Retirement planning
How Long Will My Money Last?
Project how many years your savings could last at a withdrawal rate you choose, and see how sensitive that answer is to inflation and returns.
How long your money lasts comes down to four things: how much you have, how much you take out, what it earns while you are taking it out, and how fast the amount you need grows. Change any one of those and the answer moves, sometimes by a decade.
That is why the useful output of this calculator is not a single number. It is the range you get by changing one assumption at a time. If dropping your expected return from 6% to 4% takes twelve years off the answer, the important finding is not either number. It is how much the plan depends on returns you do not control.
Run it a few times. Then bring the range, not the number, to a conversation.
These tools are educational. They are built to help you ask better questions, and they do not replace a personal review with Anthony.
Project how long your savings could last
Enter your figures, then change the return and inflation assumptions to see how much the answer depends on them. Nothing you enter is saved or sent anywhere.
Enter your age and annual withdrawal need
The projection needs three things to be useful: your savings, your age, and how much you need to draw each year. The return and inflation assumptions start at 5% and 3%, but they are yours to change, and changing them is the most useful thing you can do here.
A single answer from a calculator is worth very little. A range you get by moving one assumption at a time is worth a lot.
Nothing you type here is saved or sent anywhere. It stays in your browser.
The four levers, and which ones you actually control
Everything in this projection reduces to four inputs. It is worth being clear-eyed about how much influence you have over each one.
- How much you withdraw: fully in your control, and the most powerful lever by far. A modest, permanent reduction extends a plan more reliably than a better return.
- When you start: largely in your control. Every year you delay is one fewer year of withdrawals and one more year of growth, and it usually raises your Social Security amount too.
- What it earns: not in your control. You choose an allocation and accept a range of outcomes. Any calculator that asks you for a return is asking you to guess.
- Inflation: not in your control at all. It quietly raises what you need every single year, which is why a flat-dollar plan looks fine on paper and fails in practice.
Why the order of bad years matters more than the average
This is the biggest gap between a projection like this one and how retirement actually plays out. Imagine two people who retire with the same balance, take the same withdrawals, and get the same average return over thirty years. One of them hits a bad stretch in years one through three. The other hits the same bad stretch in years twenty-five through twenty-seven.
The second person is fine. The first may not be, because they were selling assets at depressed prices at exactly the moment their balance was largest and had the most to lose. Same average, very different outcome. That is sequence of returns risk, and a flat-return calculator cannot see it.
There are real ways to manage it: keeping a cash or short-term reserve so you are not forced to sell in a downturn, building flexibility into your spending so a bad year can be absorbed, and covering the non-negotiable part of your expenses with income that does not depend on a balance. Which combination fits you is a planning conversation, and it is a better use of an hour than running this calculator a twentieth time.
Common questions
- How long will my retirement savings last?
- It depends almost entirely on your withdrawal rate relative to your balance, and then on returns and inflation. As a rough illustration of the arithmetic: drawing 4% of a balance a year with returns in the same neighborhood can last a long time, while drawing 10% a year exhausts a balance quickly regardless of reasonable return assumptions. Rather than trusting a general figure, put your own numbers in and then change the return and inflation assumptions to see how stable the answer is.
- What withdrawal rate is safe?
- This is genuinely contested and any single number you see is a simplification. The widely quoted 4 percent guideline came from historical research on a particular portfolio mix over a 30-year retirement, and it carries assumptions that may not match your situation, your time horizon, or your tolerance for cutting back in a bad year. Treat it as a reference point for the order of magnitude, not as a rule that applies to you.
- Why does the calculator take the withdrawal out before applying growth?
- Because it is the more conservative of the two orderings, and consistency matters more than which one you pick. Taking the year's withdrawal at the start means that money earns nothing for that year, which produces a slightly shorter projection than applying growth first. The page states the assumption rather than hiding it, so you know which direction the estimate leans.
- What is sequence of returns risk, and why does this calculator not model it?
- Sequence of returns risk is the fact that when bad years happen matters, not just how bad the average is. Two retirees with identical average returns can end up in completely different places if one hit a downturn in their first three years of withdrawals and the other hit it in year twenty. This calculator applies a flat return every year, so it cannot show that effect. It is one of the most important reasons a real plan needs more than a projection loop.
- Should I include Social Security in this?
- Yes, in the income offset field. Social Security reduces how much has to come out of savings each year, which is usually the single largest factor in how long a balance lasts. Enter the household annual total for the age you actually plan to file. Note that the calculator treats that income as flat, while Social Security has historically received cost-of-living adjustments.
- What happens if the calculator says my money runs out?
- It means that combination of inputs does not work, which is genuinely useful to know while there is still time to change something. The levers are the same ones in the calculator: withdraw less, work a little longer, file for Social Security later, reduce expenses, or cover part of the need with income that does not depend on a balance. Which of those makes sense is a personal question, not a calculation.
Sources
Where to get the inputs, and independent background on the assumptions this projection relies on.
- Social Security Administration: my Social Security account
For the income offset figure. Use the estimate for the age you actually plan to file.
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: planning for retirement
Independent government guidance on withdrawal decisions and Social Security timing.
- Investor.gov (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission): retirement planning
SEC investor education on savings, withdrawals, and the effect of fees and returns over time.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Consumer Price Index
The official measure of price inflation, if you want to ground your inflation assumption in published data.
Important disclosures
- This tool is provided for general education and planning discussion only. It is not financial, tax, or legal advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or keep any product.
- The results depend entirely on the numbers and assumptions you enter. Change an assumption and the answer changes. Nothing here is a projection of what will happen, a quote, or a guarantee.
- No product prices, premiums, interest rates, or payout amounts are quoted anywhere on this page. Any figures specific to a product would come from the issuing company in writing, after a personal review.
- This is an arithmetic projection, not a forecast. It applies a single flat return every year and therefore cannot model market volatility, sequence of returns risk, or a change in your spending pattern. Real results will differ.
- The projection does not account for taxes on withdrawals, investment fees, one-time expenses, or long-term care costs, any of which can shorten the answer materially.
- No investment return is promised or implied. The return figure is an assumption you chose, not a rate offered by anyone.
- Anthony D. Morrison is an independent financial professional licensed in Florida. For advice about your own situation, including tax questions, talk with Anthony and with your own tax professional.
The next step is a conversation, not a purchase
A calculator can show you the shape of the question. It cannot tell you which order to draw from your accounts, when to file for Social Security, or what your plan should do about taxes and healthcare. Anthony's retirement questionnaire is how that review starts. There is no cost and no obligation.
Prefer the phone? 407-942-7689
Keep going
Start here. These work through the questions that come before any product conversation: what income you will have, what it has to cover, and how long your savings need to last.