Salary & income · 2 min
There is a number at which employment becomes a preference. It is not mystical: annual spending divided by a withdrawal rate, a convention people have argued about for thirty years. This instrument computes yours, shows how far along you are, and dates the crossing at your current savings pace — under assumptions you can see and change.
Compounding arithmetic under stated conventions — not financial advice, not a plan. Sequence risk, taxes and real life are larger than any single rate.
Net annual spending in the optional years — today's money.
The share of the pile spent each year. 4% is the famous study; 3–3.5% is what caution and longer horizons argue for. All three are conventions.
Liquid, invested capital working toward the number. Not the house you live in.
What reliably reaches the invested pile each month.
After inflation — that's what 'real' means, and why the number is in today's money. 4% real is an unheroic long-run figure for diversified capital.
Everything is calculated in your browser as you type. Nothing you enter is sent or stored, and no account is needed.
Early passage.
$3,428,571
the number at your spending and a 3.5% convention
| The work-optional number | — |
| Where you stand today | — |
| Progress | — |
| Years to the crossing, at this pace | — |
| One year of spending, in pile terms | — |
| At a withdrawal rate of | The number | Years to it |
|---|---|---|
| — | — | — |
| — | — | — |
| — | — | — |
Spending is the lever nobody prices: every 10,000 of permanent annual spending adds roughly thirty times that to the number. The cheapest year you'll ever buy is the one you don't need to fund.
Sequence risk lives outside this table. A bad first decade of withdrawals can break a plan the average return said was safe — which is why the conservative conventions exist.
The number is in today's money because the return is real. Quote it nominal and it grows every year — the arithmetic is honest only if both sides stay real.
Everything below is calculated from your inputs except the real return, an assumption you control. All figures are in today's money.
number = spending / withdrawal_rate
years = ln( (number·g + s) / (now·g + s) ) / ln(1+g)
where g = real return, s = annual savings / g
progress = now / number
The gauge reads progress toward the number, the line at 100% — the crossing. The verdict bands are the house's, not physics: under a third, early passage; a third to two-thirds, mid-crossing; past two-thirds, the far shore is visible.
Limitations. A single withdrawal rate compresses thirty years of market history and argument into one figure; taxes on withdrawals, pensions arriving later, and spending that changes with age are all outside. This is the sketch that makes the real planning conversation concrete — not the plan.