What's your FIRE number — and what year do you hit it?
Most calculators answer one or the other. This one does both: your financial-independence number, and the date you reach it. Enter four numbers; the answer is below, instantly.
Your savings rate is the single biggest lever — it moves your FI date far more than your investment return does. Watch it in the curve below.
Drag the curve. This is the relationship that decides everything.
Drag across the curve. At your current 23% rate you reach FI in 21 years. Push the rate up — spend less, save the difference — and the line drops fast.
FIRE number by age
| Age | Years to 65 | On-track invested |
|---|---|---|
| 25 | 40 | $90,093 |
| 30you | 35 | $125,161 |
| 35 | 30 | $173,879 |
| 40 | 25 | $241,559 |
| 45 | 20 | $335,584 |
| 50 | 15 | $466,206 |
| 55 | 10 | $647,672 |
| 60 | 5 | $899,772 |
| 65 | 0 | $1,250,000 |
What you'd need invested at each age for it to grow into your $1,250,000 FIRE number by 65 with no further contributions — your “on track” milestone. Already there at your age? That's Coast FIRE →
What is FIRE — and what's my number?
FIRE — Financial Independence, Retire Early — is the point where your invested money can cover your living costs indefinitely, so paid work becomes optional. Your FIRE number is the size that portfolio needs to be. The shortcut is the 25× rule: multiply your annual spending by 25 (the inverse of a 4% withdrawal rate). Spend $50,000 a year and your FIRE number is $1.25M.
The second question — when do you get there — is just as answerable, and most calculators skip it. Take what you have invested, grow it at a realistic after-inflation return, add what you save each month, and find the year the balance reaches your number. The calculator above does both at once: your number, and the date. Change any input and watch both move.
How to calculate your FIRE number
One formula gets you the number — the 25× rule, the inverse of a 4% safe withdrawal rate:
To get the date, project your balance forward at your real (after-inflation) return, adding your monthly savings as you go, until it reaches that number:
- Spends$50,000 / year
- FIRE number (25×)$1,250,000
- Invested today$150,000
- Invests each month (a 23% rate)$1,250
- 10% return − 3% inflationr ≈ 6.8%
- Reaches $1.25M in≈ 21 years
At $1,250 a month (a 23% savings rate), a $150K head start reaches $1.25M in about 21 years. Push it to $2,500 a month and that drops to ~16. The savings rate, not the return, is doing the work.
Lean, Coast, Barista & Fat FIRE
| Flavor | The idea | Rough target |
|---|---|---|
| Lean FIRE | Full independence on a frugal budget — lower spending, smaller number, reached sooner. | 25× of a lean budget |
| Coast FIRE | Stop contributing; let existing investments grow into the full number on their own. | A fraction of 25×, today |
| Barista FIRE | Part-time work covers some spending; investments cover the rest. | ~10–20× spending |
| Fat FIRE | Full independence with room to spend freely — a bigger budget, a bigger number. | 25× of a generous budget |
Lean and Fat describe how much you want; Coast and Barista describe how you get there. They combine — you can coast toward a fat number, or barista your way through a lean one. The calculator above is the standard, full-FIRE case.
Want to test a leaner budget, a career change, or a market dip against your own numbers? That's what the app is for.See the app →- 10% nominal investment return — the long-run U.S. equity average, before inflation.
- 3% inflation — netting a real return of about 6.8%, so projections stay in today's dollars.
- 4% safe withdrawal rate — the Trinity Study baseline for a 30-year retirement.
- 25× rule — annual spending × 25 is the inverse of a 4% withdrawal.
- All figures are pre-tax and in today's dollars. Every slider above is yours to change.
Full method, sources and caveats: the FIRE Projection methodology →
Educational, not financial advice. Markets don't return a steady 10%, sequence-of-returns risk is real, and your result will differ. Use this to build intuition — not as a plan to act on without your own judgment or a professional's.