Retirement Savings Calculator
Project your retirement savings from current age, contributions, and expected return. Free to use, no signup required for occasional use.
What is the Retirement Savings Calculator?
The Retirement Savings Calculator projects how much money you're likely to have by the time you retire, based on your current age, the age you plan to retire, your current savings balance, how much you contribute monthly, and the expected annual rate of return on your investments. It separately calculates the future value of your existing savings and the future value of your ongoing monthly contributions, then combines them into a total projected balance at retirement. This gives a clear picture of how time, contribution amount, and investment returns interact — small increases in monthly contributions or a few extra years of saving can make a large difference thanks to compounding, and this tool lets you experiment with different scenarios to see that effect directly.
How to use it
Enter your current age and the age at which you plan to retire. Enter your current retirement savings balance, or 0 if you're starting from scratch. Enter how much you plan to contribute each month. Enter your expected annual rate of return as a percentage — 7% is a commonly used long-term average for diversified stock investments, though you should adjust this based on your own investment mix and risk tolerance. Click 'Calculate' to see your projected total savings at retirement, along with how much comes from your current savings growing versus your future contributions growing.
Frequently asked questions
What rate of return should I use?
It depends on your investment mix — conservative portfolios might use 4-5%, while stock-heavy portfolios often use 6-8% as a long-term historical average, though actual returns vary and aren't guaranteed.
Does this account for inflation?
No, this shows nominal future value; to estimate purchasing power in today's dollars, you'd need to separately discount the result for expected inflation.
Does this include employer matching contributions?
No, enter your total monthly contribution including any employer match you receive, since the tool doesn't calculate matching separately.
What if I change my contribution amount partway through my career?
Run the calculator again with updated numbers whenever your contribution changes to get a fresh projection from that point forward.