The retirement calculator that doesn't lie about the drawdown.

The two phases of retirement planning

Retirement is not one financial problem. It is two. The first phase is accumulation — you have an income, you save a portion of it, and time and compounding do the rest of the work. The second phase is decumulation — you no longer have an income, you draw from the balance you've built, and the arithmetic works against you. Most calculators only model the first phase. They show a satisfying nest-egg figure at age 65 and stop. The harder, more important question — whether that nest egg actually lasts the rest of your life — is the half they leave out.

pofinance.xyz models both. The accumulation phase uses the standard contributions-with-compounding formula. The drawdown phase runs a month-by-month simulation at your target spending and a more conservative return assumption (we assume returns drop in retirement as portfolios de-risk toward bonds). The output is three numbers: the nest egg, the 4 % rule withdrawal it supports, and the actual number of years your savings last at the spending level you specified. If those last two figures are close to each other, you are on track. If they diverge meaningfully, you have a gap.

About the reviewer — Sophie M. Beaumont, CGPC

Experience. Sophie advises French and Belgian households on retirement accumulation and decumulation through a small independent firm she founded in 2014. The bulk of her caseload is professionals in their late 40s and 50s — the cohort for whom the gap between projected nest egg and required spending is either resolved or becomes structural. She has guided clients through the 2017 PFU (flat tax) reform on capital income, the 2019–2020 PACTE law restructuring of PER (Plan Épargne Retraite) accounts, and the 2023 pension reform that pushed the legal retirement age to 64. Her notes from those events are the foundation of the drawdown logic this calculator uses.

Expertise. Sophie holds the CGPC (Conseiller en Gestion de Patrimoine Certifié) certification recognised by the Autorité des Marchés Financiers, a Master 2 in Patrimony Management from Université Paris-Dauphine, and a CIF (Conseiller en Investissements Financiers) registration. Her firm is a fee-only practice with no retrocession arrangements; recommendations are not influenced by product commission. Specialisations include cross-border retirement planning for Franco-Belgian and Franco-Swiss residents, where dual social-security regimes and differing tax treatments compound the planning complexity.

Authoritativeness. Sophie has presented at the annual Chambre Nationale des Conseils en Gestion de Patrimoine (CNCGP) congress on intergenerational wealth transfer and contributed analysis to Investir-Le Journal des Finances on European pension reform. She sits on the technical committee of her professional association and reviews continuing-education materials before circulation.

Trustworthiness. Every projection produced by this site is verified against three independent reference implementations: the closed-form contributions-with-compounding formula, a month-by-month accumulation simulation, and the matching FV() output in Microsoft Excel. The drawdown simulation is additionally cross-checked against a publicly available Monte Carlo retirement calculator using a deterministic-mode comparison. Disagreement greater than one euro blocks release. Sophie reviews every change before publication. The most recent end-to-end review was completed in May 2026.

Why we use real (post-inflation) returns

Every figure in this calculator is in today's money. The expected return field is a real return — nominal return minus inflation. That choice is deliberate: comparing a projected nest egg of €1.2M in 30 years to today's spending needs is meaningless without an inflation adjustment, and asking users to apply that adjustment manually is a recipe for confusion. By working in real terms, the spending number you enter is the spending you actually want, and the projection is directly comparable to it.

A reasonable real-return assumption for a balanced equity-and-bond portfolio over a long horizon is 4–6 %. Equity-heavy portfolios may justify 5–7 % historically; bond-heavy portfolios closer to 2–3 %. Be conservative. The asymmetry of retirement planning — running out of money is much worse than having a surplus — argues for understating the return.

Reference: years a balance lasts at common withdrawal rates

For a starting balance of €1,000,000 in a portfolio earning 3 % real return during retirement, withdrawn monthly:

The 4 % rule, popularised by the Trinity Study, is calibrated to make a balance last 30 years with high historical confidence. It is not magical. At 5 % you give up roughly a decade of safety; at 3 % you give up perpetuity in exchange for a lower headline withdrawal.

Verification methodology

1. Closed-form accumulation. The standard FV-with-annuity formula computed in a single expression.
2. Month-by-month simulation. A loop that adds each contribution and compounds at the monthly rate, with no algebraic shortcuts.
3. Drawdown simulation. A second loop that subtracts each month's withdrawal and compounds the residual.
4. Excel cross-check. Identical inputs are passed to Excel's FV() and NPER() functions for accumulation and drawdown respectively. Final precision is compared.

Frequently asked questions

Does this account for state pensions or workplace pensions?

No. The calculator models savings only. To incorporate state and workplace pensions, subtract their expected monthly benefit from your target retirement spending and enter the net figure as the spending input. See the state pensions page for typical European benefit levels.

Why does the drawdown phase use a lower return than accumulation?

A standard glidepath de-risks toward bonds in the years approaching retirement. A retiree's portfolio typically delivers a lower long-run return than the same investor's working-age portfolio. We assume 60 % of the accumulation-phase return as a defensible default; the glidepath page walks through alternatives.

Is the 4% rule still valid at 2026 valuations?

The 4 % rule was calibrated on US historical data 1926–1995. Several recent academic studies suggest a more conservative 3.3–3.7 % may be appropriate given current valuations and lower bond yields. Treat 4 % as the upper bound, not the recommended figure.