When Can I Retire?

When Can I Retire? is a question many have asked. There’s no perfect answer, because everyone has a set of unique circumstances that makes the answer different for them. But We can give you a ballpark answer to the question: When can I retire?

When Can I Retire?

You can retire when your living expenses can be covered by money generated outside of the job you’re trying to retire from.  For many, this money comes from social security income. For others it comes from investment income or from a business they have ownership in.

On Camp FIRE Finance we like the idea of generating retirement income from Index Stocks. We do this because this is a simple and relatively stable way to invest in the stock market.  Using this method means you’ll need $300 invested for every $1 dollar you have in expenses.  Sounds like a lot, right?

Let’s take a closer look.

When Can I Retire Calculator

This retirement calculator is meant to give you a quick and easy way to see how close you are to being able to retire. This is a useful tool, but it’s not meant to give specific advice, or to replace a financial professional.

The retirement calculator is straightforward. Simply enter your details into the fields below, select your age as of today, and watch the results get updated in real time, along with some recommendations if you’d like to speed things up a bit.

How The 'When Can I Retire?' Calculator Works

The FIRE community uses two financial rules of thumb to answer the 'when can I retire?' question:

1. The Rule of 25
2. The 4% Rule

The Rule of 25

This rule helps you determine exactly how much money you'll need to have invested before you can retire.  You can read more about the Rule of 25 if you're interested in determining how we calculate your retirement number.

The 4% Rule

The other rule of thumb we use is called the 4% Rule, also known as the Safe Withdrawal Rate.  The 4 Percent Rule helps you determine exactly how much of your retirement portfolio you can spend annually without ever running out of money.  We use this math to determine how much you can cash out each month without ever running out of money.

Retirement Assumptions

By default we use a 7% annual growth rate and a 3% annual inflation rate because those are historical averages. While historical numbers don't guarantee future performance, it is a good place to start. We designed this retirement calculator so that you can adjust all numbers however you'd like.

When Can I Retire?

So, do you have a better idea of when you can retire?  If you don't like your prospects, you've got two options:

1. Make more money
2. Reduce the amount of money you need to live on

Obvious answers, without easy solutions, especially if you're already living a frugal lifestyle.  But now that you have a better idea of when you can retire, you can start to formulate a plan to answer your question of when can I retire?