Retirement / FIRE Calculator
See whether your savings plan will actually build a retirement corpus that lasts — accounting for inflation eating into your withdrawals every year of retirement.
How many years you're planning your retirement corpus to last.
Usually more conservative than pre-retirement.
Corpus at retirement
₹8,55,78,237
30 years to retirement, 25 years in retirement
Your projected corpus comfortably outlasts your planned retirement horizon at these assumptions.
Retirement planning tips
- If your corpus is insufficient, try increasing your monthly investment before assuming a much higher return — it's the more reliable lever.
- Don't ignore inflation in retirement planning — a comfortable lifestyle today can cost dramatically more decades from now.
- Factor in other retirement income (EPF, NPS annuity, pension) separately — this calculator only models your own savings and investments.
How it's calculated
This calculator chains two phases together. First, your current savings and monthly investment compound until retirement — the same maths as a SIP calculator. Then, your desired monthly expense (in today's rupees) is inflated forward to your retirement date, and simulated month by month against the retirement corpus — withdrawing that inflated amount, escalating it further by inflation every year, while the remaining balance keeps earning a (usually more conservative) post-retirement return.
Example
Starting at age 30 with ₹5,00,000 saved and ₹20,000/month invested until retiring at 60 (12% pre-retirement return), a desired monthly expense of ₹40,000 in today's rupees (6% inflation) builds a corpus of roughly ₹8,55,78,237 — sufficient to sustain withdrawals through age 85 at a 7% post-retirement return, leaving about ₹15,78,81,643 remaining.
About retirement / FIRE planning
Most retirement calculators only answer "how big will my corpus be" — this one goes a step further and asks whether that corpus can actually sustain your desired lifestyle for your full retirement, once you account for inflation making everything cost more every single year you're retired. This is also the core question behind FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) planning: does your corpus support your desired spending for as long as you need it to?
How it works
During your working years, your current savings and monthly investment compound at your assumed pre-retirement return. At retirement, your desired monthly expense (entered in today's rupees) is converted to its future, inflation-adjusted value. During retirement, that expense is withdrawn every month, growing each year by inflation to preserve your real purchasing power, while the remaining corpus continues earning your assumed post-retirement return.
How to use it
- Set your current age, planned retirement age, and life expectancy (how long you're planning for your corpus to last).
- Set your current retirement savings and monthly investment.
- Set separate pre- and post-retirement return assumptions — post-retirement is usually more conservative.
- Set your desired monthly retirement expense in today's rupees, and your assumed inflation rate.
- Check whether the result shows your corpus surviving the full horizon, or running out early — and by how much.
Strategies
If your corpus is marked insufficient, there are four main levers: invest more each month, retire later (more years to accumulate, fewer years to withdraw), reduce your desired retirement lifestyle cost, or accept a higher post-retirement return (with the higher risk that comes with it). Try adjusting each one individually to see which has the biggest impact on your specific numbers.
Important caveats
- Every rate here — pre-retirement return, post-retirement return, and inflation — is an assumption, not a guarantee. Real returns and inflation vary year to year, not smoothly like this projection.
- This calculator doesn't account for other retirement income sources (EPF, NPS annuity, pension) — see our dedicated EPF and NPS calculators for those separately.
- "Sequence of returns" risk — a market downturn early in retirement — isn't modelled; this shows a steady-return projection, not a worst-case scenario.
Why it works
The accumulation phase uses the same future-value-of-an-annuity formula as a SIP calculator. The depletion phase can't use a single formula, since the withdrawal amount grows every year — so it's simulated month by month, the same technique as the SWP calculator, just with an escalating withdrawal instead of a fixed one.
Benefits
- Answers the actual question that matters: will your money last, not just how big will it get.
- Makes the impact of inflation on a long retirement concrete, rather than an abstract warning.
- Lets you test different levers (savings rate, retirement age, lifestyle cost) to see which moves the needle most for your situation.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the withdrawal amount increase every year during retirement?
To maintain the same real (inflation-adjusted) standard of living. If you need ₹40,000/month worth of purchasing power today, you'll need more than that in rupee terms 20 years from now, and more still each subsequent year — this calculator escalates your withdrawal by the inflation rate every year of retirement to reflect that.
Why are the pre- and post-retirement returns different?
Investors typically shift toward a more conservative, lower-risk portfolio as retirement approaches and during retirement itself, since there's less time to recover from a downturn. Entering a lower post-retirement return reflects that more cautious allocation — you can set both to the same value if you plan to stay fully invested throughout.
What does it mean if my corpus is marked as insufficient?
It means that, at your current savings rate and the assumptions you've entered, your money runs out before your specified life expectancy. You can address this by investing more each month, retiring later, lowering your desired retirement lifestyle cost, or accepting a higher-return (and higher-risk) post-retirement allocation.
Learn more from official sources
- SEBI — regulator for mutual funds and securities markets in India.
- Reserve Bank of India (RBI) — publishes inflation data and monetary policy context.
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