to retirement
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Target nest egg
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Surplus / gap
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Sustainable monthly income
Current savings--
Monthly contribution--
Total contributions--
Investment growth--
Target nest egg--
Surplus / gap--
Retirement Calculator — Complete Guide
What this calculator does
The Retirement Calculator turns a handful of everyday numbers into a clear picture of your future: your current age, the age you want to stop working, the savings you already hold, the amount you add every month, an assumed annual return, and the income you hope to live on. It compounds all of that forward and shows the nest egg you are on track to build by the day you retire.
From that single projection it derives three things people care about most. First, the target nest egg you would need to fund your desired lifestyle, estimated using the widely used 25× rule. Second, the surplus or gap between what you are projected to save and that target. Third, the sustainable monthly income your projected balance could support at a 4% withdrawal rate. Together they answer the only question that matters: am I on track?
The formula
years = retirement age − current age
r = annual return ÷ 12 ÷ 100
n = years × 12
future value = current savings × (1 + r)^n + monthly contribution × ((1 + r)^n − 1) ÷ r
target nest egg = expected annual spending × 25
gap = future value − target nest egg
sustainable monthly income = future value × 4% ÷ 12
The first term grows your existing savings with compound interest. The second term is an annuity: a steady stream of monthly contributions, each of which earns its own compounded return. Even modest monthly amounts become significant over decades, because the money you add in year one has thirty or more years to grow.
A worked example
Suppose you are 30, plan to retire at 65, already hold $50,000, add $500 a month, expect a 7% annual return, and want to spend $40,000 a year in retirement.
Years to retirement: 65 − 30 = 35 years, so n = 420 months and r = 7% ÷ 12 ÷ 100 = 0.005833.
In this case the plan is comfortably ahead of the target. Notice how much of the final balance comes from investment growth: the money you personally contributed is only $50,000 + $500 × 420 = $260,000, while growth supplies the other $1.2 million. Time, not the size of each deposit, does most of the heavy lifting.
Retirement age
Years to grow
Projected nest egg
Surplus / gap
55
25
≈ $700,000
−$300,000
60
30
≈ $1,020,000
+$20,000
65
35
≈ $1,475,000
+$475,000
70
40
≈ $2,120,000
+$1,120,000
Getting on track
Start early. Every extra year of compounding changes the result more than a large one-off deposit later on.
Raise contributions with your income. Saving a fixed percentage instead of a fixed amount keeps your pace as pay rises.
Keep fees low. A 1% annual fee can quietly remove a large slice of your final balance over 35 years.
Re-run the numbers whenever your spending target changes; the 4% rule is a planning guideline, not a guarantee.
Treat this as one scenario, not a forecast — real returns vary year to year.
The 4% rule is a retirement planning guideline suggesting you withdraw about 4% of your nest egg in the first year of retirement, then adjust for inflation. It implies a portfolio roughly 25× your annual spending can fund a long retirement.
Why target 25× your annual spending?
Because 1 ÷ 4% = 25. If you can safely withdraw 4% a year, then every dollar of annual income needs about 25 dollars of savings behind it. So spending $40,000 a year points to a $1,000,000 target.
Does this calculator account for inflation?
Not directly. It uses a single annual return figure, so you can either enter a real (inflation-adjusted) return to work in today's money, or subtract expected inflation from your return before entering it.