Is the withdrawal rate safe?

We will not say that, and no honest tool can. It is your assumption about how much of a portfolio can be drawn each year. Historical studies disagree with each other, depend on the period examined, and none of them knows your horizon.

Why real returns rather than nominal?

Because the spending is in today's money. Mixing a nominal return with today's spending is the standard way this calculation comes out a decade too optimistic.

Is this a FIRE calculator?

It is the same arithmetic without the ideology. The number tells you when work could become optional under your own assumptions; what you do with that is not something a calculator should have an opinion about.

Financial Freedom Number

When could work become optional?

A target capital, and how long your current pace would take to reach it. Every input is your assumption, and the withdrawal rate is the one that decides most of the answer.

Your assumptions

Annual spending, in today's money

Invested capital

Monthly contribution

Assumed real annual return

After inflation. Keeping everything in today's money is what stops inflation being counted twice.

Assumed withdrawal rate

Your assumption, not a recommendation. Nothing here calls any rate safe or sustainable.

Display currency

Your freedom number

€1,000,000

€40,000 a year at a 4.0% withdrawal rate.

Progress so far

10.0%

Still to build

€900,000

Years at this pace

24.5 years

Indicative year

2051

Your pace against the target

In today's money throughout, because the target is too. One line, one target, no inflation counted twice.

Show these figures as a table

Year	Projected capital
0	€100,000
1	€122,328
2	€145,548
3	€169,698
4	€194,814
5	€220,934
6	€248,099
7	€276,350
8	€305,732
9	€336,289
10	€368,068
11	€401,119
12	€435,491
13	€471,238
14	€508,416
15	€547,080
16	€587,291
17	€629,110
18	€672,602
19	€717,834
20	€764,875
21	€813,798
22	€864,677
23	€917,592
24	€972,623
25	€1,029,856
26	€1,089,378
27	€1,151,280
28	€1,215,659
29	€1,282,613

What moves the date

Saving 10% more

1.2 years earlier

Spending 10% less

1.8 years earlier

One point less return

3.3 years later

Method, sources and limits

Method version: 1.0.0

Everything is in today's money: the spending, the target and the assumed return are all real, so inflation is never counted twice. The projection compounds monthly and is bounded at seventy years — beyond that the answer stops meaning anything and is reported as unreachable. The withdrawal rate is your assumption and is never described as safe, recommended or sustainable.

Past performance is not a guide to future returns. These figures describe what happened over the period shown and nothing else.

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Your assumptions

What moves the date

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Questions about this tool