Calculate your FIRE number and estimated years to financial independence based on your current savings, monthly contributions, and expected investment return.
How to use the FIRE calculator
- Enter your current annual expenses, what you actually spend per year today.
- Enter your safe withdrawal rate, 4% is the common starting default.
- Enter your current investable savings and monthly contribution.
- Enter your expected annual investment return.
- Click Calculate to see your FIRE number and estimated years until you reach it.
How the FIRE number and timeline are calculated
The FIRE number is your annual expenses divided by the withdrawal rate, equivalent to multiplying expenses by 25 at a 4% rate. Years to financial independence is found by projecting your current savings plus monthly contributions forward at your expected return until the total reaches the FIRE number, the same compounding math behind any long-term investment projection.
Example
Annual expenses of 600,000 at a 4% withdrawal rate give a FIRE number of 15,000,000. Starting from 1,500,000 in savings and contributing 50,000 monthly at an 8% expected return reaches that target in a bit over 17 years.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a FIRE number?
- The portfolio size needed to sustain annual expenses indefinitely, commonly 25 times annual expenses at a 4% withdrawal rate.
- Is the 4% withdrawal rate guaranteed to work?
- No, it's a historical guideline, not a guarantee; some planners use a more conservative rate.
- How does increasing my savings rate speed up financial independence so much?
- It grows savings faster and shrinks the expense-based target simultaneously, a compounding double effect.
- Does this tool store or send my financial details anywhere?
- No, all calculations happen locally in your browser.
Bookmark this page and re-run it whenever your savings rate changes, small increases in monthly contributions often shave years off the timeline.
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