How much corpus do I need to retire in India?

It depends on your current monthly expenses, target retirement age, expected inflation, and how long you expect to live. As a rough rule, you need roughly 25× your annual post-retirement expenses if you plan to follow a 4% safe-withdrawal rate. Cockroach Money lets you run the exact year-by-year simulation for free at https://cockroachmoney.in/calculators/retirement-corpus.

What is FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) and is it possible in India?

FIRE means saving and investing aggressively (typically 40–70% of income) so you can stop depending on a paycheck by your 40s. It is possible in India, but high education and medical inflation mean Indian FIRE math requires a larger corpus than Western FIRE — typically 30–35× annual expenses. Try the India-specific FIRE calculator at https://cockroachmoney.in/calculators/fire.

How does Cockroach Money calculate my retirement corpus?

It runs a deterministic year-by-year simulation from your current age through your planning horizon (typically age 90), compounding returns monthly, inflating expenses annually, deducting milestones in their target year, switching from contribution mode to withdrawal mode at your retirement age, and (optionally) applying Indian LTCG, Section 80C, and slab-based income tax. The full methodology is at https://cockroachmoney.in/methodology.

Is Cockroach Money free?

Yes. All calculators and the full life-cycle simulator are free with no signup required. Auth0 sign-in is only offered if you want to save multiple named scenarios. There is also a free public calculation API at https://cockroachmoney.in/api/v1/calculate that anyone (including AI agents) can call without an API key.

How is inflation handled in the simulator?

A single annual inflation rate (default 6%, configurable) is compounded on all expenses and milestones year over year. You can stress-test your plan by setting it to 8% or 10% to see how it affects your freedom date and corpus longevity.

Is FIRE actually possible in India?

Yes, but the numbers are larger than Western FIRE. The 4% rule fails in India because inflation is 6–7% and healthcare runs at 10–14%. India-equivalent FIRE typically requires 30–35× annual expenses, not 25×. With aggressive saving (50–60% of income), it's achievable by mid-40s — but the corpus target is ₹6–10 crore, not ₹3 crore.

How much do I need to retire at 45 in India?

For a household with ₹80,000/month current expenses, retiring at 45 and planning to age 90 (45 years of drawdown), the corpus required is typically ₹7–9 crore in today's rupees. The extra 15 years of drawdown vs retiring at 60 add roughly ₹2–3 crore to the requirement, even with conservative assumptions.

What is Lean FIRE, Regular FIRE, and Fat FIRE in the Indian context?

Lean FIRE India: ₹3–4cr corpus, ₹40-50K/month spend, tier-2 city. Regular FIRE India: ₹5–7cr corpus, ₹80K-1.2L/month spend, tier-1 city. Fat FIRE India: ₹10cr+ corpus, ₹2L+/month spend, no compromises on travel or healthcare. Each tier assumes retirement at 45–50 and a 40+ year horizon.

Why does Western FIRE math fail in India?

Three reasons: (1) inflation is roughly 2× the US rate, so the same nominal corpus runs out faster. (2) Healthcare inflation is even higher (10–14% vs 5–6% US). (3) Equity returns assumed in Western FIRE (~7% real) are similar in India but with much higher volatility, making sequence-of-returns risk worse. The 4% safe withdrawal rate must be reduced to 3–3.5% for India.

Should I aim for Coast FIRE or full FIRE in India?

Coast FIRE — saving aggressively until 35-40, then letting the corpus grow on its own to traditional retirement age — is more achievable in India than full early retirement. It still requires a substantial corpus (~₹1.5–2cr by 35 for a comfortable 60-year retirement) but avoids the 40+ year drawdown problem that kills most Indian Full-FIRE plans.

FIRE in India is different — why ₹5cr isn't enough

Name: Cockroach Money
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Author: Cockroach Money

Open Reddit. Search r/IndiaFIRE. Scroll past the "I quit my ₹40LPA job to teach yoga" post. You'll find a thousand variants of the same math:

"I have ₹5cr. I spend ₹1.5L/month. 5cr × 4% = ₹20L/year withdrawal = ₹1.67L/month. Almost matches. I'm FIRE!"

Beautiful. Confident. Wrong.

That redditor is going to run out of money around age 67. They'll spend their last decade explaining to their kids why they took early retirement "a little aggressively". The 4% rule that built their plan was calibrated on US data — 2% inflation, dollar-denominated returns, and a country where Medicare exists.

India does not have any of those things. Let's do the actual numbers.

The original 4% rule, in context

Bill Bengen's 1994 paper assumed:

US historical equity + bond returns (~10% nominal, ~7% real)
~3% inflation
30-year retirement horizon (i.e., retire at 65, die at 95)
50/50 stock/bond allocation
Annual withdrawal of 4% of initial corpus, adjusted for inflation

Under those assumptions, you don't run out of money in any historical 30-year window. Hence: 25× annual expenses = enough.

Now relabel for India:

Indian equity historical returns: 12–14% nominal, but with 6–7% inflation, real returns are ~5-6%.
Inflation: 6% steady-state, with healthcare at 10–14%.
Retirement horizon (especially for FIRE): 40–50 years, not 30. Retire at 45, plan to age 90.
Volatility: Indian equities are roughly 1.5× more volatile than US large-cap.
Sequence risk: bigger, because of the longer drawdown horizon.

