Pension drawdown calculator - making your money last

If you’re considering pension drawdown as a way to provide your retirement income, use our pension drawdown calculator. 
Paul Davies

How long your money will last in pension drawdown:

If you're taking the decision to leave your pension savings invested in the stock market, to get a bit of extra growth and the opportunity to take a flexible income, pension or income drawdown is the product for you.

However, with pension drawdown, there's the risk that you could withdraw too much of your pension too soon, your investment decisions don't quite come off, and you end up running out savings in retirement.

Which? is here to help. Our pension drawdown calculator allows you to see how long your pension pot might last.

You can also adjust your investment mix, how much annual income you want to take and your assumptions about investment returns to see how the outcome changes with our pension drawdown calculator (see assumptions explained below calculator).

Calculator assumptions

The investment mixes are as follows:

  • Cautious - 30% cash/50% fixed interest/20% stocks and shares
  • Moderate - 10% cash/40% fixed interest/50% stocks and shares
  • Adventurous - 5% cash/25% fixed interest/70% stocks and shares

The investment growth assumption is set at 'middling' but you can alter the level of growth as per these assumptions:

Pessimistic - That's assuming that once you retire, your cash investment grows at an average of 0.00% a year, fixed interest at 4.00% a year and equities at 6.50% a year.

Middling - That's assuming that once you retire, your cash investment grows at an average of 0.50% a year, fixed interest at 4.75% a year and equities at 7.25% a year.

Optimistic - That's assuming that once you retire, your cash investment grows at an average of 1.00% a year, fixed interest at 5.50% a year and equities at 8.00% a year.

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