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🔥 FIRE Calculator

Calculate your Financial Independence, Retire Early number. Find out how much you need to save, how many years until you reach FIRE, and your projected retirement date based on your expenses, savings rate, and investment returns.

FIRE Formula

FIRE Number = Annual Expenses ÷ Safe Withdrawal Rate
SWR = 4% (Trinity Study) 25× rule = 1 / 0.04 Simulation year-by-year growth

Real-World Example

$50,000/yr expenses, $200,000 saved, $24,000/yr savings, 7% return:

FIRE Number = $50,000 ÷ 0.04 = $1,250,000
Additional needed = $1,250,000 − $200,000 = $1,050,000
With 7% return + $24K/yr savings → ~18 years

How to Calculate Your FIRE Number

  1. 1Track your annual expenses — this is your baseline spending in retirement.
  2. 2Divide by your safe withdrawal rate (typically 4%) to get your FIRE number.
  3. 3Subtract current savings to find how much more you need to accumulate.
  4. 4Simulate year-by-year growth: savings grow at your expected return plus annual contributions.

Frequently Asked Questions

FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. It is a movement focused on aggressive saving and investing to accumulate enough wealth to retire decades earlier than the traditional retirement age. The core idea is building a portfolio large enough that investment returns cover your living expenses indefinitely.

The 4% rule (from the Trinity Study) states that you can safely withdraw 4% of your portfolio annually in retirement without running out of money over a 30-year period. This translates to needing 25× your annual expenses saved. More conservative planners use 3–3.5% SWR, especially for early retirees with longer horizons.

Lean FIRE targets minimal living expenses (under $40K/yr), requiring a smaller portfolio of around $1M. Regular FIRE is the standard 25× expenses target. Fat FIRE aims for a luxurious retirement with $100K+ annual spending, needing $2.5M or more. Barista FIRE involves retiring early but doing part-time work to cover some expenses.

Multiply your expected annual retirement expenses by 25 (for the 4% rule). For example, if you plan to spend $60,000 per year in retirement, your FIRE number is $60,000 × 25 = $1,500,000. Adjust this for inflation expectations and your personal risk tolerance.

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