Retire early — a chain reaction

Your target is a multiple of spending, not income

At a 4% withdrawal rate, a portfolio supports about 4% of itself per year. Invert it: you need roughly 25× your annual spending. Spending $60,000 a year sets the target below — and cutting spending moves it twice, because it lowers the target and raises the amount you save.

Target at 4%$1,500,000

Saving 25% of $80k$20,000/yr

Rule of thumb25× annual spending is the shorthand for the 4% rule. It is a planning yardstick, not a guarantee — sequence of returns still matters.

Open FIRE Calculator with these numbers →

Watch the savings rate do the heavy lifting

Salary changes the target slowly; savings rate changes it fast. Push the rate from 25% to 40% and the finish line moves in by years — because you are adding more and needing less at the same time.

At 25% savedbaseline

At 40% savedyears earlier

Rule of thumbSavings rate, not investment return, is what you control. It is also the input the answer is most sensitive to.

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Check what fees quietly take

A 1% annual fee sounds like nothing. Run the same twenty-year projection with and without it and the gap is not 1% — it is compounded every year against the whole balance.

20-year pot$144,573

A 1% fee costs$19,062

As a share of the pot13.2%

Rule of thumbA 1% fee is not 1% of the outcome. Over decades it compounds into a double-digit share of the final pot.

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Decide what the house does to the plan

A mortgage that ends before you do is a spending cut waiting to happen — it drops your required number permanently. One that runs into retirement has to be funded from the portfolio, which raises the target.

Mortgage-free spendinglower target

Every $1,000/mo of housingneeds $300,000 behind it

Rule of thumbAny recurring cost in retirement needs about 300× its monthly value behind it at a 4% withdrawal rate.

Open Mortgage Calculator with these numbers →

Your target is a multiple of spending, not income

Watch the savings rate do the heavy lifting

Check what fees quietly take

Decide what the house does to the plan

The number is mostly about spending