Retirement drawdown calculator
How many months a pot of savings pays a fixed monthly withdrawal, at a yearly return you choose.
Your own guess, held the same every year. The 4% here is an example.
How long the savings last
20 yr 3 mo
243 full withdrawals, to age 85 yr 3 mo · the first month's growth is $1,667 against $3,000 taken out
- Taken out a year
- $36,000
- Of the starting savings
- 7.2%
- Total taken out
- $729,000
The same amount taken out at the end of every month, with the return you entered applied evenly and compounded monthly. Real returns are not even, and poor years early on shorten the result by more than the average suggests. Prices rise, so a fixed amount buys less each year. Tax on withdrawals, Social Security and any other income are left out. It does not say what is safe to withdraw. Not financial advice.
Questions
- Why is the result so sensitive to the return?
- Because growth and withdrawals pull against each other for decades. When the first month's growth is close to the amount taken out, a small change in the return adds or removes many years.
- Does this allow for inflation?
- No. The withdrawal stays the same in dollars, which means it buys a little less each year. To see a rising withdrawal you would need to lower the return by your guess at inflation, which is a rough approximation.
Have a site of your own?
This calculator can be shown on your page with two lines of HTML. Free, with no account, no script and no ads.
Put this calculator on your site