What could change your number?
Estimated FIRE number—
- Personalised to your lifeNot a generic 25× estimate
- Built for IndiaRealistic returns, taxes and inflation
- Transparent methodologySee how we calculate it
Your number starts with you
Fill in the three required answers, then select Show my FIRE number to calculate your result.
No demo figures. The first number shown here will be yours.Your FIRE number
Last updated just nowYour estimated FIRE number
Quick estimate
Conventional FIRE
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Higher confidence
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Monthly expenses (today)
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Your path to Financial Independence
This is a simplified projection based on default assumptions.
- Projected portfolio value
- FIRE number
Enter your details above to draw your projection.
Want a more accurate number?
Add details about your expenses, goals, income and more to personalise your FIRE plan.
Sharpen your number
Every answer is optional and every one moves the number above as you type. Skip anything that does not apply.
Break your monthly spend into the parts that behave differently. Housing and EMIs end; children's costs stop; healthcare accelerates. A single number cannot say any of that.
We've used category-specific inflation assumptions. View or change them.
A goal is a bill on a date, not a slice of your monthly budget. Each one is compounded at its own inflation rate to the year it falls due and reserved in full.
Rent, a pension, a business, consulting or an annuity offsets your spending before anything is sold. Each stream carries its own start age, duration and whether it keeps up with inflation.
This is what unlocks "when will I reach FIRE" rather than only "what is the number".
Your risk stance is your confidence threshold — one dial, not two hidden constants. Moving it changes both how the portfolio is invested and how certain the plan has to be.
Vestmind sustainable withdrawal rate: —
Stress test your plan
We simulate thousands of market scenarios, including historical crises and tough economic environments.
Your biggest FIRE risk
Retiring just before a prolonged period of weak equity returns and high inflation.
Try different levers
See how small changes can make a big difference.
Illustrative only. These show how the arithmetic responds to one change — they are not advice, and not a recommendation to invest any differently.
Move a lever to see its effectEach one re-runs the whole simulation, not a rule of thumb.
How we calculate your FIRE number Explore the assumptions and methodology behind your result.
Most FIRE calculators multiply your annual expenses by 25 and stop. That number comes from the 4% rule — a reading of United States market history over a 30-year retirement. Indian equity, Indian debt and Indian inflation are all different series, and a FIRE plan is usually 40 to 50 years rather than 30. VestFire therefore does not start from a rule. It starts from a definition:
Your VestFire number is the smallest corpus C for which the probability that your portfolio funds every remaining lifetime cash flow is at least the confidence you chose.
Everything below is what goes into that probability. All of it is visible on this page, and all of it can be changed.
1. Return and inflation assumptions
Assumptions are derived from long-run Indian data — the Nifty 50 Total Return Index for equity, G-Sec and AAA corporate series for debt, and the combined Consumer Price Index for inflation — and are stated as expected compound returns, not the best decade read backwards.
| Asset | Expected compound return | Volatility |
|---|---|---|
| Indian equity (Nifty 50 TRI) | 11.5% | 18.5% |
| G-Sec and AAA corporate debt | 6.75% | 4.5% |
| CPI inflation (combined) | 5.5% | 1.8% |
Household inflation is not CPI. Healthcare in India has compounded well above the index for two decades, education close behind it, and a loan EMI does not inflate at all — it is a fixed nominal contract. Each category of your spending therefore carries its own rate: healthcare at CPI + 3.5%, parental support at CPI + 3.5%, children at CPI + 2.8%, housing at CPI + 0.7%, lifestyle at CPI, and EMIs at zero nominal growth.
2. A glide path through both phases
Allocation moves with your distance from your target age rather than only after you reach it. On the balanced setting equity runs at 75% today, 60% on the day work becomes optional, and 45% fifteen years after that. Modelling only the withdrawal phase misses the risk that matters most: a deep drawdown against the largest corpus you will ever hold, in the last years before you stop earning.
3. Tax, modelled rather than assumed away
Two investors with identical corpora and different asset mixes do not have identical spending power. Every year's withdrawal is grossed up so that what reaches your hand is what your plan needs: equity long-term capital gains at 12.5% above the ₹1.25 lakh annual exemption, and debt funds at your slab rate with no indexation, following the April 2023 reclassification. Cost basis is tracked proportionally from the money you actually contribute, so a plan funded mostly by contributions is not taxed as though it were all gain.
