Is My Retirement on Track? 5 Signs and How to Check Fast

Only 52% of workers have ever estimated how much income they'll need each month in retirement. The other 48% are guessing. That figure comes from the EBRI/Greenwald Retirement Confidence Survey 2025 (Fact Sheet 3). If you're asking "is my retirement on track?", you're already doing better than half the workforce. A gut feeling or one rule of thumb still won't give you a real answer, though.

Here's the short version. Your retirement is on track if your savings can pay for the life you want for as long as you might live, across a wide range of market outcomes, not only the average one. That's a probability, not a yes or no. Below are five signs to check, how to read the answer, and how to run your own numbers in a few minutes.

Is my retirement on track? Why confidence isn't the same as a plan

Feeling confident about retirement and actually being ready are two separate things. The EBRI 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey found that 64% of Americans feel confident they'll have enough to live comfortably in retirement. That's down from last year. Among workers, confidence fell from 67% to 61%. Among retirees, it fell from 78% to 73%. EBRI surveyed 2,544 Americans aged 25 and older online in January 2026.

Confidence goes up and down with the headlines. Your plan shouldn't. The five signs below rest on evidence, not mood.

5 signs your retirement is on track

1. You know your monthly number

Everything else depends on this. You can't judge whether your savings are enough until you know what they need to pay for.

The common shortcuts don't agree. One popular rule says to plan on replacing 80% of your current income (moneymanagement.org). Fidelity's savings targets assume your savings replace about 45% of your pre-retirement income, with Social Security covering more on top. The two rules measure different things, which is why the numbers are so far apart. Your own spending is a better starting point than either one.

Check: Write down what you actually spend in a month. Then adjust for what changes in retirement, such as no commute, a paid-off mortgage, more travel, or higher health care costs.

2. Your savings are near the benchmark for your age, and you know the conditions behind it

Fidelity publishes the best-known savings milestones, stated as multiples of your salary (Fidelity):

Most articles leave out the conditions these targets depend on. Fidelity's 10x figure assumes you start saving about 15% a year (employer match included) at age 25, keep about half your money in stocks, retire at 67, have no pension, and need your savings to replace about 45% of your pre-retirement income (Fidelity). Fidelity also notes that a frugal retiree might need closer to 8x and a big spender closer to 12x.

If you have a pension, plan to retire at 62, or started saving at 35, the table can point you the wrong way. It's a quick first check. It can't settle the question.

3. Your withdrawal rate is sustainable

This sign tells you the most, and you can work it out on a napkin.

Your withdrawal rate is the amount you'll take from savings each year divided by your total savings. Suppose you have $800,000 and plan to withdraw $40,000 a year. Your withdrawal rate is 5%.

Here's the benchmark to compare it with. 3.9% is the starting withdrawal rate that survives 90% of simulated futures over a 30-year retirement, according to Morningstar's The State of Retirement Income 2025 (December 2025). Morningstar judged that rate by whether money was still left in 90% of simulated outcomes, not by an average return.

A rate above 3.9% doesn't mean your plan fails. It means your odds are lower, and you need to know how much lower.

4. Your plan runs past 90

Social Security's own planning guidance says that about one out of every three 65-year-olds may live to at least age 90 (Social Security Administration, Retirement Information for Medicare Beneficiaries, 2026).

A plan that ends at 85 is quietly betting you won't be one of them. Look at whatever calculator or spreadsheet you're using and find the age where it stops. If it's in your 80s, the plan probably looks better than it should.

5. You've budgeted for health care as a real expense

Fidelity's 2025 Retiree Health Care Cost Estimate (July 2025) puts lifetime health care costs at $172,500 for one 65-year-old retiring this year. That covers Medicare premiums, deductibles and prescriptions. It doesn't include long-term care at all.

That's a full line item in your plan, not a rounding error. If your monthly spending number doesn't include health care, your plan has a gap.

What "on track" really means: a probability, not a promise

Rules of thumb give you a pass or fail. Real retirements don't work that way, because nobody knows what the market will do over the next 30 years.

That's where Monte Carlo simulation comes in. In plain terms, a projection that assumes the same return every year runs your plan once. A Monte Carlo test runs it hundreds or thousands of times, each with a different realistic mix of good years and bad years in a different order. Then it counts how often your money lasts.

