Not sure where to begin? Start here.
There are twenty-six calculators on this site and you almost certainly need three of them. This page works out which three. Nothing here calculates anything — it just asks two questions and points you somewhere sensible.
Which of these sounds most like you?
Pick the closest. If two fit, pick the later one — it's better to be looking at the problems that are nearly here than the ones that aren't yet.
Still working, and retirement is a way off
Five to fifteen years out. You want to know whether you're on track and what would knock you off it.
About to stop, within a year or two
The date is nearly set. This is the highest-stakes window there is, and the one most people prepare for least.
Just retired, in the first couple of years
The money has started going out rather than in. Different maths, different risks, different habits.
Retired a while, wondering if it still works
Things have changed — markets, prices, health, family. You want to re-check rather than re-plan.
There's still a mortgage
And a decision to make about it. This is the question the site was really built for.
Something specific is worrying me
You already know what keeps you awake. Skip to the list of worries below.
Still working, five to fifteen years out
The full guide for this stage →
You have time on your side, which means the things worth knowing are the ones that compound: how much the plan can absorb, what inflation quietly does to it, and what you're actually going to spend. Do these in order — each one gives you a number the next one needs.
- Will your money outlive you? Start with the big one. It tells you your odds of running short and the withdrawal rate that fits your own life expectancy rather than a rule of thumb. Look at the safe withdrawal rate it gives you — that's the number everything else is measured against.
- Inflation erosion The quietest risk and the one people underestimate most. Look at what your target income buys in twenty-five years, then go back and check whether the figure you entered above was a today figure or a then figure.
- Spending ramp Retirement spending isn't a flat line — it's higher in the first decade and lower later. Look at whether the shaped version of your budget is cheaper or more expensive than the flat one you'd assumed.
- Risk capacity Not how much risk you'd like to take — how much your plan can survive. Look at the gap between the fall you can absorb and the fall you're actually exposed to.
About to stop, within a year or two
The full guide for this stage →
The five years either side of your last day carry more weight than any other period of your financial life, because a bad market now hits the largest pot you'll ever have at the exact moment you start drawing on it. These four are the ones that matter, and the first two are the most important pages on this site.
- Sequence-of-returns risk Read this one properly, including the explanation underneath. It shows why two people with identical average returns can have completely different retirements. It will change how you think about the next five years.
- How much cash should you keep? The practical answer to the problem the page above describes. Look at the buffer figure it gives you and whether you currently have it. If you do one thing from this site, do this one.
- Flexible withdrawal strategy Decide your income rule now, while it's a calm decision rather than a panicked one. Look at what being willing to spend less after a bad year is worth — the number is usually larger than people expect.
- Pension deferral Claim early or wait? Look at the break-even age and ask yourself honestly whether you expect to pass it.
Just retired, in the first couple of years
The full guide for this stage →
You've moved from saving to spending, which is a genuinely different discipline. The first two years set habits that tend to stick for twenty, so it's worth getting the structure right now rather than drifting into it.
- How much cash should you keep? First job. Enough in reserve that a bad market is something you read about rather than something you're forced to sell into.
- Flexible withdrawal strategy Pick a rule and write it down. Look at the income-variability column as well as the success rate — a strategy that works on paper but produces an income you can't live with is not a strategy.
- Asset allocation after 60 The mix you had while saving is rarely the mix you want while spending. Look at the stress-test results rather than the headline percentages.
- Market timing risk Read it before the first bad month, not during it. The cost of getting out and back in wrong is the single most avoidable loss in retirement.
Retired a while, and wondering if it still works
You're not building a plan from scratch, you're testing one that already exists. That means starting with the things that change slowly and get missed — costs, complexity, care, paperwork — rather than re-running the projections.
- Will your money outlive you? Re-run it with today's balance and today's spending rather than the figures you used when you retired. The answer often moved, in one direction or the other.
- Long-term care costs The largest single financial risk in later life and the one most plans quietly ignore. Look at the probability-weighted cost rather than the worst case.
- Portfolio complexity score Can you explain what you own in two sentences? If not, someone else will have to one day, in a hurry. Look at what the extra layers are costing each year.
- Estate planning readiness Most people have a will and assume it's done. It usually isn't. Look at where the score loses points rather than the score itself.
