FIRE calculator: how many years until you could retire early?
Your savings rate, turned into years to financial independence. It counts twice: what you save builds the pot, and what you spend sets its size.
After tax. The savings rate is a share of this figure.
The share of take-home pay that goes into investments. The rest is what you live on.
Only used to turn the years into an age.
More options(6)
Taken off the return, because the target is in today's money.
Turns yearly spending into the pot it needs. 4% is a rule of thumb, nothing more.
Saving 25% of $60,000 a year
30 years 7 months
Saving 25% of $60,000 puts $15,000 a year away and leaves $45,000 to live on. At a 4% withdrawal rate that spending needs $1,125,000 in today's money. If returns average 7% a year (4.9% after 2% inflation), starting from $20,000 you would get there in 30 years 7 months, at about age 60. At 4% it takes 45 years; at 10%, 23 years 11 months.
- The pot you need
- $1,125,000
- Saved a month
- $1,250
- Age at independence
- 60
Shown in today's money, so the target stays put at $1,125,000 and the saving is held level in real terms — it rises with prices each year in the money you actually pay in.
If returns average…
Nobody knows which of these happens
| Assumption | Time to independence |
|---|---|
| 4% a year — cautious | 45 years (age 75) |
| 7% a year — middle | 30 years 7 months (age 60) |
| 10% a year — optimistic | 23 years 11 months (age 53) |
Markets do not return the same amount every year. The band shows the same plan under three different assumptions, so you can see how much the answer depends on a number nobody knows.
Savings rate against years to independence
The same $60,000 take-home pay and $20,000 invested, if returns average 7% a year. Each row changes both the saving and the target.
| Savings rate | Living on | Pot needed | Time to get there |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10% | $54,000 | $1,350,000 | 48 years 6 months |
| 20% | $48,000 | $1,200,000 | 35 years 2 months |
| 25% (yours) | $45,000 | $1,125,000 | 30 years 7 months |
| 30% | $42,000 | $1,050,000 | 26 years 10 months |
| 40% | $36,000 | $900,000 | 20 years 9 months |
| 50% | $30,000 | $750,000 | 15 years 10 months |
| 60% | $24,000 | $600,000 | 11 years 9 months |
| 70% | $18,000 | $450,000 | 8 years 3 months |
What this FIRE calculator works out
FIRE stands for financial independence, retire early: the point where invested money can pay for your spending, so that working becomes optional. This FIRE calculator starts from the one number most people can actually find on a bank statement — the share of take-home pay that gets saved — and works out how many years it takes to reach that point, if returns average a rate you choose.
It does not tell you to retire, or when. It answers a narrower question: given this savings rate and this starting pot, how long does the arithmetic say it takes?
Why the savings rate counts twice
Most savings calculators treat spending and saving as separate inputs. Here they are the same input seen from two sides, and that is what makes the savings rate so powerful in this sum. Every point of take-home pay moved from spending to saving does two things at once: it adds to what goes into the pot each year, and it lowers the yearly spending the pot will one day have to fund — which lowers the pot itself.
On the starting figures — $60,000 take-home, $20,000 already invested, returns averaging 7% a year with 2% inflation and a 4% withdrawal rate — saving 25% means living on $45,000, which needs a pot of $1,125,000. That takes 30 years 7 months. Moving to 30% adds $3,000 a year of saving, but it also takes $75,000 off the target, and the time falls to 26 years 10 months. At 50% the target is $750,000 and the time is 15 years 10 months. The table under the calculator shows the whole curve: it is steep at low savings rates and flattens as the rate climbs.
One consequence is easy to miss. With nothing invested yet, the income itself drops out of the answer entirely: a 25% savings rate takes 31 years 11 months whether take-home pay is $40,000, $60,000 or $120,000, because a bigger income raises the saving and the spending in exactly the same proportion. The rate is the whole story. Money already invested breaks that tie — it is why the starting figures, with $20,000 in hand, come out shorter.
Why it runs in today's money
The target comes from what you spend now, so the growth that carries the pot there has to be measured in today's money too. The calculator grows the pot at the real return — 7% with 2% inflation is about 4.9% — and holds the saving level in real terms, which means it rises with prices in the money actually paid in. Using the nominal 7% instead would bring the starting example forward from 30 years 7 months to 25 years 6 months, and that five-year gap is inflation being counted as progress. The nominal vs real return guide works through why the rate has to match the target, and the real return calculator shows the conversion on its own.
Fees work the same way. A 0.5% yearly fee on the starting example takes the real return to about 4.4% and the time to 32 years 3 months — eight months longer, from a cost that looks small on a fund factsheet.
The withdrawal rate is an assumption too
The pot is the yearly spending divided by a withdrawal rate. The calculator opens at 4%, which is where the “25 times your spending” rule of thumb comes from; the guide to the 4% rule covers what the original research did and did not test. It is not a safe number handed down — it is an input, and it moves the answer. At 3.5%, the starting example needs $1,285,714 and takes 32 years 10 months.
What this calculator leaves out
- Tax. The savings rate is a share of take-home pay, so the tax on earnings is already gone. Tax on investment growth, on withdrawals, and any relief on pension contributions is not modelled — it depends on the account and the country. The take-home pay calculator turns a gross salary into the starting figure.
- A smooth return. Every year earns the same rate here. Real returns arrive in a different order every time, and the order matters most around the point you stop adding money. That is why the band shows three rates rather than one.
- Spending that changes. The spending you retire on is assumed to be the spending you have now. If it will be higher or lower, enter the take-home pay and savings rate that give that figure, or use the retirement number calculator, which takes the spending directly.
- Other income. A state pension, a part-time job or rental income would each shrink the pot needed. None is assumed.
How it relates to the other tools
Three calculators on this site look at the same goal from different angles, using the same engine. The retirement number calculator starts from a spending figure and a monthly amount. This page starts from a savings rate, so spending and saving move together. The Coast FIRE calculator asks when contributions could stop altogether and the pot finish the job alone. Once a pot exists, how long it lasts is the other half of the question.
Common questions
What savings rate do I need to retire early?
Is the savings rate worked out on gross or take-home pay?
Why does a bigger salary not make the date sooner?
Not advice. This tool applies arithmetic to assumptions you entered. It does not know your circumstances, your tax position or your goals, and it is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold anything. Past returns do not predict future ones, and no figure here is a forecast.