Free Retirement Paycheck CheckupYou know what you have. You don't know what you'll receive.
Most pre-retirees can tell you their 401(k) balance to the dollar — but can't answer the only question that matters: what will your monthly paycheck be in retirement? Let's find your number in 5 minutes.
Licensed in NYReg. 187 Best Interest Standard500+ Retirees Helped
Retirement isn't about how much you have.
It's about where your paycheck comes from.
Here's the moment most pre-retirees freeze: they sit down to actually do the math. The gap between what they'll receive and what they'll spend becomes real — and it shows up every single month, for the rest of their life.
$8,000
What you need each month to live the retirement you pictured
−$2,500
What Social Security actually pays you
$0
Your monthly gap — every month, for 25–35 years
That's $66,000 a year you have to manufacture from your savings — without running out. Do you have a written plan that does that? Most people don't.
A pile of money is not a paycheck.
You spent 30 years accumulating. Now you have to distribute — and the rules of the game change completely. The same market that grew your balance can quietly destroy your retirement, in a way most people never see coming.
The Sequence of Returns Trap
A 20% market drop in your first year of retirement isn't the same as one in your fifteenth. When you're withdrawing from a falling portfolio, you lock in losses you may never recover from. Two retirees with identical balances and identical average returns can end up in completely different places — depending entirely on the order those returns arrived.
Accumulation vs. Distribution
Growing assets rewarded you for time and risk. Replacing income rewards you for certainty and structure. The strategy that built your 401(k) — ride the market, stay the course — is exactly the one that can unravel it once you stop earning a paycheck. The risk that built your wealth is not the risk that should protect it.
“You can't eat a rate of return. You can only spend a paycheck.”
The question isn't whether your balance is big enough. It's whether you can turn it into income that lasts as long as you do.
Build a guaranteed income floor around your actual expenses.
What we call The Retirement Paycheck is the opposite of hoping the market cooperates. It's a floor — a layer of guaranteed monthly income built to cover the expenses you can't flex, no matter what the market does. Your investments stay invested for the life you want to live; your income floor handles the life you have to live.
Income You Can't Outlive
A guaranteed monthly check that keeps paying whether you live to 75 or 105 — so your essential expenses are never at the mercy of the market.
Protected From Sequence Risk
Because your floor doesn't depend on withdrawals from a fluctuating balance, a bad market early in retirement can't quietly erase your plan.
Built Around Your Numbers
Not a product in search of a client — a plan engineered around your actual monthly expenses, your Social Security, and your timeline.
When appropriate, we build income floors using fixed annuities, Multi-Year Guaranteed Annuities (MYGAs), and permanent life insurance from carriers like Nationwide, National Life Group, and North American. The strategy comes first — the tools serve it, never the other way around.
See your retirement gap right now.
Move the sliders. Watch the math change instantly. This is the same calculation we run in your checkup — no login, no statements to upload, no cost. The number you see here is an estimate; your free checkup turns it into a precise, personalized income plan.
Quick scenarios — tap to load, then fine-tune
Your inputs
Defaults reflect a typical pre-retiree. Adjust to match your situation.
Your retirement gap
The monthly shortfall between guaranteed income and your actual expenses.
$5,500/ mo
That's $66,000 every year you have to manufacture from savings.
Your $500K today, growing at 4% for 5 years, projects to $608K at retirement — the balance the gap math below starts from.
How long savings could cover the gap
of 30 yrs12 yrs
At 4% return, your savings could run dry around year 12 — 18 years short of your plan. And that assumes steady returns, which retirement rarely delivers.
The widely cited 4% guideline says your savings could generate about $2,028/mo. Your gap is $5,500/mo. That leaves a shortfall even under the guideline — before any market drop.
Free checkup · 5 minutes · No obligation
This calculator is an educational illustration only. It does not constitute financial, tax, or legal advice, a recommendation, or a guarantee of any return, outcome, or product performance. The assumed return is a hypothetical input you choose, not a projection of actual results. Actual retirement income depends on many factors, including market performance, inflation, taxes, longevity, and product terms. Annuity guarantees are subject to the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. For a personalized assessment, complete your free Retirement Paycheck Checkup.
Three steps. Five minutes. Zero pressure.
Answer 5 Questions
Share a few numbers — your savings range, your target retirement year, your biggest worry. No account logins, no statements to upload.
Riley Calculates Your Gap
Our specialist runs your inputs to estimate the monthly shortfall between your guaranteed income and your real retirement expenses.
Talk to an Advisor — Only If It Helps
If there's a clear opportunity, your advisor personally schedules a complimentary 45-minute Discovery Session. If there isn't, we tell you that too.
Calculate your retirement gap.
Five minutes. A real number. You'll leave knowing exactly how much monthly income you're short — and what to do about it.
Meet your advisor.
Our advisors have spent their careers watching what happens when people retire with a balance and a hope — but no income plan. PCFG exists to fix that before it's too late. We don't sell products; we build paychecks. When you sit down with us, you'll get numbers, straight talk, and a plan you can actually understand — never a pitch.
Licensed insurance professionals. Insurance products offered through PCFG Insurance Services.
Appointed with
Clarity. Certainty. A good night's sleep.
For the first time I know exactly what my monthly check will be. I stopped lying awake wondering if I'd outlive my money.
I'd been told my whole career my 401(k) 'should be fine.' No one ever showed me the actual number. My advisor did, in one session.
There was no sales pitch. Just clarity. We built a floor I can count on no matter what the market does next year.
Testimonials are anonymized to protect client privacy. Shared with permission. Individual results vary and are not a guarantee of future outcomes.
The cost of not knowing your number
is far higher than 5 minutes.
The sooner you see the gap, the more options you have to close it. This is the one decision that gets harder the longer you wait — and easier the moment you take it.
Calculate My Retirement GapFree. No obligation. Your information stays private.