How to use this calculator
- Enter your age, your savings balance, and how much you plan to withdraw each month or year.
- Choose the age the money must last until, and add Social Security or a pension if it starts later.
- Pick a withdrawal strategy: fixed keeps the same spending power every year, guardrails let spending move with your portfolio.
- Read the years it lasts, then check the survival curve and historical test for real-world odds.
Everything updates as you type. Copy the share link to save your numbers, or download the year-by-year balance as a CSV.
Quick answers: how long do retirement savings last?
This table shows years until the money runs out. Rows are savings balances and columns are yearly withdrawals, which rise with inflation. It assumes a 3.8% real return and no other income (our calculation):
| Savings | $30K | $40K | $50K | $60K |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $250K | 9 yrs | 6 yrs | 5 yrs | 4 yrs |
| $500K | 25 yrs | 16 yrs | 12 yrs | 9 yrs |
| $750K | 60+ yrs | 31 yrs | 21 yrs | 16 yrs |
| $1M | Forever | 60+ yrs | 35 yrs | 25 yrs |
| $1.5M | Forever | Forever | Forever | 60+ yrs |
| $2M | Forever | Forever | Forever | Forever |
"Forever" means average growth covers the withdrawal. Years are rounded down. Real markets vary; use the calculator for your odds.
How is it calculated?
Each year starts with a withdrawal, and the rest of the balance grows at your real (after-inflation) return. Because everything is in today's dollars, a constant withdrawal means your spending power stays the same as prices rise. That is the convention behind the 4% rule[1].
Balance next year = (balance − withdrawal) × (1 + real return)
That is compound interest with withdrawals: growth compounds only on what is left after each year's withdrawal, which is why a withdrawal larger than the growth eats into the balance faster every year.
Worked example
Pat is 65 with $750,000 and withdraws $3,500 a month ($42,000 a year, a 5.6% withdrawal rate). With a 7% return, 3% inflation and 0.1% fees, the real return is 3.79%.
- The money lasts 28.4 years, to about age 93.
- To last exactly 30 years, to 95, Pat could withdraw up to $40,713 a year ($3,393 a month).
- Replaying every 30-year period since 1928 with 80% stocks, the plan lasted in 64% of them; the worst, starting in 1969, ran out after 14 years.
What assumptions does the calculator use?
- Return: 7% before inflation and fees. The S&P 500 returned 10.0% a year from 1928 to 2025[8], but Vanguard's 10-year forecast for US stocks is 4.8% to 6.8%[9]. If you hold mostly bonds or cash, lower it.
- Inflation: 3%. US inflation averaged 3% a year from 1928 to 2025 (our calculation from Damodaran's CPI data[8]), and prices rose 3.7% in the 12 months to September 2026[10].
- Social Security. Off by default. Turn it on with your own estimate from the SSA[12] and your withdrawals shrink once it starts.
The methodology page documents the simulations and the historical data.
Why can the same savings last 20 years or 40?
Because the order of returns matters as much as the average. Losses early in retirement force you to sell more shares to fund the same withdrawal, and returns in the first decade largely set how much you can safely spend[4]. In Pat's backtest, 25 of 69 start years ran out before 30 years, even though at a steady 3.8% return the money lasts 28.4 years. That is why the calculator shows a survival curve, not just one number.
Morningstar found the same pattern in its 2025 simulations: nearly 70% of failed all-stock retirements had lost money by the end of year five, while those with gains over the first five years had only about a 4% chance of running out later[6]. A plan that can cut spending in those first bad years has a real defense against sequence risk, and that is what guardrails formalize.
How much longer do savings last with Social Security?
Usually many years, because the benefit replaces part of every withdrawal for life. Take $600,000 and $50,000 a year of spending from 62. On savings alone it lasts about 15.5 years, to age 77. With a $24,000 benefit from 67, withdrawals fall to $26,000 a year after 5 years, and the money lasts to about age 93 (our calculation). Waiting until 70 raises the benefit by 24%[11], which is why some retirees spend savings first and claim later.
What are retirement guardrails?
Guardrails are withdrawal rules that cut your spending after markets fall and raise it after they rise, keeping your withdrawal rate inside a band around where it started. The best-known version is Guyton-Klinger. You choose a starting withdrawal rate, then each year[5]:
- Lower guardrail: if your withdrawal rate has risen 20% above its starting level, cut the withdrawal by 10%. No cuts in the final 15 years of the plan[6].
- Upper guardrail: if it has fallen 20% below its starting level, raise the withdrawal by 10%.
- Inflation rule: raise the withdrawal with inflation each year, but skip the raise after a year with a negative return.
Flexibility buys a higher starting rate. In Morningstar's 2025 research, guardrails supported a 5.2% starting withdrawal on a 40% stock, 60% bond portfolio, against 3.9% for fixed inflation-adjusted withdrawals, both with a 90% chance of lasting 30 years[6]. The price is income that moves: on their own, guardrail withdrawals had a standard deviation of about 30%, roughly halved once Social Security was counted.
