Plan retirement income from Social Security, pensions, 401k, and IRA with withdrawal strategy visualization and longevity risk.
This planner stacks your guaranteed income - Social Security, a pension, an annuity - against your planned retirement spending, then computes how much must come out of your 401k or IRA each year. It then projects the portfolio year by year under your chosen withdrawal strategy and shows how long it lasts, including the risk of running out late in life. The surprise for most people is the reverse of a shortfall: Social Security plus a modest pension covers more of the budget than they assumed, and the gap that remains is small enough that a later claiming date or a modest spending cut closes it.
A concrete input and expected output from the current implementation.
Input
Retire at 67. Social Security at full retirement age: $2,000/month. Pension: $1,000/month starting at retirement. 401k/IRA balance: $500,000. Desired retirement income: $48,000/year.
Expected output
Guaranteed income: $36,000/year ($24,000 from Social Security, $12,000 from the pension). The remaining $12,000/year comes from savings - a 2.4% initial withdrawal rate on $500,000, well below the 4% guideline. At zero real growth the portfolio lasts about 42 years, just past age 108, so the plan is classified as low longevity risk.
Monthly Social Security and pension convert to $24,000 and $12,000 per year, covering $36,000 of the $48,000 target. The $12,000 remainder is 2.4% of the $500,000 balance, and at that rate the balance covers the gap for 41.7 years (500,000 divided by 12,000), reaching just past age 108.
Each income source has a start date: Social Security at the age you plan to claim, a pension when it begins, part-time work if any. The tool converts monthly figures to annual amounts, sums whatever is active in each retirement year, and subtracts the total from your spending target. The result is the portfolio gap for that year, which usually shrinks as more sources layer in.
The withdrawal strategy sets how much comes out each year - a fixed percentage of the starting balance, an inflation-adjusted amount, or a fixed dollar figure. The tool projects the portfolio forward year by year, subtracting withdrawals and crediting a growth rate you choose, and reports the age when the balance reaches zero. Lower growth rates and higher withdrawals pull that depletion date earlier, which is longevity risk made visible.
Claiming at 62 locks in a permanently reduced benefit - about 30 percent below the full retirement age amount - and a smaller check every year for life. Because the gap between your spending and guaranteed income grows, more must come from savings, and the depletion date moves earlier. The reverse applies at 70, where delayed credits of 8 percent per year raise the check.
Social Security is inflation-adjusted by law, while most pensions pay a fixed nominal amount, so the two erode at different rates over a long retirement. Whether the planner nets out inflation is the setting to check: a growth rate expressed in real terms, after inflation, gives a different depletion date than a nominal one. Read the projection in today's dollars to keep the spending target and the withdrawals comparable.
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