Health and Wealth go hand-in-hand, especially into retirement. This calculator is an educational tool, and not meant to be financial or investing advice.

Retirement Savings Calculator

Retirement Savings Calculator

A medically informed, financially smart approach to planning your retirement with clarity—powered by The Medicine Check Wealthspan Framework.

Your long-term health and your long-term finances are deeply connected. This Retirement Savings Calculator helps you estimate how much money you’ll need to retire comfortably—incorporating your lifestyle goals, expected healthcare costs, investment returns, and realistic longevity assumptions.

Built using the Medicine Check Wealthspan Framework, this tool focuses on financial sustainability, clarity, and proactive planning. By combining clinical insight with evidence-based financial modeling, it gives you a clearer view of your financial future—so you can make confident, informed decisions today.

How to Use This Calculator

This calculator helps you understand how much you may need to retire comfortably—by combining lifestyle spending, healthcare costs, longevity assumptions, and your investment strategy.

Steps:

  1. Enter your basic retirement assumptions — current age, retirement age, and life expectancy.
  2. Enter your expected annual spending in retirement (excluding healthcare).
  3. Paste your total lifetime healthcare spending from the Healthcare Spend Calculator.
  4. Turn on Advanced Mode if you want a more realistic projection using your investment returns, current savings, and planned contributions.
  5. Review the results — required nest egg, projected portfolio, and whether you’re on track.
What Does “Real Return” Mean?

Real return is your investment return after adjusting for inflation. A 6% return in a year with 3% inflation is a 3% real return.

Real return matters because this calculator outputs everything in today’s dollars—letting you compare apples to apples over decades.

What Makes This Calculator Different?

Most retirement calculators ignore the two biggest drivers of financial stress later in life:

  • Longevity risk — living longer than expected
  • Healthcare cost risk — which grows faster than normal inflation

This tool incorporates both, giving you a more realistic and medically informed estimate.

Retirement Savings Calculator

Estimate how much total savings you may need at retirement and compare that to your projected portfolio based on your current savings and contributions.

This is the age when you expect to stop working full-time and begin drawing from your savings.
Tip: Choose a life expectancy that feels realistic or slightly conservative.
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This is what you plan to spend each year in retirement on housing, food, travel, hobbies, etc. (not including healthcare).
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Use the lifetime total from the Healthcare Spend Calculator and enter it here. This calculator treats that number as already adjusted into today's dollars.
Advanced mode lets you enter your current savings, planned contributions, and expected real investment returns to see if you're on track.

How This Fits Into Your Wealthspan Framework

At The Medicine Check, your financial health is an extension of your overall well-being. Just as we work to extend healthspan—the years of life lived in good health—this calculator helps extend your wealthspan by giving you the clarity needed to plan confidently for the future.

1. Clarity Beats Complexity

This calculator distills your retirement outlook into a simple, inflation-adjusted estimate based on two major pillars:

  • Lifestyle spending (housing, food, travel, hobbies)
  • Healthcare spending (using medically informed cost estimates)

2. Longevity Requires Realistic Planning

Many people underestimate how long they’ll live—and how much they’ll need. Using conservative life expectancy estimates helps protect you from longevity-related shortfalls.

3. Compounding Works During and After Retirement

Your money keeps working for you, both while you’re building wealth and while you’re living on it. Advanced Mode helps you model both phases:

  • Accumulation — current savings + contributions + real returns
  • Decumulation — spending + healthcare + investment return in retirement

4. Wealthspan = Sustainability

With a clear surplus or shortfall estimate, you can adjust your plan today—not years down the road—leading to a more stable and durable financial future.

5. Data Reduces Stress

By integrating your healthcare costs, investment growth, spending goals, and longevity assumptions, this calculator eliminates guesswork and helps you make confident, informed decisions.

Frequently Asked Questions

How accurate is this calculator?

This calculator uses conservative, inflation-adjusted assumptions to provide a realistic estimate—not a precise prediction. It is designed to help you plan, not to replace individualized financial advice.

Does this calculator adjust for inflation?

Yes. All calculations are shown in today’s dollars using real returns (returns after inflation). This keeps the numbers consistent and easier to understand.

What is a “real return”?

A real return is your investment growth after accounting for inflation. Most financial planners use real returns for long-term planning.

Why is healthcare separated from lifestyle spending?

Healthcare costs grow faster than general inflation and vary dramatically throughout retirement. Separating the two creates a more medically accurate and financially realistic estimate.

How does the calculator determine if I'm “on track”?

Advanced Mode projects your future portfolio at retirement using your current savings, contributions, and expected investment returns. It then compares that value to your required nest egg.

Should I include Social Security income?

Not in this calculator. This tool estimates the total nest egg needed. Social Security can be subtracted later from annual spending or used to reduce shortfall.