What Is Your Retirement Number?

Retirement can be a daunting concept, especially if you have thoughts like “Will I ever be able to retire?” or “ I have no idea how much I need in retirement” floating around in your head.

Truth is, these are common concerns for many people who are considering their future retirements. Even if retirement is decades away.

How do you know how much you’ll need to have saved for your future retirement?

When will you be able to stop working?

Will you be able to retire when you want to?

Figuring out how much you’ll need to have in retirement savings is a multi-step process. But once you have an idea of your savings need, it’s easier to see if you’re on track.

What Will You Need to Retire?

Many personal finance writers recommend saving 25 times your expenses in investable assets, like stocks, that you can draw from in retirement.

The basis for this recommendation is the famous Trinity Study, published in 1998, whose authors used historical market data to determine the safe withdrawal rate for your portfolio in retirement.

They found, by backdating historical market data, that if you take out 4% of your portfolio in your first year of retirement, adjusting for inflation in…