When can I retire?

FIREcalc answers it with the savings calculator. You type your age, what is invested today, after-tax income, annual spending, and a portfolio goal in today’s dollars. Each simulated year, the portfolio earns that year’s S&P 500 total return on the stock share and that year’s 10-year Treasury total return on the rest. Income and spending rise with that year’s CPI. The contribution is income minus spending, and it is never below zero. The search stops at 50 years.

The headline is the median number of years until the inflation-adjusted balance reaches the goal. Beside it are the faster 10% of paths and the slower 10%. A nominal balance can pass the goal number while purchasing power has not. Plan closer to the slower number.

A worked example

Someone aged 38 has $220,000 invested, earns $110,000 after tax, and spends $72,000. The gap is $38,000 a year, and pay rises 2% a year above inflation. The goal is $1,800,000 in today’s dollars, which is 25× that spending. Stocks are 70%. The other 30% earns the 10-year Treasury return for the same year, which can be negative. It is not a flat bond yield.

Age

38

Invested

$220,000

Saved each year

$38,000

Goal, today’s $

$1,800,000

Stocks

70%

Paths

1,000 shuffled

On seed 246813, the median path takes 14 years, which would be age 52. The faster 10% are there by 11 years. The slower 10% take at least 18 years. All 1,000 shuffled paths reached the goal inside 50 years. That shuffle is the Monte Carlo this site runs: each year is drawn from the 1975–2024 table, with stock return, Treasury return, and inflation kept together. It is not a draw from a bell curve, and the next year is independent of the last.

Historical cycles tell a different story with the same inputs. The model walks forward from each start year in the table until the goal or until 2024, so a start near the end has only a few years of data. 37 of 50 start years reach the goal. The median of the paths that finish is 15 years. The slower tail includes short windows that run out of history before they run out of a chance. Use the historical link as the sequence check, and the shuffled link as the wider stress test.

What actually moves the year

• Spending. The contribution is whatever is left after spending. A raise you spend does not move the date. The “real raises” field grows income above inflation; spending still follows CPI only.
• The goal’s purchasing power. Type the portfolio you want in today’s dollars. Reaching a nominal balance with the same digits is an earlier, smaller result.
• The stock share. More stocks use more of the S&P 500 series. Less stocks use more of the Treasury series, including years such as 2022, when both lost money.
• Fees, a glide path, and markets outside this table are not in the engine. Neither are 1966 and 1973–74. A date from this page is a sketch of one 50-year US sample.

Reaching the savings goal is not the same as a retirement that survives. When the year looks plausible, open the retirement calculator with that portfolio and that spending and read the success rate. The 4% rule page shows what that test does and does not include.

How to use the result

Change one input at a time. If the slower 10% lands after the age you care about, the median is a weak plan. If historical cycles and shuffled years disagree by a lot, believe the less comfortable one until you know why. Social Security, a pension, and a spouse’s benefit are retirement inputs. They are off on this savings example. Turning them on later changes the retirement success rate, and the result should say so.

The links on this page are ordinary share links. Anyone with the URL can see the inputs. Saving one by email, below, stores that URL with your address. It does not run the simulation on a server.

Questions people ask next

Is “when can I retire” a savings question or a withdrawal question?

Start with savings: years until the portfolio reaches a goal in today’s dollars. Then test that portfolio as a retirement, because a balance that hits the goal can still run out if spending is high or the horizon is long.

Why is the goal in today’s dollars?

The dollar amount you type is purchasing power. Each year the model divides the portfolio by cumulative inflation and compares that to the goal. A nominal balance can cross the goal number earlier.

Does this include Social Security?

Not on the savings path. Social Security is a retirement input, and it stays off unless you turn it on. When it is on, the success rate includes that income.

What data is the year based on?

US large-cap total returns and 10-year Treasury total returns for 1975 through 2024, with CPI on the same row. The table does not include 1966 or 1973-74. There is no fee and no glide path.