Retirement Savings Goal Calculator

The number you're really chasing in retirement planning is a single figure: the size of the nest egg that can fund the lifestyle you want once you stop working. Because prices keep climbing through retirement, that nest egg has to pay an income that rises every year, not a flat one. With Social Security unlikely to stretch far enough to cover every expense, a concrete savings goal is what turns vague intentions into a plan you can actually fund with monthly contributions.

You enter the income you want in your first year of retirement, how many years it has to last, and your inflation and return assumptions. The calculator raises that income with inflation every year and finds the lump sum that, invested at your return, pays it out exactly over those years: income × (1 − (1 + real rate)^−years) ÷ real rate, where the real rate is (1 + return) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1. It does not project from your current age, so if you are years away from retiring, enter the income in the dollars of your retirement year. Alongside the main figure it shows the 4% Rule target, 25 times the income. The premise behind that rule is that you can draw 4% of your starting portfolio in year one, raise the dollar amount with inflation each year afterward, and reasonably expect the money to last across a 30-year retirement.

Treat the result as a projection rather than a promise. A serious medical bill or a deep market decline can move your real requirements well away from the estimate. Where the math earns its keep is in capturing how steadily inflation erodes purchasing power over decades, the variable people most often shortchange. For a strategy tailored to your own circumstances, a financial advisor can help you stress-test and refine these numbers.