How far is the exit?
Put in your savings and spending, and get one answer: the year you can stop working. I count 'enough' as thirty times your annual spending, my rule of thumb, with the classic 4% rule beside it so you can compare.
Explain it like I’m five
You’re filling a pot. Two things fill it: what you put in every month, and the pot growing on its own. This page counts the years until it can pay for your life, and marks the earlier day it would finish filling itself, even if you stopped adding.
New to all of it? This idea is stop 7 of Start from zero: ten short lessons that assume nothing.
The Exit Calculator
my rule of thumb: 3.33%
Advanced
The exit life often costs different money: a cheaper country, a paid-off flat, no commute. Price it here and the target follows it; the saving pace stays on today’s costs.
If the monthly-saving field is a guess, start from income instead: income minus costs becomes the saving, and you see your savings rate.
Needing less counts twice
The lever most people miss: every euro of spending you genuinely don't miss helps twice: it goes into your savings, and it shrinks the target you're saving for.
The exit
25 yrs 2 mo to your number
Your number: €900,000, 30× €30,000 a year.
The one-more-year trap
Past your number, each extra year of work buys surplus, not freedom, and costs a year you don’t get back. Here’s what one, three and five more years actually add.
Assumes a steady real return with savings invested monthly, and ignores tax on the way up. Real return means after inflation: answers land in today’s euros, always. Real markets aren’t steady: they pay the same average in a very different order. For the bad-luck test, use The Three Endings: your odds of funded, broke or dead, year by year. Not advice.
The link carries these exact numbers. Anyone with it can read them, and opening it sends the address to the host.
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Priced this life a while back? The number has aged quietly. Restate it in today’s money before you trust it. The Old Number
Counting on a pension at the far end? Then the number itself changes shape: The Pension Bridge prices the years the pot carries alone, and how much of the plan the promise honestly holds. The Pension Bridge
This page prices one road: full pace, as is. The Six Roads prices the other five against it, a real break and four days included. The Six Roads
This scenario can seed The Exit File: one working plan, an honest range around the date, and a file you keep. Keep this in The Exit File
Common questions
- Does “≈ 2044” mean I’ll definitely retire that year?
- Treat it as a signpost, not a promise. It assumes a steady return every year, no crash, and no tax on the way up; the real path is lumpier. It’s the year you’d hit your number if things ran smoothly; use it to compare choices, not to book the party.
- The “coast point” says I can stop in 8 years. Can I retire then?
- Not quite. It’s the point you can stop adding new money. From there your pot grows to your number on its own by traditional retirement age, but you’d still work to cover day-to-day life. It’s “stop saving”, not “stop working”.
- What does “real return, 6% after inflation” mean?
- It’s growth on top of inflation, so every figure here is already in today’s money, adjusted for prices rising. 6% real is a fair long-run default for a global stock portfolio; a savings account won’t do it. Nudge the slider down if you’d rather be cautious.
- Does this account for a market crash?
- No: it draws a smooth line, which never actually happens. For the bad-luck side, the order of your returns matters more than the average: that’s what The First Bad Decade and The Three Endings are for. This tool is the optimistic straight line; those two are the reality check. And for the day you actually arrive, Living off it is the manual for the spending side.
Nothing here is financial, investment, medical or retirement advice: it’s arithmetic and education. The calculators use the numbers you enter, The Exit Rehearsal compares your own Plan and Reality without interpreting either, and The Spare Key prices the fallback you enter without recommending one. Some tools remember work in the browser, some can place a scenario in the page address, and the Rehearsal and the Spare Key stay in this browser unless you print them, download them, or keep them in your account. Each tool tells you what it keeps and where. Decisions about your money are yours, ideally with a licensed adviser. I’m happily not one.
Bring me a challenge.
The Exit Audit, then ninety minutes: a straight verdict, real alternatives with their pros and cons, and your first move. If you want someone to nod along, I’m the wrong person to pay.