Will the money last.
Public equity, private funds, bonds, and options are how you try to answer it. The calculator is a sketch. The writing is in Resources.
A hundred paths, not one forecast.
This is a Monte Carlo sketch. It runs the same plan through many random return sequences so you can see how often the money holds up under the assumptions you typed. It is not a prediction. It is not your plan. Change the inputs and the answer moves.
8% and 12% are a blended assumption, not a mix I am telling you to hold.
The plan is modeled to the later of the spending-start age plus 30 years, or the current age plus 40 years. Each year draws a return from a normal distribution using the expected return and volatility entered. Inflation raises spending every year. Saving is added until spending starts; spending is subtracted after. A trial survives if the portfolio stays above $0 through the last modeled age.
Last reviewed August 2026.
Four tools. You still pick the mix.
Do not copy a mix off this page. For each one, answer the question on the card. If you cannot, leave that tool alone.
This is the growth engine you can still sell.
It is also the sleeve that marks to market whether you like the year or not.
If this sleeve dropped 30% the year withdrawals start, which bills still get paid, and from what?
This is return you cannot tap on your schedule — useful only when that is the point.
The commitment leaves your account when the fund says so, including in a year you are already writing retirement checks.
Name the year you could miss a capital call and not touch the spending pile. If you cannot name it, this sleeve is using retirement money.
This is the ballast that can write a check when stocks will not.
Price still moves when rates move. A yield on a fact sheet is not the same thing as cash in the year you need it.
Is this here to fund the annual spending, or to feel safer? Those are different purchases.
On stock you already own, a covered call trades some upside for cash now. A collar uses that call, plus a put, to put a floor under a bad year. Same tools. Different jobs.
Are you collecting premium, buying a floor, or both — and if the stock is down 30% the year withdrawals start, does the leftover position still fund the bills?
Start with one of these.
The order of returns matters more than the average once withdrawals start.
The fund calls the capital. The gap between the number you signed and cash in the account is where households get caught.
On stock you already own: income now, a floor, or both. Same tools. Different jobs.
Three questions, answered shortly.
Spending and the sequence of returns, far more than manager selection. Two portfolios with the same average return can finish in different places if one takes its bad years as withdrawals start. Keep a year's spending in things you can sell. Treat lockups as a constraint on the spending schedule.
Last reviewed August 2026.