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Retirement Calculator
How much money do you really need to retire comfortably? Enter your age, your monthly expenses today and a few assumptions, and this calculator projects your expenses at retirement, the corpus that can fund them, and the monthly SIP that can build that corpus.
| Monthly expenses at retirement | |
| Annual expenses at retirement | |
| Corpus needed at retirement | |
| Value of your current savings at retirement | |
| Extra corpus you still need to build | |
| Monthly SIP needed to build it |
How the fund grows, year by year
| Year | Age | SIP invested so far | Projected fund value |
|---|
Fund growth
Projected value of your retirement savings, year by year, including any savings you already have.
How to use this retirement calculator
- Enter your current age, the age at which you want to retire, and a life expectancy to plan for — 85 is a safe choice for most families.
- Enter what your household spends in a month today. Use your real spending, not your salary.
- Enter any savings you have already set aside for retirement, so they are counted too.
- Set the inflation rate and the returns you expect before and after retirement. Returns after retirement are usually lower, because the money is kept safer.
- Read the corpus you need at retirement and the monthly SIP that can build it, starting now.
How the retirement corpus is calculated
Retirement planning has two halves. Before retirement, you build a corpus. After retirement, you spend it slowly. Inflation makes the second half expensive: the same lifestyle costs much more after 25–30 years of rising prices.
First, today's monthly expenses are projected to your retirement age using inflation:
Next, the corpus is the value of a yearly income that pays those annual expenses for every year of retirement, while the unspent money keeps earning the after-retirement return:
Finally, the monthly SIP needed is found with the standard SIP formula, growing your current savings at the before-retirement return and subtracting their future value from the corpus. Every figure moves when you change an assumption, so test the plan at a lower return and a higher inflation rate to see how safe it really is.
Worked example
Take a person who is 30 years old, wants to retire at 60, plans for a life expectancy of 85, and spends ₹50,000 a month today. Inflation is 6%, the return before retirement is 12% and after retirement 8%, with no savings set aside yet.
- Monthly expenses at retirement: ₹50,000 × (1.06)30 = ₹2,87,175 — the same lifestyle costs nearly six times more.
- Annual expenses at retirement: ₹2,87,175 × 12 = ₹34,46,095.
- Corpus needed for 25 years of retirement: ₹34,46,095 × 10.6748 = ₹3,67,86,290 (about ₹3.68 crore).
- Monthly SIP to build it over 30 years at 12%: ₹10,421.
The lesson of the numbers: the required SIP (about ₹10,400) is barely a fifth of today's monthly expenses. Starting early makes retirement affordable — delay the start to age 40 and the same plan needs roughly double the monthly SIP, because there are ten fewer years for compounding to help.
Things to keep in mind
- Plan for a long life. If you retire at 60 and live to 90, your money must last 30 years. Running out at 82 is the biggest risk in retirement, so a longer life expectancy is the safer assumption.
- Medical costs rise faster than general inflation. Many families add a separate health buffer or keep top-up health insurance in retirement.
- Your home is not your corpus. Only count savings you can actually spend. House property you live in should not be included in the retirement fund.
- Returns after retirement matter a lot. A corpus earning 8% lasts far longer than one earning 6%. Low-risk options like senior citizen schemes, annuities and debt funds each play a part — compare their rates when you get close to retiring.
Frequently asked questions
How much money do I need to retire in India?
It depends on your monthly expenses, retirement age, life expectancy, inflation and returns. A common shortcut is 25–30 times your annual expenses at retirement. This calculator does the full working: it inflates your current monthly expenses to your retirement age and then finds the corpus that can pay those expenses for every year of your expected retirement.
What inflation rate should I use for retirement planning in India?
Long-term consumer inflation in India has averaged around 5–6% a year, so 6% is a reasonable planning figure. If a large part of your spending is on medical care or education, which often rise faster, using 7% gives a safer plan.
Why is the return after retirement lower than before retirement?
Before retirement you can take more risk, for example with equity funds, because there is time to recover from market falls. After retirement the money must pay regular expenses, so it is usually kept in safer options such as debt funds, government schemes and annuities, which earn less. This calculator therefore lets you set a separate, lower return for the retirement years.
How does starting early change the SIP needed?
Compounding does the heavy lifting over long periods. In the worked example, starting at 30 needs a SIP of about ₹10,421 a month for a ₹3.68 crore corpus. Starting at 40 instead — ten fewer years of growth, but also a smaller corpus because expenses inflate for fewer years — works out to roughly ₹20,600 a month, about double.
Should I include my EPF and NPS in current savings?
Yes. Any money that is firmly set aside for retirement — EPF balance, NPS corpus, retirement-focused mutual funds — can be entered as savings already kept for retirement. The calculator grows that amount at your before-retirement return and reduces the extra corpus you need to build.
Is this retirement plan a guarantee?
No. The result is an estimate based on the inflation and returns you enter, and real markets and prices will differ. Use it to set a savings target, review the plan every year or two, and adjust your SIP as your income, expenses and age change.