Fill in the boxes. The page works out the number that covers your living costs without you working — and how far up it you already are.
Take out 4% of your savings in the first year, adjust it for inflation after that, and history says the money lasts thirty years or more. Turn it around: the target is 25 times a year of spending.?From the Trinity Study, which tested every 30-year window in US market history. A rule of thumb, not a guarantee — a bad first decade can break it, which is why many people plan on 3.5% instead.
What you save matters far more than what you earn: two people on very different salaries finish at the same time if they put away the same share. So this page asks what goes out and what goes away, and never asks what comes in.
Years from a standing start of zero, at 5% after inflation. With money already invested you finish sooner than your own row — that is what the mountain is for.
Disclaimer Educational estimate only. Not tax, legal, or financial advice.
It held in almost every 30-year window of US market history, including people who retired straight into the 1929 crash. But "almost" is doing work, and the future is not obliged to resemble the past.
Two things break it: a bad first decade — losses early, while you are selling to live, do far more damage than the same losses later — and living longer than thirty years, which is the whole point if you stop at 45.
Common answers: plan on 3.5% instead (29 times spending, not 25), keep a year or two of cash so you are never forced to sell into a fall, or stay flexible about spending less in bad years.
Only your two monthly figures: what you spend, plus what you save. If those are $4,300 and $1,200, the share is 1,200 ÷ 5,500 — about 22%.
That is not your income. This page has no idea what you earn and does not need to. Real pay also covers tax, debt and things neither box knows about, so treat the share as a rough dial rather than a fact about your payslip. It is shown because the share, not the salary, is what sets how long this takes.
They grew up in the FIRE community over the last twenty years or so. None is a legal or official threshold, and nobody agrees on the exact multipliers — which is why each camp's "?" shows the arithmetic this page used.
What everyone agrees on is the shape: Full FIRE is 25 times your annual spending, and the rest are variations — a smaller life, a part-time job, growth doing the work instead of you, or a cushion on top.
Yes. Everything assumes a 5% return after inflation, a common long-run planning assumption for a mostly-shares portfolio. So your number is in today's money.
It also assumes what you save each month keeps pace with prices. If your saving stays flat in dollars while everything gets dearer, the real timeline is longer.
Any income that arrives without you working reduces what your savings have to cover. A pension paying $2,000 a month from 67 means your portfolio only covers the rest — from 67.
The catch is timing. It does nothing for the years before it starts, which are exactly the years an early finish creates. That is the orange stretch on the road above.
No. The useful half is the independence, not the retirement. Reaching the number means work becomes a choice — the job you want, part-time, a year off, or turning down a customer who treats you badly.
Most people who get there keep working in some form. What changes is that they are no longer doing it because they have to.
Deliberately. What to invest in is a different question from how much you need, it depends on things this page knows nothing about, and it is advice we are not licensed to give.
The arithmetic here assumes only that your savings grow at some steady real rate. Whether they do, and how, is worth a conversation with someone who knows your whole picture.