A calculator that respects inflation, taxes, and 30-year horizons
Real Number Retirement
Most retirement rules of thumb were calibrated for a different India. Healthcare, education, and aspiration spending have outpaced headline inflation for decades. This tool projects today's expenses to your retirement date, then funds 30 years of withdrawals at the real (post-inflation, optionally post-tax) rate of return. Every line of math below the result is shown.
Set your timeline and lifestyle.
Calibrate inflation and returns.
Treat the post-retirement return as already post-tax.
Funds 30years of withdrawals at today's ₹1.50 L/month lifestyle, indexed for inflation, with a 1.87% real rate of return after the rates you set.
How much you need to invest from here.
The corpus above is the goal. Your current portfolio compounds on its own; the monthly SIP fills whatever distance remains.
Starting at this amount and stepping up by 5% each year, your portfolio of ₹25.00 L grows to ₹4.25 Cr and the SIP bridges the remaining ₹78.17 Cr.
The number alone doesn't finish the job.
Reaching the corpus is one problem. Holding it through volatility and drawing it down responsibly are two more — each with its own playbook.
Compound aggressively, on rules.
The decades before retirement reward consistent, systematic exposure to equity-heavy strategies — and ruthless discipline against panic selling.
De-risk the last mile.
In the five years before retirement, the order of returns matters more than the average. A poor year right at the start can do more damage than a poor decade later.
Spend without breaking compounding.
Withdrawal rules, asset-bucket structures, and tax planning determine whether the corpus lasts to 90 or runs dry at 80. The real rate above is the operating lever.
Common questions, answered.
Two forces collide: pre-retirement lifestyle inflation pushes today's expenses up to a future number, and the corpus then has to fund 25–30 years of withdrawals at the post-retirement inflation rate. Even modest inflation compounds aggressively over a 30+ year horizon.
We use Fisher's exact formula: real rate = (1 + post-tax nominal return) ÷ (1 + post-retirement inflation) − 1. Using a simple subtraction overstates returns; the geometric form is honest about purchasing-power growth.
If your retirement corpus throws off interest, dividends, or capital gains, the effective return is lower than headline. Toggle the post-tax setting and enter your blended rate to see a more realistic picture. LTCG on Indian equity above ₹1.25L is 12.5%; debt and slab-rate income can be 20–30%+.
It is the monthly investment required between today and your retirement age, on top of your existing portfolio's organic growth, to reach the target corpus at the pre-retirement return you set. Step-ups increase the SIP each year and reduce the starting amount needed.
Headline CPI underweights housing, education, healthcare, and discretionary spend — categories that dominate a household's actual budget over decades. Most affluent Indian households experience materially higher personal inflation than the headline number suggests.
Method: standard actuarial present-value-of-growing-annuity model. Inputs project today's expenses to retirement at the pre-retirement inflation rate, then discount the retirement-period withdrawals at the real (Fisher) rate of return. Long-run inflation drawn from official MoSPI household consumption data and RBI inflation series.
Illustrative only. Built on a standard PV-of-growing-annuity model with optional post-tax adjustment. Inflation, returns, and tax rates change over time; treat outputs as scenarios, not predictions. Not investment advice.