Financial Freedom shows when your investment portfolio is projected to become large enough to sustainably cover your Lifestyle Number.

Accessing the calculator

If you are the workspace owner, open Lifestyle Calculator from the main sidebar, then select the Financial freedom tab.

Like the main lifestyle calculator, this tool is private to the workspace owner.

Before you start

Financial Freedom uses the annualized Lifestyle Number from the Lifestyle calculator tab. Add categories there using weekly, monthly, or yearly amounts first.

Savings and investments remain separate from the Lifestyle Number itself.

Investment assumptions

The calculator has five editable assumptions and one value derived from the Lifestyle Calculator:

Use the information icon beside Planned monthly investment to open a modal explaining the fixed or percentage allocation.

The fields are prefilled with an 8% expected annual return, a 4% withdrawal rate, and a 4% annual deposit increase. These are editable inputs, not recommendations.

Editable fields save and update the chart after you leave the field. This avoids changing the projection while you are still typing.

Changes to Savings & investments refresh the current investment plan and graph. Percentage mode is inclusive: at 20%, 80% of the post-tax allocation funds the Lifestyle Number and 20% is invested. A current portfolio value of zero is supported when either plan includes a monthly investment.

Your financial freedom target

The target answers: how large would the portfolio need to be for planned yearly withdrawals to equal the annual Lifestyle Number?

The calculator uses:

Financial freedom portfolio = Annual Lifestyle Number / Withdrawal rate

For example, an annual Lifestyle Number of $120,000 and a 4% withdrawal rate produce a $3,000,000 portfolio target.

The result area also shows:

• How much of the target your current portfolio already funds
• The monthly amount your current portfolio can sustainably provide
• The estimated time to financial freedom for the current investment plan and, when configured, the comparison plan
• The projected calendar month when each configured plan reaches the target
• The starting monthly investment used for each configured plan

If the current portfolio already meets the target, both plans are marked as reached now.

Reading the chart

The chart uses the same visual style as LimitLytics dashboards:

• Current plan uses the planned monthly investment from Savings & investments
• Comparison plan appears only after you enter a comparison monthly investment and uses the same starting portfolio
• Freedom target is the portfolio required to sustain the annual Lifestyle Number
• A vertical marker shows where each plan reaches financial freedom
• Solid lines show accumulation. The final deposit is capped at the remaining target. After a plan reaches the target, deposits stop, the selected percentage is withdrawn from the portfolio, and its line becomes dashed

The chart shows at least 10 years and expands beyond the freedom milestones or through a projected Lifestyle Number shortfall, up to a 60-year planning window.

If a target is more than 60 years away, its estimated date still appears in the result card, but its vertical marker falls outside the displayed chart.

Projection table

Below How to read this projection, the Projection by year table shows:

• The year-end portfolio value for the current plan, plus comparison columns when a comparison amount is configured
• How much each portfolio grew or shrank during that year
• A Financial freedom event line when either plan first reaches the required portfolio
• An Exhaustion event line when a declining percentage withdrawal is projected to stop covering the monthly Lifestyle Number
• The amount withdrawn from each portfolio after its financial-freedom point, with a dash before withdrawals begin

The exhaustion line describes the loss of Lifestyle Number coverage. A percentage-based withdrawal can continue after that point, but the amount is no longer enough for the planned lifestyle.

What the projection includes

The projection compounds your starting portfolio and adds the monthly investment for each configured plan. It assumes:

• A consistent annual return, compounded monthly
• Monthly investments continue until that plan reaches financial freedom
• Each configured monthly investment increases once per year by the annual deposit increase
• Monthly investments stop at financial freedom and the selected percentage is then withdrawn from that plan's portfolio
• A constant Lifestyle Number in today's currency
• No investment fees, taxes, inflation, or market volatility

Note: Financial Freedom is a planning scenario, not financial advice or a prediction of future investment performance.

Withdrawal sustainability

If the selected withdrawal percentage makes the portfolio trend downward, the calculator shows a warning. For each reachable plan, it reports how long the percentage-based monthly withdrawal is projected to keep covering the monthly Lifestyle Number and the month when it falls short.

If the balance trends down but still covers the Lifestyle Number throughout the 120-year simulation, the warning says so without presenting a false exact date.

When no date is available

The calculator explains why a projection cannot currently reach the target:

• Add annual lifestyle costs if the Lifestyle Number is zero
• Enter a withdrawal rate above 0%
• Add a monthly investment when starting from a zero portfolio
• Increase a plan's monthly investment or adjust its assumptions if it does not reach the target within the calculation window