Can I Retire Yet?
Finally, a retirement calculator that isn’t full of crap.
Most retirement calculators give you an answer the same way a carnival psychic does. They look at your income, waggle some numbers, and hand you a fortune-cookie prediction.
But real retirement planning isn’t based on income.
It’s based on spending.
And it’s based on reality — not vibes.
This calculator is different because it isn’t a calculator at all.
It’s a full simulation engine built on 99 years of real market history, U.S. tax law, inflation cycles, withdrawal rules, and behavioral spending models.
It doesn’t guess.
It runs the tape.
Drop in your numbers and it will tell you — with brutal honesty — whether you can retire today, how close you are, or what gap you still need to close.
What Makes This Calculator Different
1. It Uses 99 Years of Real Returns — Not Averages
Most tools assume the stock market gives you a steady 7–8% a year.
Cute.
This engine runs your retirement through every market back to 1926, including:
- The Great Depression
- High-inflation 1970s
- Dot-com crash
- 2008
- COVID
- Everything in between
If your plan survives all of that, it survives anything.
2. It Runs Thousands of Monte Carlo Simulations
Your retirement isn’t a straight line — it’s a sequence of random events.
This calculator:
- Shuffles historical years using bootstrap resampling
- Runs up to 10,000 randomized market paths
- Tests your savings, withdrawals, and portfolio across all of them
It doesn’t give you a guess.
It gives you a probability of success.
3. It Models Taxes Like a CPA
Your withdrawals pass through:
- Full 2024 federal tax brackets
- Standard deduction
- Filing status
- State tax
- Capital gains treatment
- Effective marginal tax rates
It even models the true cost of withdrawing from traditional accounts by reverse-calculating the gross amount required to net your desired spending.
Translation:
It doesn’t pretend taxes don’t exist.
4. It Handles RMDs Automatically
At age 73, Uncle Sam says:
“Time to start paying me, pal.”
The simulator implements the full IRS RMD divisor table.
If your traditional IRA has to kick out mandatory withdrawals, it models:
- The forced distribution
- The tax impact
- The effect on your other withdrawals
Most calculators ignore RMDs.
This one actually understands them.
5. Three Different Buckets: Taxable, Traditional, Roth
Your money doesn’t all behave the same.
This tool separates your wealth into:
- Taxable accounts (capital gains, partial taxation)
- Traditional accounts (fully taxable)
- Roth accounts (tax-free growth and withdrawals)
You can also choose the withdrawal sequence:
- Taxable → Traditional → Roth
- Traditional → Taxable → Roth
- Roth → Taxable → Traditional
- Or proportional withdrawals
A shocking number of calculators treat everything like “one big bucket.”
Yours isn’t one of them.
6. Inflation Is Real Here
Your spending increases every year based on:
- User-set inflation rate
- Or dynamic spending rules (e.g., fixed % of portfolio)
It doesn’t keep your spending flat like most calculators — because that’s not how groceries work.
7. It Simulates Your Life Year by Year
The engine models your entire financial future in two phases:
The accumulation phase (now → retirement)
With annual contributions split across:
- Traditional
- Roth
- Taxable
The retirement phase (retirement → life expectancy)
With:
- Market returns
- Fees
- Taxes
- Inflation
- Required withdrawals
- Account sequencing
- Dynamic spending options
Every single year.
Every single path.
8. You Get Real Outcomes, Not “You’ll Need 70% of Your Income”
Most calculators spit out nonsense like:
“To retire, you’ll need 70% of your current income.”
This is HR-pamphlet math.
Your calculator tells you:
- Your probability of success (%)
- Your median ending balance
- Your 10th and 90th percentile outcomes
- The worst historical year your plan survived
- Whether you’ll meet an estate target
- Your year-by-year portfolio trajectory
This is not the same league.
9. And Yes — It Excludes Your Home, Cars, and Ken Griffey Jr. Rookie Card
Those might appreciate in value.
They might be emotionally priceless.
But they don’t reliably pay your bills.
Only investable assets count here.
Everything else?
Just vibes.
Definitions (Plain English)
Annual Spending
Your real yearly spending. Not what you wish you spent.
If it leaves your checking account, include it.
Investable Net Worth
Anything that compounds or can be sold to fund retirement:
- 401(k) / 403(b)
- IRAs (traditional + Roth)
- Brokerage accounts
- Cash savings
- HSA funds you plan to use in retirement
Not included:
Your home, personal property, collectibles, or Griffey rookies.
Success Rate
The percentage of simulated futures where you never ran out of money before life expectancy.
Percentile Bands (P10 / P50 / P90)
Shows how your portfolio might perform in bad, typical, or great markets.
Withdrawal Strategy
How you take money out:
- Constant spending
- Fixed % of portfolio
- Dynamic % based on portfolio value
Monte Carlo (Bootstrap)
Randomized simulations built from 99 years of historical returns.
What This Calculator Actually Tells You
When you hit “Run,” it answers:
- Can you retire today?
- What’s your probability of success?
- How much could you leave behind?
- What’s the worst-case scenario?
- How long could your money last in inflationary periods?
- How does your withdrawal strategy hold up over time?
It doesn’t flatter you.
It doesn’t sugarcoat anything.
It doesn’t ignore taxes, inflation, or sequence-of-returns risk.
It shows you the real math — the good, the bad, and the Great Depression.