There's still a mortgage, and a decision to make
"Should I pay it off?" has no honest one-line answer, because it depends on the interest rate, on inflation, on how much cash you'd have left, on when the next downturn lands and on what you want to leave behind — all at once. These five work through it in the order the argument actually runs. There are three more mortgage calculators on the hub once you've done these — or take the full guided walk-through, which covers all eight with what to look for at each.
- Real cost of debt Start here, because it often ends the conversation. A 3% mortgage against 4% inflation is costing you less than nothing in real terms. Look at the annual inflation subsidy figure.
- Pay off, or invest? The direct comparison. Look at the break-even return — the number your investments would have to beat to make keeping the loan the better call — and ask whether you'd bet on it.
- Liquidity risk Debt-free but cash-poor is not freedom. This checks whether clearing the loan would leave you unable to reach your own money. It's the most common mistake in this whole decision.
- Payoff meets a crash You clear the loan and the market falls 35% six months later. Look at which version of your plan is still standing afterwards.
- Debt sustainability If you're keeping the loan, this scores whether that's actually sustainable on retirement income rather than working income. Different test entirely.
Question two
Or start from what's actually worrying you
Most people arrive with a feeling rather than a question. If the feeling is unfocused dread rather than a specific worry, what actually goes wrong names the five patterns that do the real damage — and gives each one an early warning sign you can check. Find the closest one — the calculator on the right turns it into a number, which is usually the fastest way to make it smaller.
| "I'm going to run out of money." | Will your money outlive you? — then flexible withdrawal strategy to see how much of the risk you can remove by being willing to flex. |
| "The market is going to crash the moment I stop working." | Sequence-of-returns risk for why it matters so much, then catastrophic loss avoidance for what to do about it. |
| "I'll live longer than the money does." | Will your money outlive you? — it runs a survival curve alongside the portfolio, rather than picking one age and hoping. |
| "Care costs will take everything." | Long-term care costs — probability-weighted rather than worst case, and it compares insuring against self-funding. |
| "Prices keep going up and my money isn't." | Inflation erosion — including the return you need just to stand still. |
| "I don't really understand what I own." | Portfolio complexity score — then bond duration and REIT income if those turn up in your holdings. |
| "I want to help the kids but I don't know what I can afford." | Helping the kids — the largest gift the plan absorbs, and what it costs you in years of security. |
| "My income might not be dependable." | Income stability — what it pays monthly, and whether it survives a recession. |
| "I'm carrying debt into retirement." | Debt sustainability first, then the mortgage sequence above. |
| "I own the house but I've no spare cash." | Liquidity risk — and reverse mortgage suitability if releasing equity is on the table. |
| "The paperwork isn't sorted and I know it." | Estate planning readiness — the full checklist, not just the will. |
| "I think about this constantly and it's wearing me out." | Retirement anxiety score — it treats the causes as structural rather than personal, which is usually correct and always more useful. |
Two honest notes before you start
Worth knowing what this site is and isn't, so you're not looking for something that isn't here.
These are second questions, not first ones
Most retirement calculators answer one question: will I have enough? That question needs your salary, your contributions, your employer's contributions and a projection out to your retirement date, and there are a great many free tools that do it — your pension provider almost certainly has one.
This site deliberately starts one step later. It assumes you roughly know what you have, and asks the questions that decide what happens to it: when the losses land, how much you can flex, what care costs, whether the mortgage should go, whether you'd be forced to sell at the bottom. Those are the ones that actually change outcomes, and almost nobody models them.
If you want the closest thing here to "will I have enough", it's will your money outlive you? — it takes what you already have, what you plan to spend, and tells you the odds.
You will not get one number, and that's the point
Change an assumption and the answer changes. That is not a flaw in the calculators, it's the entire value of them. What you're looking for isn't a figure to write down — it's which two or three levers actually move things, so you know what to work on and what to stop worrying about.
How to read the results covers this properly, and is worth ten minutes before you start entering numbers. If a word on any page stops you, the plain-English list defines everything the site uses.
And if you would like the site's generic language translated into your own system — Social Security, the State Pension, super, CPP — there is a page for each country it supports: United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada.
General information only — not financial, tax, legal or investment advice, and not a recommendation to do anything in particular. The routes above are a reasonable order to think in, not a plan for your circumstances. Every result on this site follows from assumptions you enter yourself, and changing an assumption changes the answer.