FIRE & Retirement Calculator

When can you reach financial independence? Enter what you have, what you save, and what you'll spend in retirement - see the year your portfolio can fund your life on the 4% rule, plus your Coast FIRE number. Everything is in today's dollars (use a real, after-inflation return).

FIRE = a portfolio big enough to cover your living costs for good. Your target is 25× your annual spending (the 4% rule). The tabs below pressure-test it.

FIRE style shortcuts - or just type your own spending below

Current age

yrs

Current invested assets

Monthly contribution

Annual spending in retirement

Expected return (real)

Safe withdrawal rate

Results

Your FI number

Years to FI

FI age

Coast FIRE number

Path to financial independenceFI number

Contributions Total balance (green above blue = growth) FI number (target)

Year-by-year projection

Age	Year	Contributed (yr)	Growth (yr)	Balance	% to FI

All figures are in today's dollars, so use a real (after-inflation) return - the long-run real return of a 100% stock portfolio has been ~7%, a 60/40 ~5%. The 4% rule (25× spending) comes from the Trinity study and assumes a ~30-year retirement; longer retirements or early retirement argue for 3.25–3.5%. Coast FIRE assumes a target retirement age of 65 and no further contributions. Excludes Social Security, pensions and taxes on withdrawals.

Monte Carlo Retirement Simulator

A single average return hides the risk. This runs 1,000 randomized market paths through your accumulation and retirement years - so instead of one tidy number you see the full fan of outcomes and the real probability your money lasts. Everything is in today's dollars (use a real return).

Market outlook

Current balance

Annual contribution

Years to retirement

yrs

Annual spending (retired)

Years in retirement

yrs

Mean return (real)

Volatility

1,000 paths, drawn from a normal return each year.

Results

Chance money lasts

Median at retirement

Median at end

Unlucky case (10th %)

Fan of outcomestoday's dollars

10th–90th percentile 25th–75th percentile Median path

Each of 1,000 paths draws an independent annual return from a normal distribution with your mean and volatility, compounding the balance while adding contributions before retirement and subtracting spending after. "Chance money lasts" is the fraction of paths that never hit zero during retirement. Real markets have fat tails, autocorrelation and sequence risk that a normal distribution understates, so treat this as a guide, not a guarantee. Results are seeded so they're stable as you adjust inputs.

Dividend Reinvestment (DRIP) Calculator

DRIP = Dividend ReInvestment Plan: instead of taking each dividend as cash, it automatically buys more shares - and those new shares pay their own dividends, compounding your share count for decades. Pick your account type below: in a taxable brokerage every dividend is taxed the year it's paid; in an IRA / 401(k) it compounds untouched.

Initial investment

Dividend yield

Dividend growth /yr

Price appreciation /yr

Years

yrs

Dividend tax rate

Account type

Results

Value (reinvested)

Total dividends

Reinvesting adds

Lost to tax drag

Reinvest vs take the cash

Dividends reinvested Dividends taken as cash

Annual dividend income

The income snowball: dividends paid each year as your reinvested share count grows.

Models a starting price of $100/share scaled to your investment. Each year, dividends are paid on shares held (growing at the dividend-growth rate), taxed if the account is taxable, and the after-tax amount buys more shares at the year-end price. The cash path holds shares constant and accumulates after-tax dividends without reinvesting. Tax drag is the value a taxable account loses versus the same holding in a tax-advantaged account. Excludes share-price volatility, fees and dividend cuts; assumes dividends stay qualified.