Retirement Corpus Calculator
This calculator estimates the retirement corpus you'll need, by inflating your current expenses to your retirement date, then finding the lump sum that can sustain that (inflation-adjusted) spending for the rest of your life.
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What is the Retirement Corpus Calculator?
Your retirement corpus is the total lump sum you need to have saved by the day you retire so that it can fund your living expenses for the rest of your life, even as those expenses keep rising with inflation and even after your regular income stops. Underestimating it is one of the most common retirement-planning mistakes, since people often plan only for today's expenses and forget inflation doesn't pause at retirement.
How to Calculate
Enter your current age, the age you plan to retire, your life expectancy, your current monthly expenses, and your assumptions for inflation and the return your corpus will earn after retirement. The calculator first inflates your expenses forward to your retirement date, then works out the lump sum needed on day one of retirement to sustain that (still-inflating) spending for every remaining year, using your expected post-retirement investment return.
Formula
Step 1 — inflate today's expense to your retirement date:
Future Monthly Expense = Current Monthly Expense × (1 + inflation)years to retirement
Step 2 — find the present value of a level annuity in real terms, using the real rate of return:
Real Rate = (1 + post-retirement return) / (1 + inflation) − 1
Required Corpus = Annual Expense × [1 − (1 + real rate)−retirement years] / real rate
Worked Example
A 30-year-old planning to retire at 60, spending ₹50,000/month today, expecting 6% inflation, 7% post-retirement returns, and living to 85:
- Monthly expense at retirement (30 years of 6% inflation): well over ₹2,80,000/month
- Required retirement corpus: several crore rupees
This large jump is why retirement planning needs to start early — inflation compounds over decades just as investment returns do.
How to Use
- Enter your current age and planned retirement age.
- Enter your current monthly expenses.
- Enter your expected inflation rate and expected post-retirement investment return.
- Enter your life expectancy (how many years of retirement to plan for).
- Read your projected monthly expense at retirement and the total corpus required.