Estimate a retirement nest egg and income potential based on savings, monthly contributions, and long-term growth.
What it means
The headline question this calculator answers is what monthly income your nest egg actually buys, after inflation and after taxes, by the time you retire. The 4% safe-withdrawal rule sets a sustainable annual withdrawal; we apply your retirement tax rate and discount the result back to today's dollars.
Most people get raises and tend to keep their contribution as a steady percentage of their paycheck. The salary-growth rate scales both your contribution and the employer match each year. Set salary growth to 0% if you want to model a flat contribution forever.
Switch the market scenario to overlay a historical drawdown (2008, dot-com, 1929, or COVID) in the final years before retirement, or run a Monte Carlo to see the range of outcomes around your assumptions. This is how you find out whether your plan still works when the market doesn't cooperate.
FAQ
Because that's how people actually save. A flat $1,200/month contribution made sense at age 30; thirty years later, with raises and inflation, that same person is probably contributing far more. Saving a percentage of pay automatically scales with salary, which matches reality much better.
The 4% safe-withdrawal rule (Bengen, 1994) is the most common shortcut for estimating sustainable retirement income over a 30-year horizon. It's not perfect — actual sustainability depends on market conditions, sequence of returns, and how long you live — but it's the right number for a quick planning estimate.
The chart and "Projected nest egg" show nominal future dollars. Everything labeled "today's dollars" divides that nominal value by (1 + inflation)^years. So $1M in 30 years at 2.5% inflation reads as about $477K in today's purchasing power. Inflation doesn't affect the underlying compounding — only how we present the result.
Traditional retirement accounts (401(k), IRA) are funded pre-tax and the entire balance is taxed when you withdraw. Roth accounts are funded with after-tax dollars and withdraw tax-free. The federal-plus-state tax estimate only matters for Traditional. If your savings are mixed, pick whichever is dominant or run both scenarios.
Your annual 4% withdrawal is run through the 2025 federal income tax brackets at single-filer status (the conservative default), and your selected state's 2025 brackets are added on top. Roth balances skip both. This is a planning estimate, not a substitute for a CPA — actual tax depends on filing status, Social Security, RMDs, and the brackets in force at the time.
Yes — set a lower retirement age. Just remember the 4% rule was designed for a 30-year retirement; a 50-year retirement needs a more conservative withdrawal rate and a larger safety margin.