Find your FIRE number — the corpus that lets your investments pay for life — adjusted for Indian inflation, plus the monthly SIP that gets you there.
How your FIRE number is calculated
Three steps, each of which this calculator does live:
- Inflate your expenses to your retirement year: Expenses × (1 + inflation)years.
- Size the corpus from your safe withdrawal rate: inflated expenses ÷ withdrawal rate. A 4% rate means 25× expenses; 3.33% means 30×.
- Work backwards to a monthly SIP that reaches the corpus in the time available, at your expected return.
FIRE corpus = E × (1 + i)n × (100 / WR)
Worked example
Spending ₹6,00,000 a year today, retiring in 15 years, 6% inflation, 4% withdrawal rate: expenses at retirement are about ₹14.4 lakh a year, so the corpus needed is roughly ₹3.6 crore. Reaching it in 15 years at a 12% return requires a SIP of about ₹72,000 a month — which is exactly why FIRE aspirants push their savings rate to 50%+ of income and start as early as possible.
Making your FIRE plan realistic
- Use honest expenses. Include rent (or maintenance if you own), insurance premiums, family costs and irregular spends like travel and repairs — not just your monthly card bill.
- Healthcare is the wildcard. Medical inflation in India runs well above general inflation; a strong health insurance cover is a prerequisite for any early retirement.
- Prefer 30x+ if retiring before 45. A 50-year retirement gives markets more chances to hurt you; a 3–3.3% withdrawal rate buys a large safety margin.
- Revisit yearly. Recalculate with actual inflation and portfolio values; a plan checked annually can be corrected cheaply.
Frequently asked questions
What is FIRE?
FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early — accumulating a corpus large enough that a safe withdrawal covers your living expenses forever, making work optional. The standard sizing rule is 25–33 times your annual expenses at retirement, depending on how conservative you want to be.
Why 25x annual expenses?
25x corresponds to a 4% initial withdrawal rate, which US historical data suggests survives a 30-year retirement in most scenarios. For India — higher inflation, longer early retirements — many planners prefer 30–33x (a 3–3.3% withdrawal rate). This calculator lets you set the multiple via the withdrawal rate.
Why does the calculator inflate my expenses first?
Because you retire in the future, not today. Expenses of ₹6 lakh a year today become about ₹14.4 lakh in 15 years at 6% inflation, and your corpus must support that amount. Skipping this step is the single most common way people underestimate their FIRE number.
What are Lean FIRE, Fat FIRE and Coast FIRE?
Lean FIRE means retiring on a minimal budget (a smaller multiple of bare-bones expenses). Fat FIRE supports a comfortable lifestyle with buffer (often 40–50x). Coast FIRE means you have invested enough that, without any further contributions, compounding alone will fund a normal retirement — you only need to earn your current expenses until then.
Does the corpus really last forever at a 4% withdrawal?
Not guaranteed — sequence-of-returns risk (bad markets early in retirement) can deplete a corpus even when average returns look fine. Mitigations include a lower withdrawal rate, a 2–3 year cash buffer, some guaranteed income (annuity, rental), and flexibility to cut spending in bad years.