Project your nest egg at retirement and see if your savings are on track. Adjust your contributions, timeline, and return assumptions to find your number.
Enter your current age, target retirement age, existing savings, monthly contribution, and expected annual return. The calculator projects your nest egg using compound growth and shows how much monthly income your savings could support during retirement using the 4% rule.
The 4% rule is a common retirement planning guideline suggesting you can withdraw 4% of your portfolio in the first year of retirement, then adjust for inflation each year, with a high probability of not running out of money over a 30-year retirement.
Where PV = current savings, r = monthly rate, n = months until retirement, PMT = monthly contribution. This is the future value of an ordinary annuity formula — the same math your 401(k) uses.
A common rule of thumb is to have 25× your expected annual retirement expenses saved (based on the 4% withdrawal rule). If you expect to spend $60,000/year in retirement, you'd want roughly $1.5 million saved. This calculator helps you see if your current trajectory gets you there.
The US stock market has historically returned about 10% annually before inflation (about 7% after inflation). For a balanced stock/bond portfolio, 6–7% is a common conservative planning assumption. Using a more conservative rate builds in a margin of safety — if you hit 7% and assumed 5%, you'll end up ahead.
This calculator shows your personal savings projection only. Social Security income would be on top of this. The average Social Security retirement benefit in 2025 is around $1,900/month. You can get a personalized estimate at ssa.gov/myaccount.
The 4% rule comes from a 1994 study (the "Trinity Study") showing that a portfolio of 50–75% stocks could sustain 4% annual withdrawals (adjusted for inflation) for at least 30 years with high historical success. It's a planning heuristic, not a guarantee — but it's the most widely used retirement income estimate.