Plug those into the same Bengen-style Monte Carlo, and the safe withdrawal rate drops to 3–3.5%. The new multiplier? ~30× annual expenses, often 35×.

What ₹5 crore actually buys you

Let's simulate it. A 40-year-old with ₹5 crore, current expenses ₹1.5L/month, retiring today, planning to 90.

Year 1: ₹1.5L/month × 12 = ₹18L withdrawal. Corpus end of year = ₹5cr × 1.08 − ₹18L = ₹5.22cr. Looks fine.

Year 10: expenses now ₹2.7L/month (6% inflated). Annual withdrawal ₹32L. Corpus has been growing slower than withdrawals are accelerating. Balance: ₹5.7cr.

Year 20: expenses ₹4.8L/month. Annual ₹58L. Balance: ₹4.2cr.

Year 25 (age 65): annual draw ₹78L. Balance: ₹1.1cr.

Year 27 (age 67): balance hits zero. You ran out of money 23 years before you planned to die.

And that's the base case — no market crash, no healthcare emergency, no kid's education, no second EV. Add any one of those and you're cooked five years earlier.

Run this yourself in the FIRE calculator. The simulation is deterministic and the numbers don't lie.

The tier hierarchy of Indian FIRE

For pragmatic planning, here's the rough taxonomy:

Lean FIRE India

Corpus: ₹3–4 crore. Monthly spend: ₹40K–50K. Tier-2 city or simpler tier-1 lifestyle. Drive a Brezza, own one house, eat out once a week, no annual international travel. Achievable but tight — a single major healthcare event can break it.

Regular FIRE India

Corpus: ₹5–7 crore. Monthly spend: ₹80K–1.2L. Bangalore/Pune/Hyderabad lifestyle, one international trip a year, comfortable healthcare cover. This is what most r/IndiaFIRE posters actually need but underestimate.

Fat FIRE India

Corpus: ₹10cr+. Monthly spend: ₹2L+. Mumbai/Delhi NCR central, two international trips, private healthcare, kids in IB schools. The number you hear LinkedIn finfluencers cite at age 35 with a straight face.

Coast FIRE India (the dark horse)

Corpus by 35: ₹1.5–2 crore. Then stop saving — let compound interest do the rest until age 60. By traditional retirement, your corpus reaches ₹6–8 crore. You worked your butt off until 35, then coasted. This is the only flavour of FIRE most Indian salaried professionals can actually achieve.

What kills Indian FIRE plans

Underestimating drawdown horizon. Retiring at 45 = 45 years of drawdown. Most calculators default to 25–30 years. That alone makes the result a fantasy.
Healthcare blindspot. Premiums rise 8–12% annually. Major procedures are not covered to the extent people think. Out-of-pocket healthcare in retirement averages ₹2–4 lakh/year and grows.
Lifestyle inflation post-FIRE. Studies show retirees increase spending in years 1–5 because of travel and discretionary purchases, then increase again in years 15+ because of healthcare. Calculators assuming flat-real spend overstate longevity.
Tax drag. LTCG at 12.5% above ₹1.25L exemption. Slab-rate income tax on debt-fund withdrawals. Indexation removed for most assets. Effective withdrawal rates drop 0.5–1% just from taxes.
Sequence-of-returns risk. A 30% crash in your first 3 years of retirement can drop sustainable withdrawal to 2.5%. Your "safe" 4% is only safe if year 1 doesn't happen to be 2008 or 2020.

The actual number for Indian FIRE

Take your current monthly expense. Multiply by 12. Then multiply by 30 to 35. That's your floor — not your ceiling.

₹50K/month spend → ₹1.8–2.1 crore (Lean FIRE floor)
₹1L/month spend → ₹3.6–4.2 crore (Lean → Regular FIRE bridge)
₹1.5L/month spend → ₹5.4–6.3 crore (Regular FIRE floor)
₹2L/month spend → ₹7.2–8.4 crore (Approaching Fat FIRE)
₹3L/month spend → ₹10.8–12.6 crore (Fat FIRE)

These are floors. If you retire before 50, add 15–20%. If you have dependents or healthcare risk, add another 10–15%.

The path most likely to actually work

For most salaried Indians, the realistic path is not Full FIRE at 40. It's:

Hit Coast FIRE corpus (~₹2cr) by 35–38
Reduce work intensity, not eliminate it. Freelance, consult, run side businesses.
Let the corpus compound through 50
Achieve a flexible, semi-retired lifestyle from 50 to traditional retirement

This survives the Indian inflation + healthcare reality. Full FIRE at 40 with ₹5cr does not.

The cockroach FIRE doctrine

Cockroaches don't plan for the perfect retirement. They plan for the one where the slipper comes down. Indian FIRE math has to account for: a market crash the year you quit, a parent's ICU bill at year 8, your kid wanting to study abroad at year 12, and a 40-year drawdown that has to outlive your knees.

₹5 crore isn't FIRE. It's "hopeful semi-retirement". Run the FIRE calculator with your real numbers and your real horizon. If it survives to 90, congrats — you're a cockroach. If not, you have your answer.

Survive the system. Plan your escape. And for the love of inflation, stop using the 4% rule.