If You Saved Everything, How Soon Could You Stop Working?
Financial independence, retire early — FIRE for short — means reaching a net worth large enough that investment returns alone can cover your living expenses. The most common way to set that target is the 4% rule: save 25 times your annual expenses, and a 4% annual withdrawal rate should sustain you indefinitely. Spend $2,500 a month and your annual expenses are $30,000, so your target net worth is $750,000. Here's the part people miss — cutting your monthly expenses doesn't just free up more money to save each month, it also shrinks the target itself, which pulls your freedom date closer from both directions at once.
This calculator takes your monthly income minus expenses as your monthly savings, compounds it against your current net worth at your chosen return rate, and works out the fastest number of months to reach your target. Try different savings rates and return assumptions side by side — even a 10-percentage-point bump in savings rate on the same income often shaves years off the timeline, which makes this a useful lens for reviewing your spending habits.
Frequently Asked Questions
The 4% rule: 25 times annual expenses. Spend $2,500/month and your target is $750,000.
A lot — lower expenses raise savings and lower the target at the same time, shortening the timeline twice over.
A conservative real return of 4-6% is common for long-term diversified portfolios. Compare a few scenarios.
※ Simplified estimate; actual results vary with inflation, market returns, and taxes.