Retirement Calculators
Accumulation, withdrawals, FIRE targets, employer matches, Roth versus traditional, and fees.
Calculators
- Retirement Savings Calculator
Project savings at retirement in future dollars and in today’s dollars.
- Retirement Withdrawal Calculator
How long savings last under fixed withdrawals, returns and inflation.
- FIRE Calculator
Financial-independence target and time to reach it from your own spending and return assumptions.
- Roth vs. Traditional Calculator
Compare after-tax outcomes of Roth and traditional contributions at the same out-of-pocket cost.
- Employer 401(k) Match Calculator
Employer match from your pay, contribution rate and matching tiers, with a vesting assumption.
- Investment Fee Calculator
What percentage and fixed fees cost over time, compared side by side.
Choosing a retirement calculator
Retirement planning has a saving phase and a spending phase, with a few side decisions along the way. Each calculator handles one piece, and the return and inflation it uses are yours to set.
- Am I on track?
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Projects your balance at retirement in future dollars and in today’s dollars from current savings, contributions, return and inflation.
- How long will my savings last?
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Retirement Withdrawal Calculator
Years until the balance runs out for a given withdrawal, rising with inflation or not, or the largest level withdrawal that lasts a chosen number of years.
- When could I stop working?
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A financial-independence target from spending and a withdrawal rate, and the years to reach it.
- Roth or traditional?
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Roth vs. Traditional Calculator
Compares after-tax results at the same out-of-pocket cost and shows the retirement tax rate at which the two tie.
- Am I getting the whole match?
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Employer 401(k) Match Calculator
Applies your plan’s tiers, cap and vesting to your contribution rate and shows any match left unclaimed.
- What do fees cost over decades?
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Two fee levels against a no-fee baseline: the fees themselves plus the growth they would have earned.
Have these to hand
- Current balances and contributions, with any employer match listed separately.
- Your plan’s match formula and vesting schedule.
- Expense ratios and advisory fees from fund documents or statements.
Mistakes that change the answer
- Confusing future dollars with today’s. A balance decades away buys less than the same figure now.
- Treating a constant-return projection as a plan. Returns vary, and the order of good and bad years matters most once withdrawals begin.
- Assuming contribution limits or tax brackets are built in. They are not, so check the current IRS figures.
Related guides
- Nominal vs. real returns: adjusting savings for inflation
How to turn a nominal return into a real one, when subtracting inflation goes wrong, and how to show a 30-year savings projection in today’s dollars.
- How investment fees compound: 0.1% vs. 1% over 30 years
What a yearly percentage fee takes from a long-term balance, why most of the damage lands in the last decade, and how to compare fund, advisory and flat account fees.
- Sequence-of-returns risk: why average returns mislead
Why two retirees with the same average return can end up far apart, what a constant-return projection hides, and how flexible withdrawals move the risk from the balance to the income.
- Roth vs. traditional: what the comparison really depends on
The two tax rates that decide Roth vs. traditional, why equal rates tie, when a Roth pulls ahead at the contribution limit, and how splitting hedges an unknown future rate.
- Extra mortgage payments: what they save and what they cost
What extra principal payments save in interest and time, what they cost in cash you can’t easily get back, and how prepaying compares with investing, recasting and paying other debts first.
- APR vs. APY vs. interest rate: which number to compare
Which rate to compare when you borrow and when you save, what each one includes, and how to convert between them, with worked numbers you can rerun.