Retirement Savings Goal Calculator

Last updated July 2, 2026

How much retirement savings is enough? The honest answer is that it depends on three things: what you plan to spend each year, how long you'll live, and what your money will earn along the way. The most common shortcut is the 25x rule: multiply your expected annual spending by 25 to get a rough target savings number. If you plan to spend $60,000 per year in retirement, you need $1.5 million saved. That multiplier comes from the 4 percent rule — if you withdraw 4 percent of your savings in year one and adjust for inflation annually, a diversified portfolio should last 30 years under most historical market scenarios.

The target changes significantly when you adjust the inputs. Retiring at 55 instead of 65 means 40 or 45 years of portfolio life rather than 30, which pushes more researchers toward a 3.5 percent withdrawal rate and a 28x to 30x multiplier. Social Security income reduces the amount your portfolio needs to cover — if you'll receive $2,000 per month from Social Security in retirement, that's $24,000 per year your savings don't need to generate, effectively reducing the savings target by $600,000 at a 4 percent withdrawal rate. A pension with a predictable payment works the same way. The retirement savings goal calculation is most useful when it incorporates all income sources, not just the savings balance in isolation.

Your retirement savings target isn't a single universal number — it's your expected annual spending minus guaranteed income sources, multiplied by 25 (or more if you're retiring early). The calculation is strongest when built around actual projected spending rather than a percentage of current income, since spending patterns in retirement often look quite different from working years.