Free FIRE planner
Can I retire early—and what should I invest in?
Enter what you expect to have at retirement, test the monthly spending you need, and see the three best matches from every strategy we’ve tested.
Example numbers
Find your best investment strategy.
Example numbers—replace them with yours.
Your figures and saved choice stay in this browser unless you use signed-in saving. Anonymous traffic records never contain your numbers or choice.
Example result
12.0% a year
Starting withdrawal rate based on the retirement portfolio and monthly amount you entered, in today's dollars.
- Your desired spending
- $2,500 a month
- Money must last
- 30 years
What the answer means
Test the retirement portfolio you enter.
The comparison starts with the portfolio amount you expect to have when retirement begins.
It then asks whether that amount paid your inflation-adjusted spending through many different 20–100 year market paths. It uses aggregate historical tests, not a forecast of your future.
Methodology details
Each strategy uses the direct fund history available for what it owns: SPY histories begin in 1993 or 1994, QQQ histories in 1999 or 2000, and SMH histories in 2000 or 2001. No earlier fund years are filled with stand-ins. Each test starts with the same retirement portfolio, takes the first withdrawal before the first month's return, raises later withdrawals with inflation, excludes personal tax, and charges 0.10% whenever an asset is moved. One test repeats that strategy's direct record in order when the retirement is longer than the record. The other links 8-, 10-, and 12-year pieces of that same record into 5,000 paths. Because the periods differ, the rankings are useful starting points to investigate, not proof that one strategy beats another.