The guide to Retirement Planner

Retirement planning: connect saving years with spending years

Saving for retirement and spending in retirement are parts of the same story. The Retirement Planner follows one portfolio through both, so changing a retirement age or saving habit has a visible consequence later.

Open the Retirement Planner

The idea behind itKeep the years before and after retirement in the same picture.

What the planner does

Start with your current age, invested savings, and planning age. Set a retirement age, monthly contributions, and separate return assumptions before and after retirement. The graph follows the portfolio from today through the selected horizon.

Before retirement, the balance grows under the assumed return and receives monthly contributions. At retirement, contributions stop and the model begins funding spending. The selected spending rate sets the initial annual spending amount from the projected portfolio at retirement.

The philosophy: retirement is a transition

A retirement balance is a checkpoint. What happens afterward depends on spending, income, time, and returns. Putting both phases on one line helps you see whether a change improves the full picture rather than only the number at retirement.

Retiring later changes more than the saving period: it also changes when withdrawals start. A smaller monthly contribution affects the balance available at that transition. The chart lets you inspect those connections without hiding them behind a single score.

Keep spending and income distinct

Social Security starts at the selected claiming age and reduces the amount the portfolio must fund. Extra income starts at retirement and adds to spending capacity. The calculator does not count Social Security a second time as additional spending on top of the base budget.

For example, $1,000,000 at retirement and a 4% initial spending rate produce $40,000 of base annual spending. If Social Security supplies $24,000 that year, the portfolio funds $16,000. Another $6,000 of extra income raises displayed spending capacity to $46,000; it is already allocated to that larger budget.

Use the chart to test the plan

Try retiring two years earlier, then restore the age and lower the return assumption. Enable spending inflation and compare the later balance. Extra income has its own inflation option, so you can model it staying flat while spending rises.

Explore retirement years on the graph to inspect the selected age. Growth cushion compares modeled annual growth with withdrawals. Extra spending room estimates a sustained spending adjustment through the planning horizon and may use principal. Neither amount is a guaranteed allowance.

Understand the limits

The Social Security example is editable. Its fixed 2.5% annual benefit growth is an illustration, not the actual future COLA. Returns are smooth monthly projections, not simulations of market losses or their sequence. The planner omits taxes, fees, required distributions, and detailed household costs.

If you are already retired and want to include mortgage principal and interest until a payoff age, use the Retirement Spending Planner.

Further reading: How Social Security cost-of-living adjustments work.

Try it with your own numbers

Change one assumption, compare the result, then try another. Calculator settings stay in your browser.