FIRE Calculator: When Can You Retire?
Step One: Your FIRE Number
The target is a multiple of what you spend, not of what you earn.
FIRE number = annual spending / withdrawal rateAt the traditional 4% withdrawal rate, that is spending multiplied by 25.
Spending EUR 30,000 a year:
At 4.0%: 30,000 / 0.04 = EUR 750,000
At 4.7%: 30,000 / 0.047 = EUR 638,298The second figure uses the revised rate its own author now argues for, covered in the 4% rule guide. The gap between them is roughly EUR 112,000, which is worth noticing: your target is a fact about the rate you assumed, not a fact about your life, and the assumption is contested.
Step Two: Your Timeline
The second formula answers when, and it takes your savings rate rather than your salary.
Starting from zero, with a 5% real return after inflation, targeting 25 times spending:
| Savings rate | Years to financial independence |
|---|---|
| 10% | About 51 |
| 20% | About 37 |
| 30% | About 28 |
| 50% | About 17 |
| 70% | About 9 |
Read the shape rather than the exact years. The relationship is not linear. Moving from 10% to 20% removes roughly 14 years. Moving from 50% to 70% removes about 8 more, from an already short base.
The reason a higher savings rate is so powerful is that it works on both numbers at once. Saving more grows the pot, and the spending it implies is lower, so the target itself falls. One change, two effects, compounding against each other.
What the Arithmetic Leaves Out
Every FIRE calculation makes assumptions, and these are the four that matter most.
The return is an average, and you get a sequence. A bad first decade after you stop working is far more damaging than the same decade later, because you are withdrawing from a shrunken base. This is sequence-of-returns risk and it is the main way these plans fail.
Tax comes out of your spending number. If you need EUR 30,000 to live on and withdrawals are taxed, the pot must be larger than 25x suggests. How much larger depends entirely on where you are tax resident.
Fees come out too. A percentage charge compounds against you over decades. See cost efficiency.
Thirty years, not fifty. The 4% research tested 30-year retirements. Anyone stopping at 45 is planning for a horizon the underlying data never examined, and most people in that position use a lower rate, a cash buffer, or expect some later income.
Three Worked Scenarios
A 30-year-old spending EUR 24,000, saving 40% of a EUR 40,000 income. Target at 4%: 24,000 x 25 = EUR 600,000. At roughly 40% saved, the table puts them a little over 20 years out, so financial independence lands in their early fifties.
The same person after cutting spending to EUR 21,000. Target falls to EUR 525,000, and the savings rate rises because the same income now leaves more over. Both numbers move in their favour from one change.
A 45-year-old spending EUR 36,000 with EUR 200,000 already invested. Target at 4%: EUR 900,000. The existing EUR 200,000 does the work of many early years, which is the part the from-zero table above understates. Anyone with a meaningful starting balance is closer than the table suggests.
How Turbobulls Helps
The two inputs are the problem, not the formulas. Most people are guessing at both.
Spending comes from tracked income and expenses with categories and tags, which also produces your savings rate directly rather than by estimate. Those are the two figures every line above depends on, and both are on the free plan.
Net worth across investments, cash, custom assets such as property, and debt through loan and mortgage account types, gives you the current position to measure the gap from.
FI progress, which measures where you stand against financial independence, is on the paid plan. The reason is worth knowing: an FI figure needs both the earning and the spending side of your finances, and a capped plan sees only part of that, so a number from half the picture would be worse than none.
Get the Two Inputs Right
The Full Picture: Read These Next
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Does my salary go into the calculation?
Only through your savings rate. Two people earning the same amount can be decades apart depending on what they keep, and someone earning less while saving half will usually get there before someone earning more while saving a tenth.Q: Should I use 4% or something else?
4% is the traditional planning figure and its author has since argued for a higher one, which lowers your target considerably. Anyone retiring early has a longer horizon than the research tested, which argues the other way. Running your target at two different rates and seeing the gap is more useful than picking one and trusting it.Q: Does the FIRE number include tax?
Not as usually stated. The 25x multiple is applied to spending, and if your withdrawals are taxed then the pot has to cover the tax as well. Treatment varies by country and by account type, so it is worth establishing early rather than discovering late.Q: What if I already have savings?
Then you are further along than the from-zero table shows, and the effect is larger than people expect because early capital has the longest time to compound. Measure the gap between your current net worth and your target rather than reading the years-from-zero figure as though it applies to you.Turbobulls is a tracking and analytics tool, not an investment adviser. Nothing here is investment, tax, or legal advice. Investing involves risk, including loss of principal. Do your own research or consult a licensed professional.
Both Inputs, From Real Data
Turbobulls computes your spending and savings rate from tracked transactions and builds net worth across everything you own and owe.
- Savings rate computed from tracked income and expenses
- Income and expense tracking with categories and tags
- Net worth across investments, cash, custom assets and debt
- Account types including retirement, loan and mortgage
- FI progress projection on the paid plan
Get these by email
One useful investing metric, properly explained. Unsubscribe in one click.
Read more
How Much Should You Have Saved by 30, 40, 50?
The salary-multiple benchmarks, where they come from, and why multiples of your annual spending are a better yardstick than multiples of your pay.
The 4% Rule: A Guide to Safe Withdrawal Rates
What the 4% rule says, why its creator revised it upward, the 25x target it implies, and the assumptions that may not match your retirement.
Net Worth: How to Calculate and Track It
Net worth is everything you own minus everything you owe. The arithmetic is easy; deciding what counts and valuing it consistently is the part that goes wrong.