Investment calculator
The number you need before you can stop
Not a multiple of your salary. The corpus that would actually pay you a monthly income for as long as you need it, with prices still rising the whole time.
What you spend now, not what you earn. Most people need roughly 70–80% of this in retirement.
Running out of money at 82 is a worse mistake than over-saving. Indian life expectancy at 60 is well past 80 and still rising — plan long.
Corpus needed
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Start a retirement SIPIndicative only, based on the assumptions below. Not an offer or a guarantee.
What this assumes
- Expenses inflate at your chosen rate until retirement, and continue to inflate through it.
- The corpus keeps earning during retirement — the calculation uses the real return, that is, return net of inflation.
- No existing savings, EPF, NPS or pension are counted. Those reduce the SIP required, often substantially, and we will net them off when we sit down with you.
- No allowance for a lump sum need — a wedding, a medical event, a house.
The boring bit
Why the number is so large
Two things compound at once. Your expenses keep rising for the twenty-five years before you retire, and they keep rising for the twenty-five after. ₹60,000 a month today is roughly ₹2.6 lakh a month in twenty-five years at 6% inflation — and that is the figure the corpus has to pay, on day one of retirement, and more every year after.
What keeps it finite is that the corpus is still invested while you draw on it. That is why the answer is not simply monthly expense × 12 × years, which would be far larger and would also be wrong.
Corpus = monthly expense at retirement × [1 − (1 + real)^−n] ÷ real, where real = (1+return) ÷ (1+inflation) − 1
FAQ
Questions about this calculator
Does this include my EPF or NPS?
No. Whatever you already have reduces the SIP required, often by a lot. Bring the balances and we will net them off properly.
Why plan to 85?
Because running out of money at 82 is a far worse mistake than saving a little too much. Indian life expectancy at 60 is well past 80 and rising.
Can I assume 12% through retirement too?
You should probably not. Most people shift towards debt as they approach and enter retirement, which lowers the return and raises the corpus needed. Try it at 8% and see how much the answer moves — that sensitivity is the useful part of this exercise.
Turn the number into a plan
A calculator gets you to a figure. Getting there needs a product, and that is the part we do.