The result is a probability of success: the share of simulated scenarios in which your portfolio still had money left at the end of retirement (Income Laboratory).

How to read a success rate

• 85% success means your money lasted in 850 of 1,000 simulated futures and ran out early in the other 150.
• The usual target range: many planners aim for about 75–90% (Voyant, bestinterest.blog). That's a convention among practitioners, not an official standard.
• Why 100% isn't the goal: getting close to certainty usually means spending much less than you could, or working years longer than you need to. A plan isn't set in stone. You can adjust it as life happens.

The risk an average can't show you

Picture two retirees who earn the same average return over 30 years. One gets the bad years early. The other gets them late. The first one is selling investments while prices are down to cover living costs, and that money never gets the chance to recover. This is called sequence-of-returns risk. A single average-return projection can't see it. A Monte Carlo test is built to catch it.

One caveat: a success rate doesn't tell you how close the "successful" runs came to running out. Treat it as a strong signal, not the whole story.

How to check if your retirement is on track in minutes

You don't need a spreadsheet to get a first answer. You need three numbers:

1. Your age
2. What you've saved for retirement
3. What you spend each month

Enter them into the Monte Climb retirement calculator and it runs your savings through 1,000 simulated futures. That's the same engine the app uses. You get one clear result: the share of those futures in which your money stays funded. It runs in your browser, and nothing is saved until you choose to save it.

A few details reflect the risks above. The plan you build here runs to age 95 by default, and you can push it further. The engine also charges Medicare premiums and income-based surcharges year by year rather than using one flat guess.

Once you have your number, you can ask our AI planner, William, the follow-up questions. "Am I on track?" "Can I retire at 62?" "What's a sustainable amount to spend?" Talk to him the way you'd talk to a friend. Keep in mind this is planning software, not advice.

If you're behind: the levers that move your odds

A low success rate doesn't mean you can't retire. It shows you where to make changes. The usual levers are:

• Spend less. This lowers your withdrawal rate directly, and as Sign 3 showed, that rate drives your results.
• Work longer. You get more years of saving and fewer years of withdrawals.
• Save more now. Many guides suggest saving 10–15% of your income (LPL).
• Revisit your investment mix. How much you hold in stocks versus bonds changes both your growth and your exposure to a bad run of early years.

Most guides list these and leave it there. A better way is to test them one at a time. Change your monthly spending and rerun the plan. Then go back and try a later retirement age instead. See which change moves your success rate the most for your situation, because the answer is different for different people. A $300-a-month cut might help more than two extra years of work, or it might help less. You'll only know by running it.

Review the plan regularly too. Your success rate is a snapshot, and it will change as markets and your life change.

The bottom line

Asking "is my retirement on track?" is the right question. Here's a better way to frame it: How likely is it that my money lasts through a long life, health care costs included, at the spending level I want?

Know your monthly number. Check your withdrawal rate against 3.9%. Plan past 90. Count health care as a real cost. Then put it all through a test that shows you the odds, not only the average.

Three numbers. One clear answer. Show my answer →

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if my retirement is on track?

Look at five things: whether you know your monthly spending need, how your savings compare with age-based benchmarks, whether your withdrawal rate is sustainable, whether your plan runs past age 90, and whether you've budgeted for health care. The clearest single measure is a probability of success, meaning the share of simulated market futures in which your money lasts.

How much should I have saved for retirement by age?

Fidelity's milestones are 1x your salary by 30, 3x by 40, 6x by 50, 8x by 60 and 10x by 67. These targets assume you start saving about 15% at 25, keep about half in stocks, retire at 67, have no pension, and need savings to replace about 45% of your pre-retirement income. If your situation is different, the targets may not fit.

What is a good Monte Carlo success rate for retirement?

Many planners aim for about 75–90%. That's a convention among practitioners, not an official standard. Aiming for 100% usually means spending much less or working longer than you need to, and plans can be adjusted over time.

What is a safe withdrawal rate in retirement?

Morningstar's The State of Retirement Income 2025 (December 2025) puts the safe starting withdrawal rate at 3.9%. That's the rate that left money remaining in 90% of simulated futures over a 30-year retirement. A higher rate means lower odds of success, not automatic failure.

How long should my retirement plan last?

Longer than most people expect. The Social Security Administration says about one in three 65-year-olds may live to at least age 90. That's why many planners extend plans into the mid-90s rather than stopping at 85.