Guardrails worked example
Take Pat again: $750,000 and $42,000 a year, a 5.6% starting rate, 80% stocks and 0.1% fees. The lower guardrail is a 6.72% withdrawal rate: at today's withdrawal, a balance below $625,000 triggers a 10% cut. The upper guardrail is 4.48%, a balance above $937,500. Here is the same plan both ways, on the same 2,000 simulated markets and the same 69 historical start years (our calculation):
| Result | Fixed | Guardrails |
|---|---|---|
| Money lasts to 95 (simulations) | 67% | 95% |
| Lasted 30 years in history | 64% | 100% |
| Simulations with at least one cut | None | 64% |
| Lowest spending, typical simulation | $42,000 | $34,529 |
| Lowest spending, worst 10% | $42,000 | $17,312 |
| Typical balance left at 95 | $675,090 | $707,094 |
Spending is a year, in today's dollars, while the money lasts.
Guardrails lifted Pat's historical success from 64% to 100%, but the cuts can be deep. Retiring in 1966, fixed withdrawals ran out after 16 years. With guardrails the money lasted, but after 6 cuts and 8 skipped inflation raises, spending fell as low as $14,314 a year, 66% below the start. The deepest cut came from a 1929 start, at $14,068. Kitces points to the same risk: in Karsten Jeske's test of a 1966 retiree starting at 4%, withdrawals bottomed out 59% lower[5].
It is not all cuts. In 49 of 69 start years, Pat was spending more in year 30 than in year one, thanks to the upper guardrail. The common criticism runs the other way: Guyton-Klinger triggers cuts when they are not needed and tends to preserve far more money than necessary[5]. In Pat's simulations, the typical guardrails retiree still had $707,094 at 95, in today's dollars, against a $750,000 start.
How the guardrails option is calculated
The source describes the rules in a few lines, so we use the simplest reading that matches it:
- The rules are checked once a year, from the second year; the first year sets your starting withdrawal rate.
- Your withdrawal rate is the year's portfolio withdrawal (spending minus Social Security or a pension) divided by the balance at the start of the year, and each raise or cut is 10% of that withdrawal.
- A negative return means the portfolio's total return before inflation in the previous year. A skipped inflation raise keeps last year's dollar amount and is never made up later.
- The final 15 years are counted back from your "make it last until" age. If Social Security starts later, your withdrawal rate drops when it begins, and the upper guardrail may then raise spending.
- We model the withdrawal rules only, not any portfolio-management rules, and both strategies see exactly the same markets.
Which withdrawal strategy makes savings last longest?
The ones that let spending fall. Morningstar tested several flexible methods in 2025 and found no free lunch: strategies that allow a higher starting rate generally bring more volatile cash flows, and two of them lifted the starting rate to 5.7%[6].
| Strategy | How it works | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed, inflation-adjusted | The same spending power every year (the 4% rule) | Steady income, but the lowest safe starting rate and it can run dry |
| Skip inflation after a loss | Fixed, but no inflation raise after a losing year | Small cuts, but they are permanent and add up |
| Guardrails | 10% raises or cuts when the rate drifts 20% from its start | Higher starting rate; cuts can stack up in long bear markets |
| Fixed percentage | The same share of the current balance every year | Never fully runs out, but income swings with every market move |
Morningstar found the constant-percentage, endowment and RMD-style methods varied far more from year to year, while skipping inflation raises changed spending little. For the highest lifetime income, it suggests pairing a flexible strategy such as guardrails with delaying Social Security[6], because a guaranteed benefit cushions each cut. If your odds look low with fixed withdrawals, switch the calculator to guardrails and compare the survival curves and the spending range before you decide how much flexibility you can live with.
What is a safe withdrawal rate at my age?
The younger you retire, the lower it is, because the money has to survive more bad decades. This table shows the highest starting withdrawal rate that lasted to age 95 in every historical start year since 1928, with fixed inflation-adjusted withdrawals, no fees and no other income (our calculation):
| Retire at | Years to 95 | 80% stocks | 60% stocks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 75 | 20 | 4.55% | 4.60% |
| 65 | 30 | 3.80% | 3.70% |
| 55 | 40 | 3.55% | 3.45% |
| 45 | 50 | 3.40% | 3.25% |
These are worst-case rates from one country's history, so treat them as a floor for planning, not a promise. Forward-looking estimates agree on the shape: Morningstar puts a 30-year starting rate at 3.9%[3], and Early Retirement Now found 3.25% to 3.5% survived the worst historical conditions over 50 to 60 years[7]. To test your own age, set "make it last until" in the calculator and read the historical result.
Still saving? The retirement savings calculator shows how much to build first, and the FIRE number calculator compares withdrawal rates for longer retirements.