FIRE Calculator and Planner

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FIRE Calculator & Planner

Financial Independence, Retire Early

Plan Your Path to Freedom

This interactive tool helps you calculate your Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) number. Based on your savings rate, investment returns, and the famous "4% Rule," discover exactly when work becomes optional. Adjust the inputs on the left to see how small changes today impact your freedom date tomorrow.

Your Scenario Inputs

These are the "Green Cells" you can edit to model your future.

Personal Profile

Current Age

Target Retirement Age

Current Finances

Annual Income ($)

Annual Expenses ($)

Current Savings ($)

Annual Contribution ($)

Calculated Savings Rate: 12.5%

Assumptions

Investment Return (%)

Inflation Rate (%)

Safe Withdrawal (%)

Contrib. Growth (%)

Real Return: 3.88%

FIRE Goal Amount

$1,000,000

Expenses / Withdrawal Rate

Time to FIRE

22 Years

Based on current trajectory

Projected FIRE Age

52

Target Age: 55

Wealth Growth Trajectory

Projected Savings

FIRE Goal

Understanding the Graph

The green line represents your projected portfolio balance growing over time due to contributions and compound interest. The red line is your calculated "FIRE Number." Where the green line crosses the red line, you have achieved Financial Independence.

Annual Projection Table

A year-by-year breakdown of your journey. This engine uses your "Real Rate of Return" to project future wealth.

Year	Age	Start Bal	Contribution	Interest	End Bal	Status

Generated based on the FIRE Retirement Calculator Methodology.

Calculations are projections based on input assumptions and do not constitute financial advice.

FIRE And How To Retire Early

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FIRE Explorer

The Math Strategy Variations Reality Check

The Pursuit of Freedom

The Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement is a philosophy challenging the 40-year career timeline. It focuses on aggressive saving, strategic investment, and choice over necessity.

"A paradigm shift offering an alternative vision of life."

The Foundation

The 4% Rule & Your "Number"

At the heart of FIRE is the 4% Rule. This rule posits that you can safely withdraw 4% of your portfolio annually (adjusted for inflation) without running out of money for 30 years.

To find your freedom number, you multiply your annual expenses by 25 (the reciprocal of 4%).

• ✓ Calculated on annual spending, not income.
• ✓ Requires drastic savings rates (50-75%).

Your FIRE Calculator

Estimated Annual Expenses

$

Your FIRE Number (25x)

$1,250,000

Safe Withdrawal (4%)

$50,000/yr

Savings Target

25 Years

The Strategy Shift

FIRE isn't just about earning more; it's about a fundamental shift in how income is allocated. The goal is to maximize the "Savings Rate."

Traditional vs. FIRE Allocation

Standard advice suggests saving 10-15%. FIRE adherents aim for 50-75% to accelerate the timeline.

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Radical Frugality

Minimizing major costs like housing (geoarbitrage, downsizing) and transportation. Tracking and eliminating discretionary spending to boost the savings gap.

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Aggressive Investing

Focusing on low-cost, diversified index funds. The strategy relies on market growth over decades to compound the high savings rate.

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Income Maximization

Increasing earning potential through career advancement or side hustles to provide more fuel for the investment engine.

Choose Your Path

The movement is adaptable. Select a FIRE variation to see how the goals and lifestyles differ.

Lean FIRE

For those aiming for a minimalist, low-budget retirement. This often involves extreme frugality and lower nest egg requirements.

Nest Egg Comparison (Based on $50k Base Expenses)

The Reality Check: Risks & Critiques

While promising freedom, FIRE invites debate regarding sustainability. Critics point out several significant risks that early retirees must navigate.

Relative Intensity of Challenges

1

Sequence of Returns Risk

The danger of poor market performance early in retirement. A crash in the first few years can permanently deplete a portfolio, as selling assets at a loss destroys compounding potential.

2

Longevity & The 4% Rule

The 4% rule was designed for a 30-year horizon. Retiring in your 30s means the money must last 50-60 years, increasing the risk of outliving your savings.

3

Healthcare Access

Early retirees face a massive gap before qualifying for government programs like Medicare. High out-of-pocket insurance costs can wreck the budget.

4

Deferred Life Satisfaction

The psychological toll of extreme frugality. Sacrificing life experiences in your 20s and 30s for a future that is not guaranteed.

