What is Regular FIRE?
Regular FIRE is the standard version of Financial Independence, Retire Early: keep saving and investing until your portfolio generates enough to cover your ongoing living costs, indefinitely. There's no part-time income offsetting the gap and no early stop to contributions — you invest right up until you hit your number, then you're free to do whatever you like with your time.
This calculator uses a nominal approach. Your portfolio grows at your expected investment return (10% by default), and only your everyday lifestyle spending rises with prices each year — a fixed mortgage repayment doesn't inflate, since it's already a fixed amount.
How to use this calculator
Enter your total annual spending (everything, including rent or mortgage), your total invested assets — super, pension, index funds, ETFs, not your home or cash — and how much you invest each month. Add your current age and, if you have one, a target retirement age to see whether you're on track. If part of your spending is a mortgage, add the monthly repayment and years remaining separately, since that payment won't rise with inflation the way the rest of your spending will.
The calculator turns those numbers into your FIRE number, the age you're projected to reach it, and a year-by-year breakdown of what your portfolio and withdrawals look like along the way.
What is the 4% rule?
The 4% rule is a rule of thumb for how much of your portfolio you can withdraw each year, adjusted for inflation, without running out of money over a long retirement. It comes from historical studies of stock and bond returns and is the default withdrawal rate this calculator uses to work out your FIRE number — divide your annual spending need by 4% (or multiply by 25) to get a rough target. You can adjust it in the advanced settings between 2.5% and 6% depending on how conservative you want to be.
Regular FIRE vs Coast FIRE
Regular FIRE means investing the whole way until your full number is reached. Coast FIRE only requires reaching a smaller number early — then you can stop contributing entirely and let ordinary compound growth carry your portfolio to a full retirement by your target age, while you keep working to cover today's costs. If putting your foot off the gas early sounds more appealing than the full Regular FIRE path, it's worth comparing the two.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as invested assets? Super, pension, index funds, ETFs, and shares — not the value of your home or cash sitting in a savings account.
Does this calculator account for tax? Yes, there's an optional tax slider on withdrawals, set to 0% by default. When it's above zero, the calculator shows how much of each withdrawal you actually keep.
What if I have a mortgage? Enter the monthly repayment and years remaining separately from your other spending. It's treated as a fixed nominal payment that doesn't rise with inflation, and drops off your required spending once it's paid off.
Why does my FIRE number look bigger than other calculators? By default, results are shown in future dollars — the actual amount your portfolio will be worth by the time you retire, after years of inflation. You can switch to today's dollars in the advanced settings; either way, the retirement date it points to is the same.