Calculator
Retirement spending calculator
Start from your monthly budget. We total it, subtract Social Security, and show how much savings covered the rest through U.S. market history.
$5,200 a month is $62,400 a year. Social Security covers $30,000, leaving $32,400 to come from savings, which at a 3.7% withdrawal rate lasted 30 years every time.
What this means
Your budget comes to $62,400 a year. After Social Security, $32,400 has to come from savings. Savings of about $870,000 would have covered that, rising with inflation, for 30 years in every retirement since 1928. Accepting the outcome of 90% of past starts lowers that to about $775,000.
Your biggest line is housing and utilities at $2,000 a month. Every $100 a month you trim lowers the savings you need by about $32,200.
Retirement spending usually isn’t flat: travel tends to fall in your late 70s while health care rises. Building in some flexibility, like guardrails, often matters more than getting each line exactly right.
Start with spending, not savings
Rules of thumb like “replace 80% of your income” are a rough start. A budget is better: most people spend differently in retirement, with no commute or retirement contributions but more travel and health care. The calculator turns your monthly budget into the savings it historically took to support it.
Don’t forget these
- Health care before 65. Retiring before Medicare means paying for private coverage.
- Taxes. Withdrawals from pre-tax accounts are taxed as income. Add an estimate to “other” if most savings are pre-tax.
- Irregular costs. Roofs, cars and helping family don’t show up monthly. Average them into your budget.
- Spending changes with age. Travel often falls in your late 70s while health care rises.
Assumptions
- Budget amounts are in today’s dollars and rise with inflation. Taxes are not included; add them to your budget if withdrawals will be taxed.
- Savings hold 60% stocks and 40% 10-year Treasuries over a 30-year retirement.
- “Every past start” uses the lowest withdrawal rate that lasted in all start years since 1928.
New to a term? See the retirement income glossary.
Common questions
How much does the average retiree spend?
U.S. households headed by someone 65 or older spend roughly $50,000 to $60,000 a year on average, but the range is wide. Your own budget is a far better guide.
How much do I need to retire on $5,000 a month?
It depends on Social Security. If Social Security covers $2,500 a month, savings must supply $30,000 a year, which historically took roughly $800,000 to $850,000 with a balanced mix over 30 years.
Related tools
How we calculate this
We total your monthly budget, subtract Social Security, then divide by the historically sustainable withdrawal rate for your retirement length and mix, found by testing every start year since 1928.
Data: S&P 500 total returns, 10-year Treasury and 3-month Treasury bill returns as compiled by Aswath Damodaran (NYU Stern), and CPI-U inflation from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1928–2025 (2025 preliminary). Read the full methodology and limitations.