The Keep is the portfolio value you need today—before withdrawing this year's living expenses—to fund the years ahead and still reach your long-term goal.
The Keep Calculator™ is an on-line, non-downloadable software calculator for retirement planning — providing temporary use of on-line non-downloadable software for providing online retirement calculators for individual consumers.
Answers about how the Keep works, how it compares to other methods, and what it doesn't do.
The 4% rule sets a withdrawal rate as a percentage of your starting balance and holds it, adjusted for inflation, for life — the same rate regardless of your spending, your Social Security timing, or your landing goal. The Keep asks the reverse question directly: given everything you actually plan to spend, claim, and leave behind, what is the least your portfolio needs to be worth right now? Instead of a withdrawal rate, it produces a dollar line. Above it, the scenario is funded. Below it, you have choices to make.
No. Monte Carlo testing runs many simulated market paths and reports a probability of success. The Keep is deterministic — it uses one real return assumption and produces a single dollar figure, not a percentage. Monte Carlo tells you how likely your plan would have survived; the Keep tells you, given your assumptions, what your balance needs to be today. Many people use both.
Every number in the Keep is expressed in today's purchasing power, not inflated future dollars. That's what a real return does — it's your investment return after subtracting inflation. Working this way keeps the numbers in money you actually understand, instead of large inflated future totals that are hard to picture.
In a steady-spending scenario, the Keep generally falls each year because there is one fewer year left to fund. It can rise if you raise your spending, increase your landing goal, lower your assumed return, or extend your longevity age. The cushion above the Keep tends to grow over time, because dollars you haven't spent yet keep earning the real return.
Yes. Your landing goal is whatever you choose — a legacy, a late-life cushion, or zero. Entering $0 simply sizes the Keep to spend the portfolio down to nothing by your longevity age, instead of holding money back for an heir.
Once a year, at the start of the year before that year's spending comes out. Checking more often usually just adds noise; checking only every few years risks missing a real shift early, when the adjustment would still be small.
No. The Keep is a planning line, not a verdict. Being below it means the scenario as currently entered isn't fully funded under those assumptions, not that a past decision was wrong. It's information to act on — adjust spending, the landing goal, the longevity age, or Social Security timing, and see how the gap changes.
Yes. The calculator includes the present value of Social Security and any pension, at whatever age you choose to start them. That guaranteed income reduces what the portfolio has to cover, which is part of why the Keep is often lower than a rule that only looks at the account balance.
These are different outcomes. Running out of money before the longevity age is the serious break, since living costs may not be covered. Missing the landing goal — finishing with less than intended, but funded the whole way — is a bend, not a break. The Keep distinguishes the two so a missed legacy goal isn't treated with the same urgency as running out of money.
No. The calculator runs entirely in the browser. There is no account, no server, and no database — the numbers entered are never sent anywhere and disappear when the tab is closed.
No. The Keep Method and this calculator are educational tools, not individualized financial, tax, legal, or investment advice. They are meant to make personal planning clearer, not to replace a conversation with a qualified professional.
It doesn't predict market returns, and it doesn't replace tax planning, long-term care planning, or personal judgment about what matters most. It's also sensitive to its assumptions — a higher assumed return lowers the Keep, a longer longevity age raises it — so it's worth testing a few versions rather than trusting one set of numbers alone.
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Run your numbers in the Keep Calculator →This page is educational and is not individualized financial, tax, or investment advice.