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Key Takeaways
- A retirement number built on generalizations can miss by a meaningful margin once you factor in your location and accounts.
- PensionBee's RetireBy Calculator builds a number tailored by your inputs by weighing your projected cost of living against your projected retirement income.
- Projected expenses draw on regional cost-of-living data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, covering housing, food, education, and medical costs.
- Projected income combines your expected Social Security benefit from SSA data with the 401(k), brokerage, savings, and other income figures you enter yourself.
- The output is a target number along with a clear read on whether your current savings pace is on track or off track.
Americans say they need $1.46 million to retire comfortably in 2026, according to a recent survey. That’s a $200,000 jump from last year.
That number is an average of what people think they need. It is not built around your life. It is an average, not your answer.
PensionBee's RetireBy Calculator works differently. It combines what you know about your own finances, like your accounts, your location, and your goals, with government data, including BEA cost-of-living figures and SSA benefit estimates. The result is an estimate that's actually yours. That means:
- A retirement estimate based on where you want to live, the lifestyle you want, and what you’ve already saved.
- A number you can refine any time your life changes, so it stays useful instead of stale.
An off-track result isn't a verdict. It's a starting point that gives you a rough sense of how much more you'd need to save, invest, or adjust your timeline to close the gap. That's far more useful than a vague feeling that you should probably be saving more.
The 23% Problem
For a lot of savers, the problem isn't that they're not saving enough. It's that their retirement savings are scattered across multiple accounts and workplace plans.
23% of Americans with retirement accounts still have multiple balances sitting in old or current workplace plans. That makes it hard to even total up a starting balance, let alone project it forward. If you've changed jobs a few times and left old 401(k)s behind, your real starting point is probably higher than whatever number is in your head right now.
What Goes Into Your RetireBy Estimate
We auto-populate some of the numbers behind your estimate using government data. What you provide is what turns a generic projection into one built around your actual finances:
- Retirement accounts. Active and old 401(k) balances to help you see your full retirement picture.
- Investment accounts. Any brokerage or IRA accounts you hold outside an employer plan.
- Savings accounts. Your current savings balance and other funds you may use in retirement.
- Other income sources. Rental property or similar income, factored into your overall estimate.
You don't need exact figures. Round numbers and current balances are enough to get a useful estimate started. You can update them any time your accounts change.
