Retirement Withdrawal Calculator
See how many years your savings survive a monthly withdrawal, with growth and inflation modeled — plus the withdrawal amount your balance could sustain forever.
Retirement portfolios usually hold bonds, so assume less than an all-stock return.
Your withdrawal grows by this each year to keep buying power.
At this balance and return, growth alone sustains about $2,083.33 per month before inflation adjustments. Withdrawing more than that spends principal.
The question every retirement plan reduces to
Decades of saving compress into one number at the end: how much can I take out each month without running dry? This calculator answers it in both directions — how long a chosen withdrawal lasts, and the withdrawal your balance could sustain forever.
That second figure, shown in the results, is the pivot. Withdraw less than growth replaces and the balance never falls. Withdraw more and you are spending principal, which is perfectly fine — that is what the money is for — as long as the timeline says the principal outlives you.
Inflation is the quiet variable
A fixed $3,000 a month is not a fixed standard of living. At ordinary inflation, its buying power halves in under 30 years — a real problem for a retirement that might run that long.
The inflation field raises your withdrawal each year to keep pace, the way Social Security’s COLA raises benefits. It makes the results honest and noticeably shorter: an inflation-adjusted withdrawal drains a portfolio years faster than the flat version, which is exactly the error in most back-of-envelope retirement math.
Averages lie to retirees
The steady return this model assumes is the model’s one big simplification, and it flatters you. Real markets deliver their average through violent detours, and for a portfolio under withdrawal, the order matters: a crash in year two of retirement — while withdrawals keep draining a shrunken balance — does damage that the recovery never fully repairs. The same average return with the crash in year twenty is a non-event.
That is sequence-of-returns risk, and it is why the sustainable-withdrawal figure deserves more respect than the “lasts 32 years” figure. Practical defenses are old and boring: hold some bonds, keep a year or two of spending in cash to skip selling through a crash, and start withdrawals a notch below what the math says you could take.
What to leave out of the withdrawal
Enter only the gap your savings must fill. Social Security covers a floor of spending for most American retirees — check your projected benefit at ssa.gov — and pensions or rental income shrink the gap further.
Two more edges worth knowing: withdrawals from traditional accounts are taxed as income, so gross up your figure to cover the tax; and after a certain age the IRS mandates minimum distributions from traditional accounts whether you need them or not. If you are still on the accumulation side of this question, the savings goal and compound interest calculators are the same math pointed the other way.
How this is calculated
Each month: growth = balance × (return ÷ 12) balance = balance + growth − withdrawal withdrawal grows with inflation each year Sustainable monthly = balance × monthly return — the amount growth replaces, so principal never shrinks.
Frequently asked questions
- How long will $500,000 last in retirement?
- It depends almost entirely on the withdrawal rate. Taking $3,000 a month at a 5% return with inflation adjustments lasts roughly 20 years; $2,000 a month can last indefinitely at the same return. The calculator shows your exact combination, and small withdrawal changes move the answer by years.
- What is the 4% rule?
- A planning guideline from historical US market data — withdraw 4% of the starting balance in year one, adjust for inflation annually, and a diversified portfolio historically survived 30 years. It is a stress-tested starting point, not a law; lower rates last longer and let you sleep through downturns.
- What is sequence-of-returns risk?
- Two retirees can earn the same average return and end up in wildly different places depending on the order the returns arrive. Bad years early — while withdrawals are draining a large balance — do damage that later good years cannot repair. It is the main reason retirement portfolios hold bonds despite lower average returns.
- Does this include Social Security?
- No — enter only the withdrawal your savings must cover after other income. For most retirees Social Security replaces a substantial floor of spending, so the savings withdrawal is the gap between benefits and expenses, not the whole budget. Check your projected benefit at ssa.gov.
- What about taxes on withdrawals?
- Withdrawals from traditional 401(k)s and IRAs are taxed as ordinary income; Roth withdrawals are generally tax-free; taxable accounts owe capital gains. Enter a gross withdrawal large enough to cover the taxes for your account mix — a 20-25% cushion is a common rough allowance for traditional accounts.