Updated October 30, 2026 · Free, no sign-up, nothing stored
Educational illustration, not financial advice.
Built and maintained by a former actuary with qualifications in finance and economics.
Methodology: formulas, data and limits
How this calculator works
This is one of our retirement income calculators. It projects your savings one year at a time. Each year it takes out the gap between your spending and your Social Security or pension, both rising with inflation, then grows what is left at your expected return. If the balance cannot cover a full year, it counts the part of the year it does cover, so the answer can fall between birthdays.
Survival comes from the US Social Security Administration’s 2023 period life table (Period Life Table, 2023, as used in the 2026 Trustees Report), which gives the chance of dying within a year at each age for men and women (see how life tables work). Between birthdays the calculator assumes deaths are spread evenly through the year. This reproduces the table’s published life expectancy at 65 (18.12 years for men, 20.66 for women). Past age 119 it holds the last published rate constant.
For smokers it multiplies each year’s death rate by 2.0 (you can change this under Advanced). That is an approximation: population tables mix smokers and non-smokers, so it is a rough adjustment, not a smoker table. For a couple it uses joint survival: the household counts as alive while at least one of you is.
Worked example
Take a 65-year-old man and a 63-year-old woman, neither of whom smokes, with $750,000 saved. They spend $68,000 a year and receive $28,000 from Social Security, so the first year’s withdrawal is $40,000. At a 5.5% return the remaining balance earns $39,050, leaving $749,050 at the end of year one.
With 2.5% inflation the gap grows every year, and withdrawals slowly overtake growth. At age 91 the account starts the year with $31,224 against a need of $76,012, so the savings last until he is about 91, which is 26 years.
His life expectancy is 18.1 more years (to about 83) and hers 22.3 (to about 85). Both are earlier than 91, which can make the plan look safe. But the chance that at least one of them is still alive when the money runs out is 49%: about 5 in 10 couples like them. Household survival falls to 50% at about 91 and to 10% at about 99.
The household formula
The chance at least one of you is alive after years, assuming the two lifetimes are independent. is the chance you, aged , are alive then; is the same for your spouse. More on joint and last-survivor probabilities.
With market ups and downs
The answer above assumes the same return every year. Real returns swing, and a run of bad years early in retirement does more damage than the same years later on (sequence of returns risk). Switch on “Show market ups and downs” and the calculator runs your plan through 10,000 simulated market histories. The chart becomes a fan: the darker band holds the middle half of the histories, the lighter band 8 in 10, and the dashed line is the steady-return answer.
By default each year’s return is drawn from a bell curve around your own return, with the volatility of a 60/40 stock and bond mix over 1928–2025 (12.1% a year). Under the settings you can change the volatility, add inflation swings, or switch to the historical model, which replays whole calendar years of US stock returns, bond returns and inflation from 1928–2025. Every run uses a fixed random seed, so the same numbers always give the same answer.
For the example couple: In 40% of simulated market histories, savings last past 91, the age they run out with a steady 5.5% return. Allowing for lifespan too, someone is still alive when the money runs out in about 5 in 10 simulated retirements. The middle history runs out at 88. These shares describe the simulation, not a forecast; a different model or period gives a different share.
What this leaves out
- Taxes on withdrawals, which can raise the amount you need to take out.
- Investment fees, unless you net them off your return.
- Market ups and downs, unless you switch them on. Even then, the simulation uses one model of returns: US history since 1928, or a bell curve that has fewer extreme years than real markets.
- Long-term care costs, which can be large and uneven.
- Changes in spending with age, and Social Security rules such as survivor benefits.
- Improvements in mortality after 2023. A period table uses one year’s death rates for every future age, so people alive today are likely to live a little longer than it shows.
Educational illustration, not financial advice.
Questions
What is a safe withdrawal rate?
A common rule of thumb is to take about 4% of your savings in the first year, then the same amount each year rising with inflation. It comes from studies of past US market returns over 30-year retirements. It is not a guarantee. A longer retirement, higher fees or a poor run of early returns all call for less.
Why use mortality tables instead of life expectancy?
Life expectancy is an average, so about half of people live longer than it. A mortality table gives the chance of being alive at every age, which shows the risk of outliving your money instead of hiding it behind one number.
How does the market ups and downs view work?
It runs your plan through thousands of simulated market histories instead of one steady return, then reports the share of histories in which savings last past each age. The default model keeps your average return and adds yearly swings the size of a 60/40 stock and bond mix in US history. A historical model that replays real US years is under the settings.
Does this include taxes?
No. Enter spending as the amount you need before tax on withdrawals, or add an allowance for tax to your spending. Taxes depend on the account type and your other income, which this illustration leaves out.