How Long Will My Money Last in Retirement Calculator
Enter your savings and yearly withdrawal. See how many years the money lasts, then how it holds up across real market years.
Your plan
In US dollars. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
How long your money lasts
$1,000,000 with $40,000 withdrawn in the first year and raised with inflation lasts about 37 years at a steady 5% return and 2.5% inflation. Across real market years since 1928, it lasted 30 years in 90% of 10,000 simulated paths and from 65 of 69 real start years (1928 to 1996).
Withdrawal rate: 4.0% of savings in year one.
Steady return
37.5 years
Money lasts about 37 years. Real return 2.44% a year. That covers your 30-year plan.
Real market years
90% of paths last 30 years
65 of 69 real start years lasted the full 30 years. Failed starts: 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969.
Chance it lasts 20 to 50 years
Same savings, withdrawal and mix over different lengths, 10,000 simulated paths each.
- 99%20 years
- 90%30 years
- 83%40 years
- 77%50 years
Famous starting years
- Retiring in 1929: the money lasted, ending with $523,731 in today's dollars.
- Retiring in 1966: the money ran out in year 26.
- Retiring in 1982: the money lasted, ending with $5,360,383 in today's dollars.
How it is calculated
- Each year you withdraw first, then what is left earns that year's return. Spending starts at the amount you enter and rises with inflation.
- Steady view: a constant return and inflation that you choose. The real return is (1 + return) / (1 + inflation) - 1, and the years the money lasts come from the closed form of that recurrence. It is our own derivation, not an official formula, and the tests check it against year-by-year stepping.
- Historical view: the site's retirement engine resamples real calendar years from 1928 to 2025, each with that year's S&P 500 total return, 10-year Treasury total return and inflation. It runs 10,000 paths with a fixed seed, rebalances yearly, and also replays every real start year whose full horizon fits the data.
- A path fails when the balance cannot cover that year's withdrawal. The success rate is the share of paths that never fail within your horizon.
Sources
Read on 2026-10-27. The historical series is stored in this site's repository and runs through 2025.
- Aswath Damodaran, NYU Stern, histretSP.xls (sheet Returns by year): “Historical Returns on Stocks, Bonds and Bills: 1928-current”. S&P 500 total return, 10-year Treasury total return and inflation (the file's FRED CPIAUCNS column) for each calendar year, 1928 to 2025.
- Federal Reserve Board, Why does the Federal Reserve aim for inflation of 2 percent over the longer run?: “as measured by the annual change in the price index for personal consumption expenditures”. Context for the inflation input: the Fed's 2% goal is measured with the PCE price index, while the historical series uses CPI.
Questions about how long money lasts
How long will $1,000,000 last in retirement?
At $40,000 a year, raised with inflation, it lasts about 37 years if your money earns a steady 5% while inflation runs 2.5%. In the historical view (60% stocks, rest 10-year Treasuries), it lasted 30 years in 90% of 10,000 simulated paths. Change the inputs above to see your own numbers.
Does a 4% withdrawal rate last 30 years?
Withdrawing 4% of the starting balance in year one and raising it with inflation, it lasted 30 years from 65 of 69 real start years from 1928 to 1996 (each followed through 30 real years, data through 2025) with a 60% stock mix. Retiring in the weakest starting years is what makes the difference, so the calculator lists them.
What changes if I withdraw $50,000 instead of $40,000?
The withdrawal rate rises from 4% to 5%. The steady view drops to about 26 years, and the historical success rate for 30 years falls from 90% to 75%.
How long will $500,000 last at $40,000 a year?
That is a 8% withdrawal rate. At a steady 5% return and 2.5% inflation it lasts about 14 years, and a 30-year plan succeeded in 19% of simulated paths.
Why do the steady and historical results differ?
The steady view assumes the same return every year, so the order of good and bad years does not matter. Real markets do not behave like that: a crash early in retirement hurts more than the same crash late, because you are selling shares while they are down. The historical view uses real years, so it shows that sequence risk.
Does this include Social Security, taxes or pensions?
No. The calculator only models your savings and one withdrawal amount. If Social Security or a pension covers part of your spending, enter only the amount you need to take from savings. Enter the gross amount you take out of savings each year; the calculator does not deduct income tax, so if your withdrawals are taxed, enter your spending plus the tax.
Related tools
- Monte Carlo retirement calculator Add contributions before you retire and see the full range of outcomes.
- Coast FIRE calculator How much to invest now so growth alone reaches your number.
- S&P 500 investment calculator Project growth with dividends and real market history.
- Methodology and data sources How the retirement engine and the dataset work.
This is an educational tool, not personal financial advice. It leaves out taxes, Social Security, pensions, one-off expenses and changes in how much you spend, and past market years do not predict future ones.