Planning Studio
Retirement Income Calculator
Model how a retirement balance holds up against inflation-adjusted withdrawals over time — both a single fixed-return projection and a Monte Carlo-backed view of the range of possible outcomes.
Your withdrawal plan
The balance you're starting withdrawals from.
Withdrawn once per year, net of that year's return.
How much the withdrawal amount grows each year to keep pace with spending needs.
Used for both the deterministic figure below and as the mean of the simulated distribution.
How much annual returns swing around the mean, for the simulated risk view below. Set to 0% to remove randomness.
Deterministic depletion view
Assumes the SAME fixed annual return every single year — it does not account for return variability or sequence-of-returns risk. See the probabilistic view below (or the Monte Carlo Explorer) for that fuller picture.
View year-by-year balance table
| Year | Balance |
|---|---|
| 0 | $800,000 |
| 1 | $808,000 |
| 2 | $815,280 |
| 3 | $821,761 |
| 4 | $827,357 |
| 5 | $831,978 |
| 6 | $835,526 |
| 7 | $837,896 |
| 8 | $838,974 |
| 9 | $838,642 |
| 10 | $836,770 |
| 11 | $833,219 |
| 12 | $827,843 |
| 13 | $820,483 |
| 14 | $810,971 |
| 15 | $799,126 |
| 16 | $784,754 |
| 17 | $767,651 |
| 18 | $747,597 |
| 19 | $724,355 |
| 20 | $697,676 |
| 21 | $667,292 |
| 22 | $632,918 |
| 23 | $594,249 |
| 24 | $550,960 |
| 25 | $502,706 |
| 26 | $449,117 |
| 27 | $389,801 |
| 28 | $324,337 |
| 29 | $252,280 |
| 30 | $173,155 |
Probabilistic risk view (Monte Carlo)
Runs 1,000 simulated paths with returns drawn from a distribution around your mean/standard-deviation assumptions, same engine and sequencing convention as the Monte Carlo Explorer.
- Chance this plan lasts the full horizon
- 38.7%
- Median ending balance
- $0
This range comes from a randomized simulation built entirely from the mean/standard-deviation assumptions above; a different simulated batch, or different assumptions, would produce different percentile figures — see the Monte Carlo Explorer for a dedicated view of that variability.
Approximate depletion timing by percentile band (a lower bound, not an exact per-trial distribution — see the disclosure below): at least 10% of trials are depleted by year 15. At least 25% are depleted by year 19. The median trial itself is depleted by year 26.
View year-by-year percentile data table
| Year | 10th pct. | 25th pct. | Median | 75th pct. | 90th pct. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | $800,000 | $800,000 | $800,000 | $800,000 | $800,000 |
| 1 | $649,779 | $721,708 | $806,350 | $888,976 | $952,021 |
| 2 | $586,812 | $687,154 | $797,460 | $918,955 | $1,045,485 |
| 3 | $539,647 | $650,311 | $799,685 | $944,897 | $1,103,935 |
| 4 | $495,521 | $632,850 | $791,562 | $981,445 | $1,174,365 |
| 5 | $456,345 | $596,864 | $792,172 | $1,014,666 | $1,228,225 |
| 6 | $420,169 | $560,452 | $786,136 | $1,051,232 | $1,315,127 |
| 7 | $382,451 | $534,412 | $765,869 | $1,054,247 | $1,404,842 |
| 8 | $336,849 | $509,289 | $755,579 | $1,065,272 | $1,419,360 |
| 9 | $285,429 | $469,123 | $729,934 | $1,088,175 | $1,519,733 |
| 10 | $248,726 | $422,212 | $720,523 | $1,098,743 | $1,585,228 |
| 11 | $198,807 | $393,434 | $695,041 | $1,125,642 | $1,681,784 |
| 12 | $154,651 | $344,421 | $666,152 | $1,124,443 | $1,730,546 |
| 13 | $98,554 | $305,109 | $642,394 | $1,114,655 | $1,833,494 |
| 14 | $47,045 | $250,230 | $621,572 | $1,146,783 | $1,907,466 |
| 15 | $0 | $204,474 | $584,986 | $1,185,106 | $2,000,241 |
| 16 | $0 | $152,318 | $537,944 | $1,157,271 | $2,041,476 |
| 17 | $0 | $92,304 | $497,689 | $1,160,071 | $2,122,226 |
| 18 | $0 | $32,447 | $461,648 | $1,136,119 | $2,107,551 |
| 19 | $0 | $0 | $403,294 | $1,136,357 | $2,155,647 |
| 20 | $0 | $0 | $354,450 | $1,071,530 | $2,272,748 |
| 21 | $0 | $0 | $287,654 | $1,085,685 | $2,334,066 |
| 22 | $0 | $0 | $225,112 | $1,065,759 | $2,287,528 |
| 23 | $0 | $0 | $169,216 | $1,037,355 | $2,270,601 |
| 24 | $0 | $0 | $90,570 | $1,007,189 | $2,316,172 |
| 25 | $0 | $0 | $11,509 | $971,927 | $2,462,326 |
| 26 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $917,266 | $2,575,283 |
| 27 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $894,467 | $2,745,353 |
| 28 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $864,757 | $2,780,715 |
| 29 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $828,967 | $2,817,543 |
| 30 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $816,775 | $2,885,532 |
Limitations of the fixed-return (deterministic) model
The deterministic view above assumes the exact same return happens every single year, in a world where real returns vary wildly year to year. It completely ignores sequence-of-returns risk — the fact that a bad return early in a withdrawal phase can permanently damage a portfolio’s ability to recover, even if the AVERAGE return over the whole horizon ends up identical to a smoother path. Two portfolios with the same average return can have very different real outcomes depending on when the good and bad years land. The probabilistic (Monte Carlo) view above, and the dedicated Monte Carlo Explorer, exist specifically to show that risk instead of hiding it behind one misleadingly precise number.
Illustrative only — not a guarantee
This tool produces an illustrative, hypothetical projection based entirely on the numbers you enter. It is not a guarantee or prediction of future results, and it is not personalized investment, tax, or legal advice. Every assumption shown here (contribution amount, assumed rate of return, inflation, fees, and time horizon) is fully editable and has not been validated against your actual financial circumstances, goals, or risk tolerance.
Dollar figures are nominal (not adjusted for inflation) unless a figure is explicitly labeled real / inflation-adjusted. Actual investment results will vary and may be significantly lower or higher than any figure shown here.
Results from this tool may vary with each use and over time: changing any input, or running this same tool again later as your numbers or the markets change, can produce a different outcome than the one shown here.