Is 5 million enough to retire?

Currency

Your pot

Spending a year

Retiring at

age

Planning to

age

Growth a year

Inflation

On your numbers

Never runs out

Yes - the pot lasts past 92

Runs out atNever

Left at 92$9,435,508

Pot earns$146,341

The pot from the year you stop working, in today's money. The dashed line is the age you asked to plan to.

Retiring at 62 on $5,000,000 and spending $52,000 a year, rising with inflation: the pot lasts to 92. It never runs out, because $146,341 a year is what $5,000,000 earns after inflation at 5.50% growth against 2.50%.

Spending against what it earns

After inflation the pot earns about $146,341 a year. Spending $52,000 takes $0 of capital on top, which is what sets the date rather than the size of the pot on its own.

$146,341a year is what the pot earns

1.04%of the pot spent in year one

$9,435,508left at 92

The same life on a different pot

What each amount would do, on the spending and the ages above.

Pot	Enough	Gone at	Earns
$500k	No	74	$14,634
$1.0m	No	91	$29,268
$2.0m	Yes	Never	$58,537
$3.0m	Yes	Never	$87,805
$5.0m	Yes	Never	$146,341

Questions people ask

Is a million enough to retire on?

It depends on what you spend, and on nothing else nearly as much. Spending $52,000 a year from 62, a million lasts to 92 on these figures. Spending $146,341 would last indefinitely; spending half as much again would not reach 92.

What makes the difference between lasting and not?

Whether the spending is above or below what the pot earns after inflation - $146,341 a year here. Below it the pot grows and is never exhausted. Above it, the shortfall comes out of capital that would have been earning, so the gap widens every year.

Should I use a real or a nominal return?

This page does it for you: spending rises with inflation and the pot grows at the real rate, so every figure is in today's money. That is the only way a spending number thirty years out means anything.

Does this include a state pension?

No. If you will have one, subtract it from the yearly spending before reading the verdict - a pension covering a third of your spending changes the answer more than any assumption on this page.

What about a bad first few years?

Not modelled, and it is the largest risk here. Poor returns early, while the pot is at its biggest and withdrawals are biting, do far more damage than the same returns later. Read the verdict as a central case rather than a guarantee.

Method and sources

Standard real-terms drawdown arithmeticPot compounded at the real rate against inflation-linked spending

The calculation

Everything is in real terms. The pot grows each year at the real rate - one plus growth over one plus inflation, minus one - and the year's spending comes off the end. The verdict compares the age the pot is exhausted against the age you asked to plan to. Where the spending is at or below what the pot earns, it is never exhausted and the page says so rather than printing an age.

What these figures do not cover

A steady average return. Sequence risk - poor years early - is the biggest thing this does not model.
No state or workplace pension, and no other income. Subtract them from the spending first.
Tax on withdrawals is national and is not applied.
Spending is level in real terms. Real retirement spending usually falls through the seventies and rises again with care costs.

Last updated August 2026.

Tesseract Stock Agent is a professional-grade AI research agent built to analyze stocks the way an equity desk does: deep fundamentals, real filings, evidence over noise. The growth rate above has to come from a portfolio someone chose.

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