FIRE Calculator - Financial Independence, Retire Early

Enter your current age, target retirement age, current savings, annual income, savings rate, expected annual return, and annual expenses. The calculator will determine your FIRE number, project your savings at your target retirement age, estimate how many years until you reach financial independence, and show the monthly savings needed to hit your goal.

Increase your savings rate or reduce your annual expenses to see dramatic changes in your timeline to financial independence.

A FIRE calculator is a planning tool for the Financial Independence, Retire Early movement. It calculates the total savings you need to retire (your FIRE number), projects the growth of your investments, and estimates when you can stop relying on employment income to cover living expenses.

The FIRE number is based on the widely used 4% safe withdrawal rule, which states that if you can live on 4% of your portfolio per year, your investments should sustain you indefinitely. This calculator helps you map out the specific savings and investment trajectory to reach that goal.

The core FIRE formula is:

FIRE Number = Annual Expenses × 25

This is derived from the 4% safe withdrawal rate: 1 / 0.04 = 25.

Portfolio growth is projected using compound interest with monthly contributions:

FV = PV × (1 + r)^n + PMT × [((1 + r)^n − 1) / r]

• PV = Current savings
• r = Monthly return (annual return ÷ 12)
• n = Number of months
• PMT = Monthly savings contribution

Example: A 30-year-old earning $100,000 per year with a 40% savings rate, $50,000 in current savings, $40,000 in annual expenses, and a 7% expected return has a FIRE number of $1,000,000. They save $3,333 per month. At this pace, they could reach financial independence in approximately 13 years, around age 43.