"FIRE is a powerful expression of the desire for self-determination."

Interactive Summary based on "The Pursuit of Freedom" essay.

What is Financial Freedom?

What it means to me:

Financial Freedom has been defined in various ways. For me, financial freedom means

1. Having an income in excess of the current needs of my family.

2. Having an income which will also meet the future needs of my family and me.

Is it really possible to plan very much in advance? I believe it is, though there may be extenuating circumstances in which your plan may fail. For instance war or natural calamity may alter all your planning.

How to achieve Financial Freedom:

You will need to use a spreadsheet and make some assumptions. To download a spreadsheet which will allow you to calculate the time you will take to reach financial freedom, click here. (Download to be made available soon!)

The assumptions necessary are:
1. Rate of inflation, long term.
2. Return on various asset classes, long term. Eg. Equity returns around 14% plus in my country, so I would go with that for my equity investments. Similar assumptions are necessary for the debt investments, liquid investments and property (real estate) investment.

You would also have to plug in your current and projected rate of saving and your current assets, that is, your current investments which you wish to hold for achieving financial freedom.

The third set of estimates you would need to plug in are the amounts you need at specific times for additional expenses which you would not be meeting out of the income from your assets.

You also need to bear in mind that you may not achieve all your objectives owing to the unpredictable nature of the equity markets. Conversely, you may do so well that you have money to spare! If you make conservative estimates, there is no reason why you should not end up with money to spare rather than in the poor house! But more on that later!

Track The Performance Of Your Investments

If you fail to track the performance of your investments, you are on track to fail in earning a reasonable return.

It really is that simple. How do you track the performance? The simplest and most elegant solution for your investments in India is mProfit, a investment performance tracker which allows you to track your mutual fund investments, your stocks, gold, bonds, PPF, NSS, real estate and what not. Get an extra 30 days of validity with this coupon code here - (Disclaimer: I have been using mProfit since the last 3 years and yes, I do earn a small commission on any sales through this link. If you do find a better software or online tool, let me know!)

With mProfit, you are on track to rebalance yearly, half-yearly, monthly or whenever you feel like it - (though I do not recommend that!). You can check the value of your investments as on any date you care to enter.

My next post will be on rebalancing and what it can do for you.

How soon can you be financially free?

Isn't this something which everyone asks oneself at some time or other? So I've decided to do the math and work it out. I hope it makes for interesting reading.
If you save 20% of your income before tax in a mutual fund which returns 20% per annum and if you consider inflation to be at 10%, how long will you take to be financially free? To truly answer that, you need to know what you will need to survive on when you retire and also you will need to know what your investments will earn after you retire. The answer isn't difficult to calculate with an excel sheet and here is a link to a FIRE Calculator which you can customise to your needs. I assume you wish to leave your corpus behind for your heirs, but if you wish to spend down to the end of life, you will need to make an assumption on how long you will live. Now that is a question that Aubrey de Grey has answered in his TED talk here and the answer could well be forever. So be warned, this is not something most financial planners will talk about.
Of course if you can master frugal living and save more (LEAN FIRE), or earn a higher interest on your investments, you could be financially free much sooner. Or if inflation is lower than you expected, then you would not need to save more or or for too long! 

The FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement suggests a 3 to 4% rate of withdrawal to ensure assets last a lifetime, but that is calculated based on several assumptions:

    1. Assets will be invested in a 50% debt and 50% equity portfolio

    2. Stock market returns will continue at or around their long term returns, but these are hard to predict.

    3. You will not drawdown on your capital to fund your retirement but that depends on your portfolio returns.

    4. Your life expectancy will be around 100 years which may not be true according to Aubrey de Grey

So what does one do?

For one, if you can be flexible in curtailing wants in lean years, you could retire with a smaller corpus. Or if you can start with a LEAN FIRE, living a minimalist lifestyle, you could retire early. Or go the FAT FIRE way, saving 75% of your income and retire earlier. 

The most important thing though is to make a start with conservative estimates for inflation, rate of return and other variables not in your control. The idea is to have your savings outlive you and not vice-versa!

Here are some resources:

Investopedia

Plan for Financial Freedom!

Plan for your financial freedom with this sample spreadsheet. Here is how to calculate whether you will meet your goals and what you can do to achieve them.