A comprehensive reference for getting the most from your retirement projection tool.
Magnus Retirement Planner is a retirement fund calculator. You tell it how much money you have saved, where it is invested, and how much you plan to withdraw each month after retirement. It then shows you — year by year — how long your money will last.
What Magnus can do:
Magnus follows a two-stage model. In the pre-retirement stage, you enter your current savings, monthly contributions, and expected return — and Magnus projects how your corpus will grow by retirement. Clicking Apply to Retirement Planner transfers that projected corpus directly into the post-retirement stage. There, Magnus simulates year-by-year withdrawals, applying your expenses, inflation, and investment returns to show how long your money will last — and flags the years and scenarios where it runs short.
Magnus is a private app. To use it, you need an email address and a password provided by the administrator.
Tip: Every time you close the app or browser, you will need to sign in again when you return. Your saved inputs remain — you only need to re-enter your password, not all your figures.
Forgot your password? Use the "Forgot password?" link on the login screen. A reset email will be sent to your registered address.
At the top of the planner, you will see two entry options:
Your selection is saved automatically and restored on your next visit. You can switch modes at any time without losing your inputs.
Quick decision guide: Use Planning for retirement if you are still contributing to your corpus and want to project its growth before modelling withdrawals. Use Already retired if you are currently drawing from your savings and want to go straight to entering your portfolio and planning your withdrawals.
Visible only in Planning for retirement mode. This section lets you project how your savings will grow between now and retirement, and transfers the result directly into the retirement planner.
How to use it:
Note: After clicking Apply, you can still edit individual fund amounts and return rates in the Investment Portfolio section below.
In Already retired mode, the Investment Portfolio section shows a portfolio entry selector with two options. You can switch between preset and manual modes at any time. Existing fund entries are preserved unless you actively redistribute.
If you know your total corpus but want Magnus to distribute it across asset classes for you:
If you prefer to enter each investment separately. Use this only if you are comfortable entering and understanding your investments individually.
In the post-retirement drawdown phase, capital preservation becomes more important than growth. A conservative allocation — weighted towards debt and FD — reduces sequence-of-returns risk: the danger that a market crash early in retirement forces you to sell growth assets at low prices to fund withdrawals. You can always adjust the allocation to match your actual holdings.
These inputs apply in both planning and retired modes. They tell Magnus how much you plan to spend, what other income you have, and how long your money needs to last.
Large expenses at a specific age — a wedding, property purchase, or major medical procedure — are not part of your regular monthly withdrawal but reduce your corpus significantly in that year.
Magnus lets you enter up to four one-time expense events. Each needs an age and an amount (₹). To enter them, open the ⚡ Stress Test Settings panel in the inputs sidebar.
Example: A ₹15 lakh wedding expense at age 68: enter Age = 68, Amount = 1500000. Magnus deducts ₹15L from the corpus in the year you turn 68 and carries forward the reduced balance. One-time events are applied in every scenario — base case and all stress scenarios equally.
If you expect to receive a lump sum that will be added to your retirement portfolio at a future age, Magnus can model up to two such additions in the post-retirement phase. Each addition needs an amount (₹) and the age at which it will be received.
Typical uses: PPF account maturity, FD proceeds, proceeds from sale of a property, inheritance.
How it works: In the year you reach the specified age, the addition is applied to your portfolio after that year's investment returns are calculated but before the year's withdrawal is made. This means the addition protects against depletion in that year and reduces the withdrawal drawn from the portfolio, but does not earn that year's return — it begins earning returns from the following year.
Both additions are reflected in all five engine paths: deterministic projection, stress scenarios, Monte Carlo simulation, safe withdrawal estimate, and fan chart.
Example: A ₹25 lakh PPF maturity at age 73: enter Amount = 2500000, Age = 73. In the year-by-year table, the portfolio balance at age 73 will be higher by this amount, net of that year's withdrawal.
Magnus supports up to two time-bounded income streams — regular monthly income that is active only between a start age and an end age, with its own growth rate. This is separate from the main Other Monthly Income field, which is for income that runs throughout retirement.
Typical uses: Senior Citizens Savings Scheme (SCSS) interest payouts (end when the scheme matures), rental income from a property you plan to sell at a specific age, part-time consultancy or professional income that will wind down.
