Retirement Number Calculator

Retirement is a number, not an age. Find yours, then see whether your current trajectory actually gets you there.

FU Money is the amount that would let you walk away from any job and never need outside income again. Enter what you have invested and what you spend now. Returns are entered after inflation, and the withdrawal rate equals the return you assume after you walk away, so the principal keeps the same value in today's dollars. At the default 3.5%, your FU Money number is about 28.6 times your yearly spending.

All return figures are entered after inflation (real returns), so results are shown in today's dollars; the inflation input only converts them to future dollars. The defaults are based on long-run history: from 1928 through 2025 the S&P 500 including dividends returned about 10.0% a year and a 60/40 mix of the S&P 500 and 10-year Treasury bonds about 8.3% a year, while consumer prices rose about 3.0% a year, which works out to roughly 6.8% and 5.2% a year after inflation (sources: NYU Stern, Aswath Damodaran, historical returns data; Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, CPI since 1913; the 60/40 figure is calculated from the Damodaran data with annual rebalancing). Jeremy Siegel's Stocks for the Long Run reports a similar figure, about 6.8% a year after inflation for U.S. stocks from 1871 to 2001. The FU Money mode defaults to a 3.5% return after you walk away, a more cautious figure than the 5% used for a regular retirement because the money may need to last longer, and it sets the withdrawal rate equal to that return and does not model taxes, fees, Social Security, or uneven market returns. Past returns do not guarantee future results, and your actual results depend on market performance, inflation, taxes, and your spending needs. This calculator is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or tax advice. Consult a licensed financial advisor or CPA about your specific situation.