4. Goals as separate liabilities
A child's education in 2038 or a home purchase in 2031 is a bill on a date. Each goal is compounded from today's cost at its own inflation rate — Future cost = Current cost × (1 + inflation)n — and reserved in full in the year it falls due. It is never averaged into your monthly expenses, because a number that smears a one-off ₹50 lakh bill across forty years of spending is a number that will not be there when the bill arrives.
5. Thousands of futures, then the ones that actually happened
The engine runs a Monte Carlo simulation over correlated equity, debt and inflation paths and finds the smallest corpus that survives at your chosen confidence. The percentile table is the honest summary; the stress tests are what a person actually feels. The same simulation is replayed through a 2008-style crash, the 2020 crash and recovery, a stagflation decade and a poor first ten years of retirement — because sequence-of-returns risk is concentrated in exactly those opening years.
6. Confidence is your lever, not our constant
"Balanced" and "90% confidence" are the same dial, and it is in your hands. Push it to 95% if you have no ability to earn again; drop it to 75% if your spending is flexible, your skills are marketable, or a partner is still working — and watch the corpus fall. What you should not do is accept a confidence level you were never shown.
What VestFire does not do
It does not know your health, your family's longevity, a business you might sell, or an inheritance you might receive. It assumes you rebalance to the glide path once a year and that you do not sell in a crash — the single assumption most likely to be wrong, and the one no calculator can fix. It is a planning tool, not investment advice, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any security.
Frequently asked questions
What is a FIRE number?
Your FIRE number is the size of the investment portfolio at which work becomes optional — the corpus that can fund your remaining lifetime expenses without you needing to earn again. FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early, though most people who reach it keep working on their own terms rather than stopping.
How much do I need to retire in India?
Far more depends on your own numbers than on any rule of thumb. The conventional answer is 25 times annual expenses. In India that is usually too crude in both directions: it ignores that healthcare inflates at roughly 9% while an EMI does not inflate at all, that equity LTCG and slab-rate debt taxation reduce what a corpus can actually spend, and that rental income, a pension or a business can carry a meaningful share of retirement spending.
Does the 4% rule work in India?
Not as written. It comes from U.S. studies over a 30-year retirement using U.S. returns and U.S. inflation. Indian inflation has run materially higher, Indian debt returns less real, and a FIRE plan is usually 40 to 50 years. VestFire derives a sustainable withdrawal rate from your own horizon, allocation, taxes and confidence level, and it is typically lower than 4%.
Is this FIRE calculator free? Do I need an account?
It is free and needs no account. The calculation runs entirely in your browser — your figures are never sent anywhere unless you choose to continue into VestStudio and build a plan.
What confidence level should I choose?
90% is the balanced default: the corpus funds your plan in nine out of ten simulated futures. A conservative planner with no ability to earn again can push to 95%. Someone with flexible spending or a partner still working can reasonably sit at 75%.
How does VestFire treat taxes?
Explicitly. Equity LTCG at 12.5% above the ₹1.25 lakh annual exemption, debt funds at your slab rate with no indexation. Each year's withdrawal is grossed up so that what reaches your hand is what your plan actually needs.
Should my children's education be part of my FIRE number?
It should be funded, but not by averaging it into monthly expenses. VestFire models each goal as its own future liability and reserves it in the year it falls due.
What is Coast FIRE and does this calculate it?
Coast FIRE is the point at which your existing portfolio, left entirely alone, grows into your FIRE number by your target age. Add your existing investments and monthly investment and the projection shows exactly that — the age at which your own portfolio crosses the line.
Where to go next
- VestFolioUnderstand what you actually own today — and the risk you are actually taking.
- VestStudioTurn this number into a portfolio built around your life, goals and constraints.
- VestMonitorStay aligned as markets, goals and your own life move.
- VestMind ResearchHow we think about markets, risk and long-horizon investing in India.
VestFire is an educational planning tool. It does not constitute investment advice, and VestMind is not acting as an investment adviser in providing it. Projections are illustrative, based on the assumptions published above, and are not a guarantee of any outcome. Markets can and do behave outside every scenario shown here.