How we calculate your number

Your freedom number

Annual spending divided by your safe withdrawal rate. At the standard 4%, that's 25× what you spend in a year — the portfolio size that has historically supported your lifestyle indefinitely.

Freedom number = annual spending ÷ withdrawal rate

The 4% rule comes from the Trinity Study, a 1998 paper from Trinity University that tested how long a portfolio lasts under different withdrawal rates using historical market data. They found that a portfolio of roughly 50–75% stocks survived 30+ years of withdrawals at a 4% rate in nearly every historical period. The 4% guideline is the common starting point, but if you plan to retire 20+ years before the traditional age of 65, many people go lower (closer to 3.5% or even 3%) since your money needs to last decades longer.

Years to financial independence

Standard future-value math: what you have today compounds, and what you add each month compounds alongside it. We solve for the year those two together reach your number.

FV = PV × (1+r)ⁿ + PMT × [((1+r)ⁿ − 1) ÷ r]

Returns are real — inflation is already removed — so every dollar we show is in today's money. We use a real return of 7%, which is the stock market's historical ~10% return minus ~3% inflation.

What we count, and what we don't

Counted: retirement accounts, taxable brokerage, HSA, vested equity, cash, and rental property equity.

Not counted: equity in the home you live in, unvested RSUs, 529 plans, cars, and collectibles. Your primary residence doesn't generate withdrawable income unless you sell it, and unvested equity isn't yours yet. Counting them makes your number look closer than it is — and that's the one error you can't fix in hindsight.

What this doesn't include yet

The quiz is a fast estimate. It doesn't yet model Social Security, taxes in retirement, healthcare before Medicare, sequence-of-returns risk, or rental income. Those live in the full planner.