Fields for each stream:
How it works: Each year the stream is active, the monthly amount is summed with Other Monthly Income and subtracted from your gross expense before the net withdrawal is taken from the portfolio. From the year after the stream ends, the full expense is drawn from the portfolio again. The year-by-year table shows the combined income (pension + active streams) in the Other Income column when any income source is active.
All five engine paths apply both streams consistently: deterministic projection, stress scenarios, Monte Carlo, safe withdrawal estimate, and fan chart.
Example: SCSS interest of ₹12,000 per month from age 65 to 80, growing at 0%: the net portfolio draw is reduced by ₹12,000 per month throughout this period. At age 81 the stream ends and the full expense is again drawn from the portfolio.
The Advanced Planning Mode panel appears near the bottom of the inputs sidebar. It is optional — the standard calculation is appropriate for most users.
Conservative Bucket Withdrawal
Instead of drawing each year's withdrawal proportionally across all funds, Magnus draws from your safest assets first:
Cash → FD → Debt → Hybrid → Gold → Equity
This lets growth assets (equity, hybrid) compound untouched for longer. If sequence risk is high, bucket withdrawal can meaningfully extend corpus life. Trade-off: stable assets may be depleted quickly in early years, leaving the portfolio more volatile later.
Annual Portfolio Rebalancing
When enabled, Magnus restores your fund balances to their original allocation percentages at the end of each year — after returns are applied and withdrawals are deducted. This prevents your portfolio drifting into an unintended risk profile over time. Annual rebalancing is scientifically supported as a sound long-term practice and is widely used as the default assumption in global retirement modelling.
Reserve Floor
Set a minimum corpus reserve (in years of annual withdrawal) that the engine tries not to draw below. Useful for modelling a safety buffer or bequest intention.
Note: When the Reserve Floor, Medical Stress, or One-Time Expense events are active but excluded from Monte Carlo corpus tracking, the app displays a disclosure note. When these constraints are active, Monte Carlo results may appear more optimistic than actual outcomes. Use them with caution.
The standard projection uses fixed return rates — every year your equity fund earns exactly what you entered. Monte Carlo mode addresses this by running your plan up to 2,000 simulations, each with a different sequence of randomised annual returns. The result is a probability distribution of outcomes.
How to enable it:
Open the Advanced Planning Mode panel and select Monte Carlo as the Simulation Mode. Three settings appear:
Reading the Monte Carlo results:
Monte Carlo Safe Withdrawal Finder
After simulation completes, a Find Safe Withdrawal button appears. It runs a binary search to find the highest monthly withdrawal at which your success probability meets your chosen threshold.
How to use both modes together: If the deterministic plan looks healthy and the MC success probability is above 85–90%, your plan has genuine depth. If MC results are much weaker than deterministic ones, your plan is sensitive to return sequences and deserves attention.
Click Calculate Projection and Magnus automatically runs your plan under five adverse scenarios, showing all results side by side. No extra steps needed.
| Scenario | What it changes | What it tests |
|---|---|---|
| Base Case | Nothing | Expected outcome |
| Low Return | Fund returns reduced by asset class | Prolonged underperformance |
| Early Market Crash | Per-fund crash in Years 1–2 | Sequence-of-returns risk |
| High Expense Growth | Withdrawal growth +2% per inflation tier | Faster inflation / lifestyle creep |
| Medical Stress | Extra cost from a chosen age onward | Healthcare expense spikes |
Scenario details:
Executive Summary Panel
A plain-language summary of your plan's health status appears at the top of the results, with 2–4 specific recommended actions tailored to your figures. Read this first.
Retirement Health Indicator
Summary Cards
Insight Cards
Safe Withdrawal Estimate
Automatically finds the highest monthly withdrawal that keeps your corpus alive until your target age under your worst stress scenario.
The Balance Chart
Green bars show your remaining fund balance each year. The gold line tracks your growing annual withdrawal. The dashed green line shows investment returns. A dashed vertical line marks your target age.
The Year-by-Year Table
A detailed row for every year of retirement: age, monthly withdrawal, annual withdrawal, investment returns, and closing balance. Rows marked DEPLETED indicate the fund ran out that year.
Withdrawal Rate
Your withdrawal rate is: Annual Withdrawal ÷ Starting Corpus × 100. The internationally cited 4% rule suggests that withdrawing 4% per year from a balanced portfolio gives a high probability of lasting 30 years. Below 3% = very conservative; 3–4% = sustainable; 4–5% = moderate risk; above 5% = high risk. Note that these thresholds assume reasonable returns — if your portfolio is mostly FDs, even 3.5% may be stretched.
