Free investing calculators
Nine questions worth doing the arithmetic on. Each card shows a real worked answer, so you know what the tool tells you before you open it. No account, no email, nothing saved.
Reaching retirement
Four questions about the same journey: when you can stop saving, how much you need if you keep working part-time, what you can safely withdraw once you stop, and what happens when the returns arrive in the wrong order.
Coast FIRE Calculator
When can I stop contributing and still retire on time?
$150,000 saved at 34, $500 a month, 7% real, $1.5M target at 65
Age 41
when your balance overtakes the amount needed to coast, and saving becomes optional.
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Current savings, monthly contribution, target, return, retirement age
Barista FIRE Calculator
How much do I need if part-time work covers some of my costs?
$50,000 expenses, $20,000 part-time, $200,000 saved, $500 a month, 7% real, from 35
Age 51
when $750,000 covers the remaining $30,000 gap at a 4% withdrawal rate.
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Annual expenses, part-time income, savings, monthly contribution, return, age
Safe Withdrawal Rate Calculator
How much can I take out each year without running out?
$1,000,000, 4% withdrawals, 4% real return, 30 years
5.5%
is the highest rate that lasts the full 30 years. At 4% you finish with $910,264 still invested.
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Portfolio value, withdrawal rate, real return, years in retirement
Sequence of Returns Risk
Does it matter when a crash happens?
$1M, drawing $40,000 a year for 25 years
$1.87M
difference between the good years arriving first and arriving last. Same returns, same average, different order.
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Starting portfolio, annual withdrawal, return path, years
Growing and keeping the money
What compounding actually produces, what reinvesting dividends adds, what a fund fee quietly removes, what inflation leaves you with, and whether investing a windfall all at once beats spreading it out.
Compound Interest Calculator
What will this grow to?
$5,000 start, $300 a month, 7%, 25 years
$271,649
from $95,000 contributed. The rest is compounding.
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Starting amount, contribution, return, years
Dividend Reinvestment Calculator
What does reinvesting my dividends actually add?
$10,000 at a 3% yield, 6% dividend growth, 5% price growth, 20 years
$49,154
against $37,569 if you had spent the dividends instead. Reinvesting adds $11,586.
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Initial investment, dividend yield, dividend growth, price growth, years
Expense Ratio Calculator
What does my fund's expense ratio actually cost me?
$10,000 plus $500 a month for 30 years, 7% return, 1% fee
$132,555
taken by a 1% fee. That is 19% of the pot you would otherwise have finished with.
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Starting amount, monthly contribution, return, fee, years
Real Return Calculator
What is my return actually worth after inflation, fees and tax?
8% nominal, 3% inflation, 0.5% fee, 15% tax
3.3%
is what is left in purchasing power. Less than half the headline number.
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Nominal return, inflation, fee, tax, starting amount, contribution
Lump Sum vs Dollar-Cost Averaging
Should I invest it all at once or spread it out?
$60,000 at once or spread over 12 months, cash earning 3%
$1,160
ahead after 12 months for the lump sum, in a market rising steadily at 7%.
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Amount, spread period, market path
Which one do you need?
Most people arrive with one of five questions. If you are asking whether you can ease off saving, start with Coast FIRE, because it is the earliest milestone and it is usually reached long before people expect. If you already know you want to drop to part-time work, Barista FIRE gives you the smaller number that assumes some earned income continues.
If you are close to stopping work altogether, the safe withdrawal rate tool answers how much you can take, and the sequence of returns tool answers what happens if the market disagrees with your timing in the first few years. Run both. They ask different questions about the same portfolio and the second one is the reason the first can mislead you.
If you are still building, compound interest shows the shape of it, dividend reinvestment shows what a rising income adds on top, and the expense ratio calculator shows what a percentage-of-assets fee removes over the same period. That last figure is usually the one that surprises people most.
Why these ask for a real return
Most of these calculators want a return after inflation, and a target expressed in today's money. Mixing the two is the most common error in retirement arithmetic, and it always flatters the result: a nominal return compounded against a present-day target quietly assumes prices never rise.
Five to seven percent is the range most people use for a globally diversified equity portfolio after inflation, based on long-run history. It is an assumption rather than a promise. The honest way to use any of these is to run your preferred number, then run it again a couple of points lower, and plan around the second answer.
What these do not do
None of them model tax, and tax changes the answer materially in a taxable account. None of them model a market that moves in anything other than a straight line, with the deliberate exception of the sequence of returns tool, which exists precisely because straight lines are the flaw in every other model here.
Every tool states its own assumptions and limitations on the page, above the fold rather than in a footnote, because a calculator that hides its assumptions is worse than no calculator. If a figure here disagrees with one you have seen elsewhere, the assumptions are almost always the reason, and ours are written down.
These work on any numbers you give them. If you want the same rigour applied to a specific company, computed from its filings, that is what the screener and the stock pages do. The method behind every figure is documented on the methodology page.