The Full Cost

Can I Afford to Retire? The Real Cost of the Bridge Years

Most retirement calculators fixate on the nest-egg total. For retiring early, that's rarely what breaks the plan — the years before Social Security are. From the day you stop working until your benefit starts, your portfolio carries the entire load alone. This tool puts that bridge at the centre: how many years it is, how much it draws from your portfolio, and what's left when Social Security finally arrives. Transparent arithmetic you can check — not a forecast dressed up as certainty.

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When you'd retire — and when Social Security starts

The gap between these two is the bridge: the years your portfolio funds alone, before Social Security helps. It's the single biggest driver of whether early retirement works.

When you'd stop drawing a paycheck and start drawing the portfolio.
4570
62 is earliest (reduced); 67 is full for most; 70 is the maximum (largest benefit). The gap from retiring to here is the bridge.
6270
Your money
Portfolio and spending

Invested money you'd actually draw from, the spending it has to support, and the rate you'll pull from it.

Brokerage, 401(k), IRA — money that's invested and available. Not home equity.
$0$3M
All-in yearly spending — and make sure it includes healthcare before 65 (ACA premiums before Medicare are a real bridge cost most people underestimate).
$12k$200k
The share of the portfolio you draw per year. 4% is the long-standing reference; current research brackets it ~3.9% (Morningstar, forward-looking) to ~4.7% (Bengen, updated backtest). Lower is safer — and the bridge years arguably warrant caution. See the note below.
2.5%6.0%
Income
Social Security and other income

Reliable income beyond the portfolio. Social Security is the one that ends the bridge — enter your own estimate.

Your estimated yearly benefit, from ssa.gov. Claiming earlier means a smaller benefit; later means larger. This is yours to set — it's not estimated from earnings here.
$0$60k
Pension, part-time work, rental — steady income that runs through the bridge too. Default $0.
$0$100k

The bridge, year by year

Your portfolio balance as it funds the shortfall each year — drawdown only, no investment growth assumed. This is deliberately conservative: real returns would help, inflation would hurt, and modeling either precisely would fake a certainty no one has. The highlighted row is where Social Security starts and the bridge ends.

AgePhaseDrawn that yearPortfolio balance

What's driving it — and the honest caveats

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    How this is calculated: portfolio income is your portfolio times the withdrawal rate you set. Before Social Security, that income (plus any other income) is compared with your spending; any shortfall is drawn from the portfolio across the bridge years. After Social Security starts, its benefit is added in. The band (steady / caution / stretch) is a transparent rule on those figures, and the year-by-year table is drawdown-only. This model deliberately does not assume investment growth, inflation, taxes, RMDs, or sequence-of-returns risk — it shows the structural shape (income vs. spending, and the bridge) that richer models sit on top of, without faking precision. On the 4% rate: it's the long-standing reference (Bengen 1994; the Trinity study). Current research brackets it — Morningstar's forward-looking 2026 figure is about 3.9% for a balanced portfolio with no other income (close to the bridge situation), while Bengen's updated historical analysis argues the safe maximum is nearer 4.7%. The gap is method: historical backtest (higher) versus forward-looking return forecasts (lower). 4% is a defensible middle — dial it to your own risk tolerance. Transparent assumptions, not forecasts. Not financial advice.

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