FIRE Calculator
Find your FIRE number and the age you could retire early — with a 4% rule that respects inflation, plus Coast FIRE and Barista FIRE milestones. Built for Canadians, where CPP and OAS arrive later as a bonus.
Path to financial independence
Your portfolio (nominal $) racing the FIRE-number line — both grow with inflation. Where they cross is your FIRE date.
FIRE age by withdrawal rate
A more conservative withdrawal rate means a bigger target — and a later FIRE date. This is why early retirees favour 3-3.5%.
Year-by-year projection
Nominal portfolio vs the inflating FIRE target. The highlighted row is your FIRE year.
| Age | Contributed | Portfolio | FIRE target | % there |
|---|
How this is calculated
The FIRE number and the 4% rule
Financial independence is when your portfolio can cover your spending indefinitely. The classic estimate is the 4% rule: withdraw 4% of your portfolio in year one, then adjust for inflation each year. Rearranged, your FIRE number is annual spending / withdrawal rate — at 4% that is 25 x spending (28.6x at 3.5%, 33.3x at 3%). The rule comes from the U.S. Trinity Study, which tested a ~30-year retirement with a 50-75% equity portfolio.
Solving for your FIRE age (inflation-honest)
Because your FIRE year is unknown, we simulate your portfolio month by month in nominal dollars: balance = balance x (1 + r) + monthly savings, where r = (1 + return)^(1/12) - 1. Each month we compare it to a FIRE target that also grows with inflation: target = spending x (1 + inflation)^(years) / withdrawal rate. FIRE is reached the first month your portfolio meets the inflating target. This avoids the common bug of racing nominal growth against a target frozen in today's dollars, which understates the years you need.
Coast FIRE and Barista FIRE
Coast FIRE is the lump sum you'd need invested today so that growth alone (no more contributions) reaches your full FIRE number by 65: target-at-65 / (1 + return)^(65 - age). If your current assets already exceed it, you can stop saving for retirement. Barista FIRE is the portfolio whose safe withdrawal covers half your spending — (spending / 2) / withdrawal rate — with part-time work covering the rest.
Why early retirees use 3-3.5%
The 4% rule was validated for ~30 years. A FIRE retiree at 45 needs the money to last 45+ years, so a shorter draw is safer. Sequence-of-returns risk — a bad market in your first few retirement years — does far more damage than the same returns later, because you're selling assets while they're down. Trimming to 3.5% (or 3%) buys a large safety margin against both.
The Canadian caveats
This tool is deliberately account-agnostic: it does not distinguish RRSP, TFSA and non-registered dollars, and taxes on withdrawal differ sharply between them — real drawdown planning matters. It also treats CPP and OAS as a bonus: these inflation-indexed government benefits start at 60-70 (CPP) and 65-70 (OAS), so they reduce how much your portfolio must cover later in life, meaning your true FIRE number is often lower than a flat 25x. Model those with the retirement calculator, benefit timing with the CPP timing calculator, and the withdrawal phase with the drawdown calculator.
What this doesn't model
Taxes on savings or withdrawals, income and expense growth over the accumulation years, market volatility and real sequence risk (returns are assumed smooth), healthcare/benefit gaps for early retirees, and one-off costs. Assumptions default to FP Canada's 2026 guideline inflation of 2.1%; verify with a fee-only planner before acting. Figures reflect rules and rates as of July 2026.