How much do I need to retire at 60?

There are two different answers, and mixing them up is the most common mistake on this question. If you are already 60 and holding a known balance, about $1.54 million funds $50,000 a year to 80% confidence. If you are still fifteen years away, you need to plan for the chance of arriving with less than you expect — which is why the plan on this page sits at 79% even though its likely balance is well above $1.54 million.

Can I retire at 60 and claim Social Security later?

Yes, and waiting raises the eventual check. This calculator assumes savings cover the spending you enter for the whole retirement, so it gives you no credit for a larger benefit later — its results are conservative in that respect.

Is 79% good enough to retire?

It is one point from the bar, and every input feeding it is an estimate. Treat anything in the high 70s as "close, with a plan for what you would change" rather than as a pass or a fail. The useful question is what you would do in the fifth of futures that go badly.

What happens if I work one more year?

In the plan on this page, the odds rise from about 79% to about 82%. Late years are powerful: you add another year of savings, give the balance another year to grow, and remove a year of withdrawals from the far end all at once.

Watercolor painting of a lone sailboat on a calm sea at sunset, seen from a clifftop meadow of wildflowers and tall grass

Retirement guide

Can I retire at 60?

Sixty is the age where plans usually come down to a point or two either way. The one below misses this calculator's confidence bar by exactly one point, which is a useful thing to see up close.

One point short, and what that means

The starting plan is a 45-year-old with $600,000 invested, saving $35,000 a year, expecting to draw $50,000 a year from savings. Fifteen more years of saving takes the middle of the range to about $2.1 million by 60, and the money lasts to 100 in about 79% of the 1,000 simulated runs. The calculator only says you could retire at 80% or better, so the headline reads 61.

A single percentage point is not a meaningful difference in a model like this — it sits well inside the uncertainty of any assumption you typed in. Read it as "this plan is right at the line," then decide which way to push. Trimming spending to $47,000 a year clears the bar at 60. So does working one more year, which lifts the same plan to about 82%.

Retirement outlook

You could retire at 61.

Retiring at 60, your money lasts to 100 in 79% of market scenarios — typically with about $2.2M to spare.

Today

Current assets

Saved per year

Current age

Retirement

Retirement age

Spending per year

Markets

Return while saving

Return in retirement

Projected net worth to 100, in today’s dollars

Today’s dollarsat% inflation

SavingRetiredMiddle 50% of outcomes

Retire · 60

$2M

$4M

$6M

5060708090100

Why 80%, and why not 100%

The bar has to sit somewhere. Demanding that a plan survive all 1,000 simulated histories would mean saving against disasters that have never happened and working years longer to insure against them. Demanding only a coin flip is not planning at all.

Eighty percent is a common planning convention: comfortable odds, paired with the honest admission that the remaining fifth of futures are real and would require you to adjust — spend less, work part-time, or move somewhere cheaper. The simulation puts that on screen instead of hiding it behind a single projected balance. The shaded band on the chart is the middle half of outcomes, and how wide it is at 85 tells you more about your plan than any one number does.

It is worth being precise about what that 79% measures, because it is easy to misread. It is not a verdict on $2.1 million. Someone who actually arrived at 60 already holding $2.1 million and spending $50,000 a year would clear the bar with room to spare, and the balance needed to reach 80% from a standing start at 60 is closer to $1.54 million. The 79% covers the fifteen years of saving that come first, including the runs where markets leave you well short of the balance you were expecting. When you are still accumulating, naming the target is the easy part — arriving at it is the risk. If you would rather see the standing-start number for your own age and balance, this site publishes a computed page for each combination, worked out by the same engine.

The short bridge from 60

Sixty is close to the milestones without reaching them. Social Security can start at 62 and Medicare at 65, so retiring at 60 means a two-year gap to one and a five-year gap to the other — a very different problem from the twenty-year gap facing someone who stops at 40.

The calculator models neither program. The spending you enter is what you pull from savings, on top of whatever Social Security eventually pays, which makes the projection conservative for the years after you claim and roughly right for the years before. It also ignores taxes and part-time work, both of which matter a great deal at 60. If you expect to earn anything at all after stopping — consulting, seasonal work, a part-time job you actually enjoy — your real odds are better than the ones on screen. This is a tool for exploring trade-offs, not financial advice.

Questions people ask

How much do I need to retire at 60?: There are two different answers, and mixing them up is the most common mistake on this question. If you are already 60 and holding a known balance, about $1.54 million funds $50,000 a year to 80% confidence. If you are still fifteen years away, you need to plan for the chance of arriving with less than you expect — which is why the plan on this page sits at 79% even though its likely balance is well above $1.54 million.
Can I retire at 60 and claim Social Security later?: Yes, and waiting raises the eventual check. This calculator assumes savings cover the spending you enter for the whole retirement, so it gives you no credit for a larger benefit later — its results are conservative in that respect.
Is 79% good enough to retire?: It is one point from the bar, and every input feeding it is an estimate. Treat anything in the high 70s as "close, with a plan for what you would change" rather than as a pass or a fail. The useful question is what you would do in the fifth of futures that go badly.
What happens if I work one more year?: In the plan on this page, the odds rise from about 79% to about 82%. Late years are powerful: you add another year of savings, give the balance another year to grow, and remove a year of withdrawals from the far end all at once.

Keep exploring

The assumptions behind these numbers

Every figure comes from 1,000 simulated market paths assuming a 6% average yearly return in retirement (10% while still saving) with year-to-year swings scaled to those returns, and 3% inflation — so every dollar reads as today’s dollars, and “works” means the money lasts to age 100 in at least 80% of paths.

Social Security, pensions, and taxes aren’t modeled. If you expect income from those, your real answer is better than the one on this page. For exploring, not financial advice.