What Does the Retirement Calculator Do?

Retirement planning comes down to two questions. How big a corpus do you need? And how much must you invest every month to get there? This calculator answers both. It takes your current monthly expenses, inflates them to your retirement age, sizes a corpus that can sustain them, and then works backwards to the monthly investment required.

Why Inflation Matters So Much

Your corpus has to fund your future expenses, not today's. At 5% inflation, a ₹50,000 monthly budget today becomes roughly ₹1.3 lakh a month in 20 years. You can see this erosion for any amount with the inflation calculator. India's consumer inflation has averaged mid-single digits over the long run (3.93% as of May 2026, with the RBI targeting 4%), so planning at 5% to 6% gives you a margin of safety.

A Worked Example

Take a 35-year-old who spends ₹60,000 a month and wants to retire at 60. At 5% inflation, those expenses grow to about ₹2.03 lakh a month by then, or roughly ₹24.4 lakh in the first year of retirement. Using the common rule of saving 25 times your first-year expenses, the corpus target is about ₹6.1 crore.

Starting from zero, reaching that in 25 years at an assumed 11% blended return needs a SIP of about ₹40,000 a month. With a 10% annual step-up, the starting amount drops to about ₹24,000. The same person starting at 45 instead would need several times the monthly amount. There is no stronger argument in personal finance for starting now.

How to Build the Corpus

Most salaried people already have a head start when building a retirement corpus. EPF accrues automatically and often covers a third or more of the goal, so project it first. NPS adds a disciplined, very low-cost pillar with the employer tax break under 80CCD(2). Equity SIPs then cover whatever gap the guaranteed pillars leave, and this calculator sizes exactly that gap. Alongside the investments, keep term and health insurance in place: a medical event is the most common reason retirement savings get raided early.

And After You Retire?

The corpus turns back into monthly income through a systematic withdrawal plan, which lets the balance stay invested while you draw from it — though how you sequence those withdrawals matters almost as much as the corpus size. Remember that these estimates are educational. Retirement adequacy also depends on health, family and lifestyle factors that no calculator can see, so consider professional advice for a complete plan.

FAQs about Retirement Calculator

A widely used starting point is 25–30 times your expected first-year retirement expenses (after inflating today's expenses to your retirement date). The calculator does this arithmetic for your numbers.
India's CPI inflation has generally run in the 4–6% range over long periods (3.93% as of May 2026, RBI target 4%). Planning at 5–6% builds in a buffer; healthcare costs often inflate faster.
Pre-retirement portfolios with meaningful equity have historically been planned at 10–12%; post-retirement, with safer allocations, 6–8% is more realistic. Use conservative numbers for money you cannot afford to lose.
For many salaried workers they form a strong base but often fall short of a full corpus, especially with early retirement or higher lifestyles. Run your EPF/NPS projections in their calculators and cover the gap with additional investing.
Both levers worsen: fewer earning years to build the corpus and more retirement years for it to fund. Retiring at 50 instead of 60 can nearly double the required corpus while cutting the accumulation window — early-retirement plans need materially higher savings rates, not just optimism.
Some, usually — a 25-30 year retirement still needs growth to outpace inflation. A common structure holds 2-3 years of expenses in liquid/debt instruments and keeps a meaningful equity slice for later years, drawn via an SWP.