How long will my money last?
Bank calculators quote one number from a smoothed average return taxed at nothing. This page replays your drawdown across every historical start year since 1928 — in the actual order returns arrived, so an early crash counts differently than a late one — grosses taxes up out of every withdrawal, drags explicit fees, and reports the age your money runs out as a p10 / median / p90 range.
Depletion age range
p10 · median · p90 across start yearsCoral = 10th-percentile (unlucky sequences run out this early), green = median, lime = 90th-percentile. "119+" means the money outlasts the life table's edge.
Year-1 withdrawal waterfall
gross → tax → fee → spendableThe gap most calculators skip: a "4% withdrawal" is not 4% of spending — tax comes out of the withdrawal, and fees come out of the portfolio on top.
Show the math ›
Assumptions & sources ›
| Assumption | Value | Source · asOf |
|---|---|---|
| Equity return | S&P 500 total return, 1928–2025 | Damodaran (NYU Stern), annual · asOf 2026-01 · dividends reinvested |
| Non-stock sleeve | 3-month T-bill (cash) | Damodaran (NYU Stern) · asOf 2026-01 · a bond series is a planned refinement |
| Inflation | CPI-U, Dec/Dec, actual path per sequence | BLS · asOf 2026-01 |
| Sequences | 98 start years, wrap-around | every start year 1928–2025; sequences longer than the data wrap to 1928 (disclosed approximation) |
| Federal tax | 2026 brackets, grossed up per withdrawal | IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 · asOf 2025-10 · standard deduction; brackets held constant (no future indexation) |
| Fees | explicit bps drag, every year | user input; applied to the portfolio return after each withdrawal |
| Longevity | SSA period life table 2023 | SSA table 4.C6 · asOf 2023 · death-age percentiles derived at ages 45/55/65, interpolated between (and clamped outside) those anchors |
| Not modeled (v1) | Social Security & its provisional-income tax, RMDs, state tax, IRMAA/ACA, spending flexibility | documented limitations — the withdrawal is assumed to be the household's only income; results skew conservative for households with SS income |
The life table is a period table (2023 mortality held fixed): it understates longevity for younger cohorts, which makes the success-rate references easier to hit than a cohort projection would be. All outputs are illustrative estimates across historical sequences — the future is not obligated to repeat any of them.
Common questions
How long will my money last in retirement? ›
This page replays your drawdown across every historical start year since 1928, in the actual order returns arrived, so an early crash counts differently than a late one. Because the sequence of returns changes the outcome, it reports the age your money runs out as a p10, median, and p90 range rather than one number. Federal tax is grossed up out of each withdrawal, and explicit fees drag on the portfolio every year.
What is sequence-of-returns risk? ›
Sequence-of-returns risk is the effect of the order in which returns arrive once you are withdrawing. Two retirements with the same average return can end very differently if one meets a crash early. This page captures it by replaying your spending across each historical start year from 1928 onward, rather than smoothing everything into one average return, which is why the depletion age comes back as a range instead of a single figure.
Does the 4% rule account for taxes and fees? ›
A 4 percent withdrawal is not 4 percent of spending. On this page federal tax is grossed up out of every withdrawal, so the gross amount pulled exceeds what you actually spend, and explicit fees in basis points come off the portfolio return on top. The year-one waterfall shows gross withdrawal, federal tax, fee drag, and spendable side by side, a gap many calculators skip. Traditional, Roth, and taxable accounts are taxed differently.
What does the depletion-age range mean on this calculator? ›
The depletion-age range shows three points across every start year since 1928: p10 marks unlucky sequences that run out early, the median is the middle outcome, and p90 marks fortunate ones. A reading of 119-plus means the money outlasts the life table's edge. Success rates are checked against the SSA 2023 life table for the age and sex you set, giving a longevity reference rather than a single promise.
Related
- Safe withdrawal rate
The same tax-and-fee honesty applied to the 4%-rule family.
- Withdraw pillar
All drawdown calculators: sequence risk, dividends, Roth ladders.
- Methodology
How the sequence-replay engine and data layers are built.