What is Retirement?
The Retirement Calculator estimates how much money you need to accumulate before retirement and how much you should invest monthly to reach that goal. Retirement planning is the most important financial calculation most people never do.
The biggest mistake: underestimating how much you need. If you spend ₹50,000/month today and retire at 60 (30 years from now), inflation at 6% means you'll need ₹2.87 Lakhs/month at retirement for the same lifestyle. For 25 years of retirement, you need a corpus of approximately ₹5-7 Crores.
This sounds enormous, but with disciplined investing and compounding, it's achievable. A ₹15,000/month SIP at 12% returns for 30 years creates approximately ₹5.3 Crores.
Sources of retirement income: EPF corpus, NPS annuity + lumpsum, PPF maturity, SIP/mutual fund corpus, rental income, pension (if available). The earlier you start, the less you need to invest monthly — this is the most powerful takeaway from retirement planning.
Formula
Step 1: Future monthly expense = Current × (1 + inflation)^years Step 2: Annual need at retirement = Monthly × 12 Step 3: Corpus = Annual need × annuity factor (for 25 years post-retirement) Step 4: Gap = Corpus − Growth of current savings Step 5: Monthly SIP = Gap × r / ((1+r)^n − 1)
Example — Age 30, retire at 60, ₹50K/month expense: Future expense: ₹50,000 × (1.06)^30 = ₹2,87,175/month Annual need: ₹34.46 Lakhs Corpus (25 years at 2% real return): ~₹6.7 Crores If current savings ₹5L grows to ₹1.5 Cr at 12% Gap: ₹5.2 Crores Monthly SIP needed: ~₹14,800
How to use this Retirement Calculator?
1. Enter your current age and desired retirement age. 2. Enter current monthly expenses (your lifestyle cost). 3. Enter existing retirement savings (EPF + NPS + PPF + investments). 4. Set inflation (6% is reasonable for India) and expected return (12% for equity SIP). 5. See the corpus needed and monthly investment required.
Pro tip: If the monthly SIP looks too high, you have three options: (1) start NOW (time is your biggest asset), (2) increase retirement age by 2-3 years, (3) plan for a slightly lower lifestyle in retirement.