FIRE Calculator

FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. The core idea is simple: save and invest aggressively so that your investment portfolio generates enough passive income to cover your living expenses indefinitely, freeing you from the need to work for money.

The movement is built around the 4% Rule, which originates from the Trinity Study. It found that a retiree withdrawing 4% of their portfolio in the first year of retirement (adjusting for inflation each subsequent year) had a very high probability of their money lasting at least 30 years. Your FIRE Number is simply your annual expenses divided by your safe withdrawal rate — for example, $40,000 in annual expenses at a 4% withdrawal rate requires a $1,000,000 portfolio.

• Lean FIRE: Retiring on a minimalist budget, typically $25,000 to $40,000 per year. Requires a smaller portfolio but demands frugal living and careful spending.
• Regular FIRE: The standard approach, targeting roughly your current spending level in retirement — usually $40,000 to $70,000 annually.
• Fat FIRE: Retiring with a more comfortable or even luxurious lifestyle, typically $100,000 or more per year. Requires a substantially larger portfolio but offers more flexibility and security.
• Coast FIRE: You have saved enough that compound growth alone will carry your portfolio to your full FIRE number by traditional retirement age — you no longer need to save aggressively and only need to earn enough to cover current expenses.
• Barista FIRE: Semi-retirement where you leave your high-stress career for a lower-paying, more enjoyable job that covers daily expenses while your portfolio continues to grow untouched.

The single most important variable in reaching FIRE is your savings rate — the percentage of your income you save and invest. A higher savings rate does two things simultaneously: it increases how much you invest each year and it lowers the annual expenses your portfolio needs to cover, which reduces your FIRE number.

At a 7% real return, someone saving 50% of their income can reach financial independence in roughly 17 years regardless of their income level. Bumping that to 70% drops the timeline to about 8.5 years. Meanwhile, a 10% savings rate means approximately 51 years of work — illustrating why savings rate matters far more than salary.

This calculator models year-over-year growth by compounding your current savings at the expected return rate while adding your annual contributions until the portfolio reaches your FIRE number. It is a simplified model — real-world results will vary based on market volatility, inflation, taxes, and changes in spending.