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FIRE retirement calculator

Find the age your invested money can cover your living costs — your Freedom Date, the year money can step aside — and how long the money lasts after it. The target is 25 times a year of living costs, as in the signed-in tracker. Your withdrawal rate after that date sets how long the money lasts, not when you get there. The form stays in your browser. Nothing is saved. Not advice.

Years-to-FIRE counts invested balances and what you add each month, at one blended return. A pension that pays an income later is not counted, so the date is not inflated by money you cannot spend yet. This is not a pension-benefit calculator.

Pick a fictional life from Lives in Season. Choosing one fills the calculator with that household’s own figures: invested balances including retirement accounts (no house, no cash buffer), what goes into them each month, and core living costs. This form grows them at a 6% return after 3% inflation (a real 2.91%) and leaves out education and experience goals. The Freedom Date in each story is the signed-in tracker’s, which can date freedom against today’s target before inflation, so it can read earlier than this form. Set inflation to 0 to compare like for like.

* required · # number · % percent

Target = monthly living × 12 × 25 (4%), as in the signed-in tracker, so the SWR does not move your Freedom Date. The SWR is the share of the pot you withdraw each year after it: 4% equals your living costs; higher spends more and runs out sooner. Real ROI = (1+blended)/(1+inflation)−1 · target and savings in today’s money. Currency is display only — not saved.

Nothing saved in the browser. Illustrative — not financial advice.

Your Freedom Date

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Enter your figures, or pick a life from Lives in Season, to see years to independence and the age money can step aside.

Illustrative only — not financial, tax, or legal advice. The in-app tracker uses Decimal math on your ledgers; this form does not reproduce its Freedom Date.

What is my FIRE number?

FIRE stands for financial independence, retire early. Your FIRE number is the invested pot big enough that drawing a safe withdrawal rate (SWR) of it each year — the share of the pot you take out — pays a year of living costs. At 4%, the 4% rule, that is 25 times a year of living costs. This form and the signed-in tracker both use 25 times for the target, so your Freedom Date never depends on the SWR you type; that rate only sets what comes out after the date and how long it lasts. The result card calls it the FIRE target.

Worked example: Avery Tan, the fictional 40s household in the rail above, is 42 and lives on 8,536 a month — 102,432 a year. The target is 25 times that: 2,560,800. Avery has 904,800 invested, 35.33% of it. Adding 2,050 a month at a 6% return with 3% inflation — a real return of 2.91% — reaches it in 23.20 years, so the Freedom Date is age 65, in the golden years. The signed-in tracker puts this life at 57, before inflation; the tracker section below explains why.

After age 65, Avery withdraws 4% of the pot — 102,432 a year, exactly the living costs — and it lasts about 43 years at the steady 2.91% real return, past age 100. At 5% the Freedom Date is still 65, but Avery withdraws 128,040 a year (10,670 a month, more than the living costs), so it lasts about 29 years, to age 94. Choose 40s above to see the same figures.

How years to FIRE are calculated

  1. Set the target. FIRE number = monthly living costs × 12 × 25 (a 4% rate, as in the signed-in tracker).
  2. Take inflation out first. Real return = (1 + ROI) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1.
  3. Add a year at a time. Each year, invested wealth earns the real return and that year’s savings (monthly savings × 12) are added at the year end.
  4. Find the crossing. Years to FIRE is when that balance first reaches the target, to 2 decimals.
  5. Read the age. Freedom Date = current age + years, rounded to a whole year. The stage — peak through 50, golden 51–65, comfort from 66 — follows that age.

How long the money lasts

  1. Take out the withdrawal. Yearly withdrawal = SWR × the pot: the FIRE target, or your invested wealth if you are free now. It stays the same in today’s money every year.
  2. Draw at the start of the year. Each year’s withdrawal comes out first; the rest earns the real return.
  3. Count the years. Money lasts = the years until the pot runs out, counting the last part-year, rounded to a whole year. Past age 100 the card says so instead of an age.
  4. Spot the rates that never run out. If the SWR is at or below real return ÷ (1 + real return), the return covers each withdrawal and the money does not run out — 2.83% at the default 2.91% real return (6% ROI, 3% inflation).

The withdrawal rate does not move the Freedom Date — Avery reaches 2,560,800 at age 65 at every rate. It sets how much comes out each year, and so how long the money lasts. For Avery, at 6% ROI and 3% inflation:

Avery’s yearly withdrawal and how long the money lasts at four withdrawal rates
Safe withdrawal rate Withdraws a year A month Money lasts (years)
7% 179,256 14,938 18
5% 128,040 10,670 29
4% 102,432 8,536 43
3% 76,824 6,402 100

Avery’s living costs are 8,536 a month. Below 4% the withdrawal is less than that; above 4% it spends more and runs out sooner.

Why your pension isn’t counted in the date

Balances you already hold in retirement accounts — a Roth or 401(k), a workplace pension pot, CPF, an RRSP — are invested wealth, and the Lives in Season examples include them. A pension that pays an income later, such as a state pension or a defined-benefit promise, is left out, so it does not pull your Freedom Date earlier with money you cannot spend yet. The page does not estimate a pension payout. The signed-in tracker keeps retirement accounts as their own line, with their own access age and return. It is not added after your Freedom Date either: the money-lasts line and bar assume the pot alone pays every withdrawal, so a pension income would make the money last longer than shown.

What this calculator does not do

  • It uses one return every year. No market swings.
  • The FIRE number, savings and withdrawals are in today’s money, and inflation is one fixed rate — 3% unless you change it. Real inflation moves from year to year.
  • The blended ROI cannot be below inflation, or the form will not estimate.
  • It does not take tax into account.
  • It has no field for a home or a cash buffer. The examples leave both out.
  • A pension that pays an income later is not counted, as the section above explains.
  • It has no education or experience goals. The signed-in tracker adds those.
  • Monthly savings stay the same in today’s money every year.
  • It does not let the withdrawal rate change the target or the date: the target is always 25 times living costs.
  • The withdrawal stays the same in today’s money every year after the Freedom Date; it does not change with markets or age.
  • It plans to age 100. A date past 100 reads not reached, and the money-lasts bar stops at 100.
  • A safe withdrawal rate is a rule of thumb, not a guarantee. The ‘money lasts’ line and bar use one steady return and no pension income; a market fall early in retirement shortens them.
  • The examples are fictional. Nothing is saved. Not advice.

Signed-in tracker, not this form

The signed-in tracker grows each sleeve at its own rate, keeps the cash buffer flat, and adds education and experience goals to the target. It has its own assumed inflation rate (3% for these lives); at 4% or less, when the inflation-raised target is out of reach within its chart, it dates freedom against today’s target instead — before inflation. That is what happens for Avery, so the tracker reads 57 where this form at 3% inflation reads 65. With inflation at 0 this form lands a year either side of the tracker for every life (Avery 56). Sign up to run it on your own ledgers.

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