Retirement Projection Sheet
Run it at more than one return assumption. The spread between them tells you how much of this is arithmetic and how much is hope.
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The projection
- Date
- Current balance
- Monthly contribution
- Years
- Return assumed
- PROJECTED VALUE
- You contributed
- Growth added
- Growth share
- With 5 more years
Run several scenarios — the comparison is the useful part
| Scenario | Monthly | Years | Return | Projected | Growth share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The arithmetic and its limits
- Monthly rate
- annual return / 12 / 100
- Lump sum grows to
- balance x (1+r)^n
- Contributions grow to
- payment x ((1+r)^n − 1) / r
- ⚠ Figures are NOMINAL
- not adjusted for inflation
- For today's money
- enter return MINUS expected inflation
- Long-run stock averages
- often quoted 7-10% before inflation
- ⚠ Not modelled
- fees, taxes, employer match, sequence of returns
- ⚠ Fees compound
- against you, exactly as returns compound for you
- ⚠ This is not
- financial advice
Getting an honest number
- Run it at your assumption AND at two points lower
- Run it once with a REAL return, for today's purchasing power
- Compared 'five more years' against a higher monthly contribution
- Fees found out and subtracted from the return assumption
- Employer matching added to the monthly figure if you get it
- Account type and its tax treatment understood separately
- Emergency fund in place before locking money away
- Reviewed annually rather than set once and forgotten
The split is the point
A single projected figure hides the thing worth knowing. Over long periods the growth becomes the larger share of the total — and it crosses over suddenly rather than gradually. That crossover is the argument for starting early, and it is invisible unless the two halves are shown apart.
The return assumption is doing most of the work
A percentage point either way over decades changes the answer enormously, and nobody knows what the next thirty years hold. Run it at two or three assumptions: the SPREAD between them tells you how much of the projection is arithmetic and how much is hope.
Subtract inflation for a real number
These are nominal dollars, so over 30 years the total buys considerably less than the same figure would today. Entering your expected return minus expected inflation gives a smaller, more honest answer in today's purchasing power — which is the one worth planning against.