Sequence Risk
A market crash in the first years of retirement forces you to sell units at low prices to fund withdrawals. You never fully recover those units, even if markets rebound strongly later. Magnus measures this by comparing your base case survival age against your Early Market Crash survival age. Gap of 0–2 years = Low; 3–5 years = Moderate; 6+ years = High.
Portfolio Risk Mix
Magnus groups your funds: Growth (equity + hybrid), Stability (debt + FD + cash), Diversifier (gold). Your growth percentage determines your profile: below 30% = Very Conservative; 30–55% = Balanced; 56–75% = Growth-Oriented; above 75% = Aggressive. This is a description of your allocation, not a recommendation.
Safe Withdrawal Estimate — Detailed
This is Magnus's most decision-critical output. It runs a binary search to find the highest monthly withdrawal that allows your corpus to survive until your target age under your worst stress scenario. If your actual expenses are close to or above the safe number, that is a signal to reduce withdrawals, extend your earning years, or add more to your corpus.
Click the Print / Save PDF button at the top of the results to generate a full projection report. The report includes your input summary, all projection results, stress test comparison, and Monte Carlo results if run.
Click the Password button in the top-right bar, enter your current password to confirm your identity, then enter and confirm your new password. Your new password takes effect immediately.
Tip: Choose a password that is memorable to you but not obvious to others.
Forgot your password? Use the "Forgot password?" link on the login screen. A reset email will be sent to your registered address.
Your financial figures are deeply personal. Magnus is built so your data never leaves your device.
What IS stored on the server: Only your name, email address, and encrypted password — purely for login purposes. Nothing financial is ever stored on any server.
What stays on YOUR device only: All corpus amounts, fund details, return rates, withdrawal plans, inflation settings, and calculated results. These exist only in your browser's local storage. Not even the administrator can see your financial data.
Clearing your data: If you clear your browser's cookies or site data, or use a different device, your saved inputs will be gone. You will need to re-enter them. This is by design — for your privacy.
Deterministic Engine
The standard projection applies your entered return rates exactly, every year. Each year the engine:
Monte Carlo Return Model
In Monte Carlo mode, each fund's annual return is drawn from a log-normal distribution parameterised by the fund's entered rate as the mean and a fixed annual volatility (σ) by asset class:
Equity σ = 18% per year
Hybrid σ = 12% per year
Debt σ = 4% per year
Gold σ = 15% per year
Other σ = 10% per year
FD σ = 0% (contractual rate — no volatility)
Cash σ = 0% (stable rate — no volatility)
Returns are sampled using the Box-Muller transform. Each fund is sampled independently each year. FD and Cash are intentionally zero-volatility — FDs in India are contractual instruments and modelling FD with return noise would be economically incorrect.
Pre-Retirement Accumulation Engine
The accumulation projection uses a standard compound growth model with annual contributions and a mid-year approximation for contribution growth. The blended return rate is calculated from your selected allocation weights and asset return assumptions. Up to two lump-sum additions can be entered; each addition is applied to the opening corpus in the year it falls due and earns the full year's return from that year. This projected corpus is passed directly to the retirement engine when you click Apply to Retirement Planner.
Known Limitations
Can I use Magnus on my phone?
Yes — Magnus works on any phone browser. For the best experience, add it to your home screen: on iPhone, tap Share in Safari and choose "Add to Home Screen". On Android, tap the menu in Chrome and choose "Add to Home Screen".
I am not retired yet. Which mode should I use?
Select Planning for retirement. The Pre-Retirement Planning section will be visible. Enter your current corpus, monthly contribution, retirement age, and return assumption. Click Apply to Retirement Planner to transfer the projected result, then complete your post-retirement details and calculate.
I am already retired. Which mode should I use?
Select Already retired. The Pre-Retirement Planning section will be hidden. Choose whether to use preset allocation (enter your total corpus and click Distribute to Portfolio) or enter your funds manually. Then complete your post-retirement details and calculate.
Why is the default post-retirement allocation Conservative?
In the drawdown phase, capital preservation is more important than maximising returns. A conservative allocation reduces the risk of being forced to sell growth assets at low prices during a market downturn (sequence risk). You can adjust the allocation to match your actual holdings at any time.
What return rate should I use for my investments?
