Retirement Budget Calculator

How a monthly retirement budget is built

A budget for retirement is the monthly plan for money coming in and money going out after paychecks stop. Income usually comes from Social Security, a pension, dividends, part-time work, and withdrawals from savings. Spending covers housing, healthcare, food, transportation, and the costs you still want to keep. The difference is what the accounts have to cover.

A monthly retirement budget turns that difference into a number you can check against the savings. This page is a retirement budget planner for that check, and a budget calculator for retirement when you want income, spending, taxes, and withdrawals in one place. Enter current savings, income, and monthly expenses. The projection estimates the balance, the withdrawals, federal and state tax, and how many years the money may last. Change an input and the result updates on this page.

The lines are monthly on purpose. Housing, healthcare, food, and the rest are entered per month, then carried forward year by year. A worksheet for one bill is a different page. This retirement budget calculator is the full plan those smaller estimates sit inside.

A retirement budget that includes taxes and withdrawals

A retirement budget calculator with taxes does more than subtract expenses from income. Withdrawals from a traditional 401(k) or IRA are taxed as ordinary income, and required minimum distributions force money out on a schedule. This projection starts those distributions at age 73. It divides the prior year-end 401(k) and traditional IRA balance by the life-expectancy factor on the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table. The factor is 26.5 at 73 and 20.2 at 80, so a larger share of the balance must come out each year. Under current law the required beginning age is 75 for people born in 1960 or later. This estimate uses 73 for every birth year.

Federal tax uses current brackets. State tax uses the state you select. The RMD calculator and the retirement withdrawal calculator each go deeper on one piece. This view keeps taxes and withdrawals next to the rest of the monthly budget.

A simple retirement budget example

The figures below are the starting example in the tool, the same household a simple retirement budget calculator should show before you replace it with your own. The person is 30 in 2026, earns $75,000 a year, plans to retire at 62, and expects to live to 85. They save 15% of salary. Current accounts total $569,000, including $150,000 in a 401(k), $80,000 in a traditional IRA, $50,000 in a Roth IRA, and a home value counted with the other assets. The state in the example is Florida.

That table is the form, before the projection adjusts Social Security. The $2,200 entry is multiplied by 0.70 because this example retires at 62, so the benefit used is $1,540 a month. Pension, dividends, and part-time work stay at $800, $300, and $1,000. Monthly income in the projection is $3,640. Monthly spending is $5,550. Savings have to cover about $1,910 a month before tax.

With the default growth rates and that 15% savings rate, the accounts reach about $4.3 million by retirement. In the first retirement year the estimate is about $26,900 of federal tax, in the 24% bracket, on roughly $159,000 of taxable income. Florida has no state income tax in this calculator, so the example adds none. The balance lasts all 24 planned years, through age 85. At 73 the required distribution is about $156,000. Raise the savings rate, move the retirement age, or cut a spending line and those results change. There is no separate spreadsheet to download. The projection on this page is the working budget.

How a 401(k), IRA, and Social Security sit in the same budget

A 401(k) and IRA retirement budget belongs in the same monthly plan as Social Security. A traditional 401(k) or IRA grows tax-deferred, and withdrawals are taxed as ordinary income. The projection treats Roth IRA and HSA withdrawals as tax-free. It does not apply the five-year rule, and it does not check whether a Roth withdrawal is qualified. Social Security is entered as a monthly amount, scaled for the age you claim, and then grown each year.

In this calculator, age 62 uses 70% of the amount you entered, age 67 uses 100%, and age 70 uses 124%. The Social Security calculator compares claiming ages in more detail. On a tax return, up to 85% of a benefit is taxable once combined income is over $34,000 for a single filer or $44,000 for a joint filer. This projection includes the full scaled benefit in taxable income. It uses that full amount rather than the 50% or 85% formula on a tax return.

What this calculator assumes

Growth and inflation are constant each year. Defaults are 6% for a 401(k) and traditional IRA, 7% for a Roth IRA, 8% for a brokerage account, and 4% for bonds. Markets do not return the same rate every year. This is a planning estimate. Inflation defaults to 3% and raises expenses every year. Social Security grows at a 2.5% COLA, the same default already in the form, close to the long-run average.

Before retirement, new savings default to 15% of salary when you leave the dollar contribution blank. Each year that amount is added to the accounts, up to the annual cap this tool uses: $24,500 for a 401(k), $7,000 for a traditional IRA, $7,000 for a Roth IRA, and $4,400 for an HSA. Those IRA caps are applied separately here.

Required distributions use the Uniform Lifetime Table factors current as of 2024, starting at 73. The formulas for growth, tax brackets, and withdrawals are on the formulas page. This is a retirement budget calculator free to use: no account, and no file to download. To save the inputs and test a bad market, use Plan Builder.

These are educational estimates. They are not financial, tax, or legal advice.

Questions about the calculator