How much do you really need to retire?
Not a vague “a few crores” — an actual number, built from your lifestyle, your timeline, and the one factor most people forget: inflation. Here's how it works.
Open the Retirement Calculator“Will I have enough to retire?” is the most important question in personal finance — and the one people avoid because the answer feels unknowable. It isn't. Your retirement number is the output of a few inputs: how much you spend, how long until you retire, how long retirement lasts, and what inflation does to all of it. Let's build it step by step.
1. Start with the lifestyle, not the corpus
The corpus is the last number you calculate, not the first. Start with what your life costs each month today — rent or maintenance, food, healthcare, travel, help. Say it's ₹80,000/month. That's your anchor. Everything else flows from it.
2. Inflation is the silent wrecking ball
Here's the trap nearly every back-of-envelope estimate falls into: it plans for today's prices. But at 6% inflation, prices roughly double every 12 years. So a ₹80,000/month lifestyle today needs about ₹4.6 L/month by the time a 30-year-old reaches 60 — and it keeps climbing every year of retirement after that.
A ₹300 restaurant meal today costs around ₹900 in 30 years. Plan in future rupees, or you'll under-save by a wide margin.
3. The 25× rule (and why it works)
A widely used shortcut: your corpus should be about 25× your annual expenses at retirement. It's the flip-side of the 4% rule — if you withdraw 4% in year one and adjust for inflation after, a balanced portfolio has historically lasted ~30 years. For a very early retirement with a 40+ year horizon, lean towards 30–33× to be safe. Our calculator does the full present-value math rather than a flat multiple, but 25× is a great sanity check.
4. A worked example
Take a 30-year-old who wants to retire at 60, spends ₹80,000/month today, has ₹8 lakh saved, and invests ₹20,000/month (stepping it up 5% a year) at an assumed 10% return. Here's where they land:
Projected corpus
₹8.71 Cr
They'll need
₹11.54 Cr
Readiness
76%
A gap of about ₹2.82 Cr. It looks scary, but the fix is small: investing roughly ₹12,487/month more closes it entirely — or working a couple of extra years does the same. That's the power of a long runway.
5. The three levers to close a gap
- Invest more. The most direct lever. Over a 30-year horizon, an extra few thousand a month can add a crore-plus to the final corpus.
- Step up your SIP. Raising your monthly investment ~10% each year, in step with your income, dramatically outperforms a flat SIP.
- Work a little longer. Even two extra years adds contributions and shortens the draw-down — often the single most powerful fix.
See your own number in 2 minutes.
The free Retirement Calculator runs this full calculation for your age, savings, and lifestyle — with a readiness score, an inflation reality check, a wealth timeline, and one-tap ways to close any shortfall.
Check my retirement planThe real takeaway
Retirement planning feels overwhelming because the number is enormous and far away. But the number is just arithmetic — and the lever that matters most isn't a clever investment, it's time. Starting at 30 instead of 40 can halve the monthly amount you need to set aside. Whatever your age, the best move is the same: find your number today, then automate your way toward it.