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Retirement Savings Planner

A comprehensive year-by-year retirement schedule planner. Simulate accumulation, safe withdrawal rates, and inject custom life events to see their impact on your financial independence.

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Category Retirement & Pension

Life Events Injection

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    About

    Planning for retirement requires more than a simple savings target. It demands a dynamic timeline that accounts for the accumulation phase, the drawdown phase, and the unpredictable financial shocks of life. This tool provides a granular, year-by-year analysis of your financial trajectory.

    Accuracy in this domain is critical. A miscalculation in the compounding rate or underestimating the impact of a major expense (like a house purchase or college tuition) at a critical age can delay retirement by years. This planner integrates a Safe Withdrawal Rate simulation (e.g., the 4% rule) to test portfolio longevity and allows for specific Life Events injection to model real-world scenarios.

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    Formulas

    The core of the simulation relies on the Time Value of Money, adjusted for annual cash flows and irregular events. The accumulation balance for year n is calculated iteratively:

    Bn = Bn-1 × ( 1 + r ) + Cmonthly × 12 − En

    Where B is the Balance, C is Contribution, and E represents Life Events for that year. In the drawdown phase, contributions are replaced by withdrawals:

    Wannual = Bretire × SWR

    Reference Data

    VariableSymbolStandard / UnitDescription
    Future ValueFV$Projected portfolio balance at a specific future date.
    Present ValuePV$Current savings or initial investment amount.
    Rate of Returnr%Annualized growth rate (inflation-adjusted).
    Safe Withdrawal RateSWR% (e.g., 4%)Percentage of portfolio withdrawn annually in retirement.
    Life Event ImpactΔC$One-time cash flow shocks (positive or negative).

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Simple compound interest formulas cannot account for variable cash flows like a wedding cost at age 30 or a tuition payment at age 45. Iterative calculation allows for high-fidelity modeling of these specific life events.
    The SWR is the percentage of your portfolio you can withdraw in the first year of retirement (adjusted for inflation thereafter) with a high probability of not running out of money. The industry standard is often cited as 4%.
    For clarity, it is often best to use "Real Returns" (e.g., if the market returns 8% and inflation is 3%, enter 5%). This keeps all monetary values in 'today's dollars', making it easier to understand your future purchasing power.
    A large expense early in the accumulation phase has a disproportionately negative effect on the final outcome due to the loss of decades of compound interest on that spent capital.