The short answer
How long your savings last depends less on one universal withdrawal rate and more on how spending, retirement age, Social Security, taxes, healthcare, and investment returns interact over time.
- Start with realistic household spending, including healthcare.
- Model the years before Social Security separately.
- Compare several retirement dates instead of relying on one target balance.
Good to know: A projection is a planning scenario, not a guarantee of future market returns or lifespan.
The useful question is not whether you have reached one universal savings target. It is how your own savings, spending, Social Security, taxes, healthcare, and retirement date work together over time.
Start with spending, not a magic savings number
Your planned annual spending is the largest recurring demand on the plan. Separate essential expenses from flexible expenses, and decide whether healthcare is already included.
A plan that works at $65,000 a year may look very different at $80,000. Personal inputs matter more than a broad rule of thumb.
Model the years before and after Social Security
Early retirement often creates a bridge period with no paycheck and no Social Security. Those first withdrawals can have an outsized effect because the portfolio has fewer years to recover.
Claiming later can increase monthly Social Security, but it also requires another source of income during the delay. Compare the whole timeline rather than one benefit amount.
Taxes and healthcare change the runway
Traditional IRA withdrawals, Roth withdrawals, taxable accounts, ACA coverage, and Medicare do not affect cash flow in the same way. A useful projection models these differences instead of treating every dollar as identical.
Primary sources
This article is educational and uses general assumptions. Tax, healthcare, and retirement-plan rules can change. Confirm important decisions with official sources and qualified professionals.