FIRE Calculator
Calculate your FIRE number, savings rate, and the age you reach financial independence from your income, expenses, savings, and expected return.
Your situation
Your annual expenses set both how much you save and your FIRE target.
Assumptions
Long-run averages — adjust them to match your own outlook.
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Plan Your Path to Financial Independence
The FIRE movement — Financial Independence, Retire Early — rests on one number and one habit: the portfolio that can cover your living costs for life, and the share of income you invest to build it. This calculator turns your income, spending, and current savings into your FIRE number, your savings rate, and the age you could realistically stop working. Adjust your expected return, inflation, and withdrawal rate to see how each assumption moves your finish line.
What Is a FIRE Number?
Your FIRE number is the amount you need invested so that safe withdrawals cover your annual expenses indefinitely. Using the 4% rule popularized by the Trinity study, that is 25 times your yearly spending — a $40,000 lifestyle needs roughly $1,000,000. Choose a more conservative 3.5% withdrawal rate and the multiple rises to about 28.6×. Because the target is set by your spending, cutting expenses is uniquely powerful: it lowers the number you need and raises the amount you can invest at the same time.
FIRE number formula
FIRE Number = Annual Expenses ÷ Withdrawal Rate = 25 × Expenses (at 4%)How to Use the FIRE Calculator
Enter your current age and your take-home (after-tax) annual income.
Add your annual expenses — your real yearly spending sets both your savings and your FIRE target.
Enter how much you already have invested.
Set your assumptions: expected return (7% is a common long-run stock estimate), withdrawal rate (4% is standard), and inflation (about 3%).
Read your FIRE number, savings rate, and the age you are on track to reach financial independence, then adjust the inputs to test scenarios.
Who Uses a FIRE Calculator?
Aggressive savers
High earners investing 50–70% of income to retire in their 30s or 40s use it to pin down the exact number and date.
Mid-career planners
People a decade or two in check whether their current savings rate lands them at financial independence before the traditional retirement age.
Lean and Fat FIRE seekers
Minimalists targeting a modest budget and high-spenders wanting a $100k+ lifestyle both size their very different FIRE numbers here.
Anyone weighing a career break
Seeing how close you are to FIRE helps you decide whether you can downshift, switch to part-time, or walk away from full-time work.
Why Calculate Your FIRE Number?
A single, clear target
Investing without a number is like driving with no destination. Your FIRE number turns "retire early" into a concrete goal you can measure progress against every year.
Your savings rate is the real lever
Time to financial independence depends far more on the percentage of income you save than on the size of your salary. A 50% savings rate reaches FI in roughly 17 years; 25% takes about 32.
Stress-test the 4% rule
Markets, inflation, and your withdrawal rate all shift the finish line. Change each assumption to see how sensitive your plan is and build in a margin of safety.
FIRE Calculator FAQ
It is the amount you need invested so that safe annual withdrawals cover your living expenses for life. At a 4% withdrawal rate it equals 25 times your annual spending.
Divide your annual expenses by your withdrawal rate. For $50,000 of spending at 4%, that is $50,000 ÷ 0.04 = $1,250,000. A lower withdrawal rate produces a larger number.
The higher the better, because it shortens the timeline dramatically. Starting from zero, a 50% savings rate reaches financial independence in about 17 years, 65% in about 10, and 25% in about 32.
Multiply your desired annual spending by 25 for the 4% rule, or by about 28–33 for a more cautious 3–3.5% rate. Add a buffer for health care and one-off costs before pensions and Social Security begin.
Lean FIRE covers a frugal budget; Fat FIRE funds a comfortable, higher-spending lifestyle; Coast FIRE means you have saved enough that growth alone will get you there without new contributions; Barista FIRE blends part-time income with partial withdrawals.
The 4% rule comes from the Trinity study of historical 30-year retirements. Many planners now favor 3.25–3.75% for very early retirees to guard against sequence-of-returns risk over longer horizons. This calculator lets you test any rate.