How long until I can retire on $1 million?

People search for a round number. The engine does not have a special $1 million mode. You type the goal, and it reports the median years until the inflation-adjusted portfolio reaches that amount. Income minus spending is added each year, never below zero, and both income and spending rise with the CPI on that year’s row. A 2% “real raises” field grows income faster than spending.

$1 million from a standing start

Age 32, $80,000 invested, $95,000 of after-tax income, $62,000 of spending. The contribution is $33,000 a year. Stocks are 70%, Treasuries 30%, 1,000 shuffled paths, seed 246813. The goal is $1,000,000 in today’s dollars.

Age

32

Invested

$80,000

Saved each year

$33,000

Goal

$1,000,000

Stocks

70%

The median path takes 12 years, age 44. The faster 10% are there by 10 years. The slower 10% take at least 15 years. All 1,000 paths reached it inside 50 years. That is a high savings rate on a friendly 1975–2024 sample. It is not a promise that the next 12 years will look like the median draw.

Already close to $1 million

Age 45, $650,000 invested, $120,000 of income, $80,000 of spending, 60% stocks, 1% real raises. The median path takes 4 years. The faster 10% are there by 3 years. The slower 10% take at least 7 years. Most of the work, in this sketch, is already in the portfolio. New savings still matter, and so does the year you happen to retire into. Hitting the number is the savings question. Whether you can stop working is the retirement question that comes next.

Open the “already at $650,000” plan.

$500,000 and $2 million

The arithmetic is the same. Only the goal, the savings gap, and the mix change.

• $500,000. Age 30, $40,000 invested, $75,000 income, $50,000 spending, 80% stocks. The median path takes 10 years. The faster 10% are there by 8 years. The slower 10% take at least 12 years. A $500,000 portfolio supports about $20,000 a year at a 4% starting withdrawal, before taxes. If you spend more than that, the goal is too small even when the savings clock hits zero. Open the $500,000 plan.
• $2 million. Age 35, $250,000 invested, $160,000 income, $90,000 spending, 80% stocks. The contribution is $70,000 a year. The median path takes 11 years. The faster 10% are there by 9 years. The slower 10% take at least 14 years. Open the $2 million plan.

All four examples use shuffled years from 1975–2024. They leave out fees, returns before 1975, and any market that is not US large-cap stocks or 10-year Treasuries. Historical cycles are the sequence check: late start years have short windows, so some of them never get 12 or 15 years of data.

A round number is not a spending plan

25× annual spending is the usual first goal, because a 4% withdrawal is 1/25 of the portfolio. $1 million is 25× $40,000. If you spend $70,000, the matching goal is $1.75 million, and retiring “on $1 million” means a higher withdrawal rate than 4%. Taxes make the portfolio draw larger than the spending you typed. The 4% page sets the tax rate to 0% on purpose so the test is actually 4%.

Questions people ask next

Does $1 million mean I can retire?

Only if the spending you need is small relative to that portfolio. $1 million is 25 times $40,000. Higher spending needs a higher goal, or a higher withdrawal rate that you should test in the retirement calculator.

Why do two people with the same salary get different years?

The contribution is income minus spending. The years also depend on the balance you already have, the stock and Treasury mix, and which historical years the path draws.

Are these results inflation-adjusted?

Yes. The goal is today’s purchasing power. Charts on the savings screen are in today’s dollars. A nominal balance can pass $1 million before purchasing power does.

Can I type a different amount?

Yes. The links only prefill an example. Replace the goal, income, and spending with yours. The engine treats every goal the same way, up to a 50-year search.