Retirement Planning Calculators

The standard rule is 25 times your annual expenses — based on the 4% safe withdrawal rate from the Trinity Study. If you spend $50,000 per year you need $1,250,000 invested. If you spend $80,000 you need $2,000,000. This assumes a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds with approximately 7% average annual returns.

The 4% rule states that you can withdraw 4% of your retirement portfolio in year one, then adjust for inflation each year, with a high probability of your money lasting 30 or more years. It comes from the Trinity Study which analyzed historical market returns and found 4% to be a historically safe withdrawal rate for a balanced portfolio.

The best time to start is now regardless of your age. Due to compound interest the difference between starting at 25 vs 35 is enormous — a 25-year-old investing $500 per month at 7% will have approximately $1.3 million at 65 while a 35-year-old investing the same amount will have approximately $567,000. Starting 10 years earlier more than doubles the outcome.

The 2026 401k employee contribution limit is $23,500 per year. If you are age 50 or older you can contribute an additional $7,500 catch-up contribution for a total of $31,000. The combined limit including employer contributions is $70,000. Contributing the maximum from age 30 at 7% average returns would produce approximately $2.2 million by age 65.