FIRE planning asks when invested assets (plus passive income) could cover living costs without a traditional salary. It is a planning framework, not a promise that markets will cooperate with an early exit.
The core idea
Estimate annual expenses, choose a cautious withdrawal approach, and work backward to a corpus. A common teaching shorthand is a multiple of annual expenses (EnrichReturns’ retirement tool uses a 25× annual-expense style corpus factor). That is a rule of thumb — not a guarantee.
India-specific caution
Healthcare inflation, family support expectations, and equity/debt market behaviour can differ from US blog assumptions. Build buffers. Do not ignore insurance. Tax on withdrawals depends on account types and prevailing law.
Using the FIRE Number Calculator
EnrichReturns’ /fsn tool explores readiness with expenses, wealth, liabilities and scenario knobs. Treat Conservative / Base / Optimistic cases as stress tests. Pair with the Retirement Calculator for age-based SIP sizing.