Retirement calculator

How much do you need to retire?

Your retirement corpus has one job: to pay your monthly expenses from the day you stop working until the end of your life, while prices keep rising. So the question is not "is ₹1 crore enough?" but "how much does my spending cost over 25 or 30 years of retirement?"

The tool works it out in three steps:

1. The cost of tomorrow. Your monthly spending today, grown by inflation to your retirement year. At 6% inflation, ₹50,000 today becomes about ₹2.87 lakh a month in 30 years.
2. The corpus. The amount that, invested at a safer return after you retire, can pay that rising monthly need until your plan age.
3. Your track. Where your savings and monthly investments will be by then, and the gap or surplus.

Priya's plan in Kallakurichi

Priya is 30 and teaches at a private school in Kallakurichi. Her household spends ₹50,000 a month. She has ₹5 lakh saved and invests ₹10,000 a month. She wants to retire at 60 and plans until 85, with 6% inflation, 12% returns before retiring and 8% after.

As things stand, her money would last until about age 79. If she raises her SIP by 10% every year with her salary, she is on track for about ₹10.6 crore: well past what she needs. Starting early and stepping up does more than any clever fund choice.

How to use this tool

1. Type your age and what your household spends in a month today.
2. Add what you have saved for retirement and what you invest each month.
3. The tool assumes you retire at 60, plan until 85, keep the same lifestyle, 6% inflation, 12% a year before retiring and 8% after. Turn on Change assumptions to set your own.
4. Turn on Step-up, Pension or rent and Health fund if they apply.

The chart shows your corpus by age: rising while you save, falling as you spend it. The dashed line is what you need at each age.

The ₹1 crore myth

₹1 crore sounds like a lot, but at 6% inflation, ₹50,000 a month today costs about ₹2.9 lakh a month in 30 years. ₹1 crore would last only a few years of that. Turn on the tool's numbers for your own spending and see.

How much can you withdraw?

A study of Indian portfolios from 2000 to 2023 (Raju and Saraogi, 2024) found that taking about 3% a year, raised with inflation, was the safe rate, best with about 40% in equity. Many planners still quote 4%. The tool shows your first-year withdrawal as a share of your corpus so you can compare.

Where the money can sit

While you save, an equity-heavy mix (index funds, EPF, NPS) gives the best chance of growth over 20–30 years. In the five years before retiring, move the money you'll need first into safer funds. After retiring, many people keep two or three years of spending in debt funds or deposits and the rest in a balanced mix, and draw an income through an SWP. The SWP calculator shows how that payout lasts.

Common mistakes

• Planning to 75. People live longer; plan to 85 or 90.
• Forgetting health costs. Medical bills rise faster than other prices. Keep a separate health fund and insurance.
• Counting the house. The home you live in doesn't pay your bills unless you sell or rent it.
• Stopping SIPs in a bad year. Those are the cheapest units you'll ever buy.

These figures are estimates checked in October 2026. This tool is a guide, not financial advice.