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How long will my retirement savings last?
Enter your savings and yearly spending. We show how many years the money lasted for someone retiring in every year since 1928.
Retiring in 1969, heading into the high inflation of the late 1960s and 1970s, $50,000 a year from $1,000,000 lasted 17 years. 50 of 69 starts lasted at least 30 years.
- Ran out before 30 years
- Ran out after 30+ years
- Never ran out
What this means
Your savings lasted at least 17 years in every retirement since 1928 with that much market history behind it. The shortest run came from retiring in 1969. The starts that fell short were 1929–1930, 1937, 1956, 1959–1973, heading into the Great Depression, the 1937 crash, the high inflation of the late 1960s and 1970s and the 1973–74 crash and the inflation of the 1970s.
How long money lasts depends less on the average return than on the order of returns in the first decade. Retirees who started just before a long slump ran out years earlier than those who started just before a boom, even with identical plans.
At a 5.0% withdrawal rate, history shows outcomes spreading widely. Small changes, such as a few years of part-time work, a later Social Security claim or guardrails that trim spending after big drops, can add many years.
Why there isn’t one answer
Divide savings by spending and you get one tidy number: $1 million at $50,000 a year looks like 20 years. Real life isn’t tidy. Invested money keeps growing in good markets, while losses and inflation can shorten the run in bad ones. How long it actually lasts depends on what markets do, especially in the first decade.
So instead of one projection, the chart shows a real result for each retirement start year. Bars that reach the top never ran out; short bars show the hard starts. Your plan is better judged by the shortest bars than by the average.
How to make your savings last longer
- Lower the first-year withdrawal. Below about 4% of savings, money has historically lasted 30+ years in almost every start.
- Add income that doesn’t depend on markets. Each $10,000 of Social Security or pension income reduces what savings must cover.
- Be flexible in bad years. Small, temporary cuts after big drops add years in exactly the starts that run short.
- Protect the early years. A cash bucket keeps you from selling stocks in a crash right after you retire.
Assumptions
- Spending rises with inflation and never changes. Social Security is set to $0; enter it above to include it.
- 60% S&P 500 stocks and 40% 10-year Treasuries, rebalanced yearly. No taxes or fees.
- Each start year runs up to 50 years or until our market history ends in 2025.
New to a term? See the retirement income glossary.
Common questions
How long will $1 million last in retirement?
At $40,000 a year with a balanced mix, $1 million lasted 30 years in the vast majority of historical starts and often far longer. At $60,000 a year, the hardest starts ran out in under 20 years. Enter your spending above to see your range.
Does this include Social Security?
Only if you enter it. Social Security reduces what you withdraw from savings, which can extend how long the money lasts by many years.
Why do some bars stop early?
Our market data ends in 2025, so recent start years can only be followed for as long as history allows. Those bars mean the money hadn’t run out yet.
Related tools
How we calculate this
For every start year from 1928 to 2016, we withdraw your inflation-adjusted spending at the start of each year and apply that year’s actual real returns, counting the years until a withdrawal can no longer be paid in full.
Data: S&P 500 total returns, 10-year Treasury and 3-month Treasury bill returns as compiled by Aswath Damodaran (NYU Stern), and CPI-U inflation from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1928–2025 (2025 preliminary). Read the full methodology and limitations.