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SWP Calculator — How Long Will the Money Last?

A Systematic Withdrawal Plan pays you a fixed amount each month while the balance stays invested. Enter your own assumption and see the balance year by year.

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This is your assumption, not a promise. Try a lower one too.
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Household costs rise. Test 5% to see what that does.
Please read this. Every figure above is produced from the rate you typed in. Mutual fund returns are market-linked, they do not arrive evenly year by year, and no outcome here is promised or predicted. Tax and exit load on each payout are not included, so the money actually reaching you would be lower. Myfolios is an AMFI-registered mutual fund distributor (ARN-145870) and not an investment adviser.

What this calculator is actually useful for

The final balance is the least interesting number on this page. What matters is the year the balance runs out, and how far that year moves when you change the return assumption by two or three percentage points. A withdrawal plan that only works at an optimistic rate is not a plan; it is a hope with a spreadsheet attached.

So run it twice. Once at the rate you expect, and once several points lower. If the money still lasts long enough in the second run, the withdrawal amount is sensible. If it does not, the amount needs reducing while that is still a choice rather than an emergency.

The risk this calculator cannot show

An SWP sells units every month, which means the order in which returns arrive matters, not just the average. A poor stretch in the early years sells units at lower values while the corpus is at its largest, and that damage is hard to recover from even if later years are good. A calculator applying a smooth annual rate cannot represent that at all.

The usual answer is not a cleverer calculator. It is splitting the corpus by when each part is needed: the first few years' requirement kept in low-risk categories such as liquid funds, and only the longer-dated portion left exposed. Our page on planning for senior citizens sets out how that split usually works.

Before you set one up

  • Confirm the bank account on the folio is current, since every payout goes there and nowhere else.
  • Check the exit-load position, because early payouts can redeem units still inside the scheme's defined period.
  • Understand that each payout is a redemption and therefore a taxable event, as our page on mutual fund taxation explains.
  • Decide the amount against your actual monthly requirement rather than what the corpus could support in a good year.

The full explanation of how an SWP works, and where it is the wrong tool, is on our page about the Systematic Withdrawal Plan. If you would like the numbers worked out against your own situation, get in touch.

SWP Calculator — Frequently Asked Questions

It applies your own return assumption to a corpus while a fixed amount is withdrawn each month, and shows the balance year by year. The useful output is not the final figure but the year the balance runs out, because that tells you whether the withdrawal you have chosen is sustainable over the period you need it for.

That depends on the corpus, how long you need the money to last, and what the investment does, which nobody can know in advance. Use the calculator to test a withdrawal amount against a low return assumption rather than an optimistic one, since a plan that survives a poor stretch is the only kind worth relying on.

No. Mutual fund returns are market-linked and this calculator simply works out the arithmetic on the rate you type in. Actual outcomes will differ, and returns vary from year to year rather than arriving evenly, which affects an SWP more than it affects a SIP.

Because you are selling units every month. A poor stretch early on means units are sold at lower values while the corpus is at its largest, and that damage is difficult to recover from later. This is why we suggest splitting a corpus by when each part is needed rather than drawing the whole thing from one scheme.

Each payout is a redemption, so it is a taxable event on the gain in the units sold, and exit load can apply where those units are still inside the scheme's defined period. Neither is included in this calculator, so the money reaching you will be lower than the figure shown.

Not necessarily. Starting in a month when values happen to be down means drawing from a smaller base from the outset. Where a buffer can cover the first stretch, beginning a little later gives more flexibility, and keeping the first few years' requirement in low-risk categories is the more common approach.

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