Use the actual or expected annual return of each investment. Fixed Deposits: typically 6.5–8%. Senior Citizens Savings Scheme: currently ~8.2%. Debt Mutual Funds: 6–9%. Equity Mutual Funds (long-term historical): 10–13%. When in doubt, use a conservative number — it is better to be pleasantly surprised than to run short.
What inflation rate should I use?
India's average retail inflation has been around 5–6% per year over the past decade. A reasonable planning schedule: 5% for earlier years, 3–4% for later years when lifestyle tends to stabilise. Medical costs inflate faster — factor that in via the Medical Stress scenario.
What is Monte Carlo simulation and should I use it?
Monte Carlo runs your retirement plan up to 2,000 simulations with randomised annual returns, rather than using fixed rates every year. The result is a success probability — the percentage of simulated futures in which your corpus survives to your target age. Use it when you want to understand not just "does my plan work?" but "how robust is my plan to the randomness of real market returns?"
How many simulations should I run?
1,000 is the recommended default. It gives stable, repeatable results. 500 is faster and adequate for a quick sense-check. 2,000 gives tighter results but takes slightly longer. The difference between 1,000 and 2,000 runs is rarely more than 1–2 percentage points in success probability.
Why does my FD return the same amount in every Monte Carlo path?
By design. FDs in India are contractual — the rate is locked for the tenure. Magnus models FD and Cash as zero-volatility instruments: they always return exactly the rate you entered.
What is Other Monthly Income and should I enter it?
Other Monthly Income is any regular, predictable income during retirement — pension, rental income, annuity payout, or fixed consulting retainer. Enter the amount you will actually receive in the first month of retirement, not a today's-money equivalent. Magnus subtracts it from your retirement-year expense before drawing from your portfolio — you can see the resulting Year 1 net portfolio draw in the helper line below the field. By default it stays flat throughout retirement. Enable "income grows with inflation" if your income is DA-linked or otherwise inflation-indexed.
What is the difference between Other Monthly Income and Time-Bounded Income Streams?
Other Monthly Income is for income that continues throughout all of retirement — such as a lifelong pension or a rental income you do not plan to stop. Time-Bounded Income Streams are for income that will only last a specific number of years — for example, SCSS interest that ends when the scheme matures, or part-time work that will stop at a chosen age. Both reduce your portfolio draw during their active period; bounded streams simply switch off at the end age you specify.
What are Future Lump-Sum Additions to Portfolio?
These let you model a large one-off amount that you expect to receive and add to your retirement portfolio at a specific future age — such as a PPF maturity, FD proceeds, or inheritance. You can enter up to two such additions, each with an amount and an age. The addition is applied after that year's investment returns are calculated but before the year's withdrawal, so it protects against depletion in that year and reduces the draw from the portfolio. It does not earn returns in the year received — returns begin from the following year.
Should I use Bucket Withdrawal or Proportional?
For most users, the default Proportional mode is appropriate. Bucket Withdrawal is worth considering if you have significant equity exposure and are concerned about sequence risk. Use the Sequence Risk card to assess whether bucket mode makes a meaningful difference for your plan.
What does Annual Rebalancing do, and should I use it?
Annual rebalancing resets your fund balances to their original proportions at the end of each year. This prevents your portfolio drifting into an unintended risk profile over time and is consistent with globally standard practice for portfolio modelling. If you rebalance your actual portfolio regularly in real life, enabling it in Magnus will give a more accurate projection.
My Monte Carlo success probability is much lower than my deterministic result. Why?
The deterministic projection uses your entered return rates every year — a best-estimate scenario. Monte Carlo introduces year-to-year volatility, including bad sequences. A plan that looks comfortable deterministically can show a lower MC success rate if it has high equity exposure, a high withdrawal rate, or tight margins.
My numbers were there yesterday. Today they're gone. Why?
This happens if you cleared your browser history or cache, used a different browser or device, or used private/incognito mode. Always use the same browser on the same device to preserve your saved inputs.
Is Magnus a financial advisor?
No. Magnus is a calculation tool that models projections based on the numbers you provide. It does not give financial advice. Results are only as accurate as your inputs and assumptions. Always consult a qualified financial advisor for decisions about your retirement.
I need access. How do I get an account?
Access is granted by the administrator. Email support@magnusplanner.com to request access.
Magnus Retirement Planner — magnusplanner.com
This guide is for personal planning purposes only. It is not financial advice.