FIRE Calculator

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. It also leans on growth: if your return after inflation is below your withdrawal rate, even a steady market wears the portfolio down, so the verdict warns you when the steady-return line in the range chart would run dry before 95.

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. The path chart plots that portfolio at each birthday against the inflating target, with a third line for what you have put in (today's assets plus every monthly saving), so the space between the portfolio and that line is growth. The year-by-year table lists each birthday and ends on the month you reach FIRE.

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: switch the withdrawal rate and watch the share of markets where the money lasts to 95 move in the range chart. The withdrawal-rate bars rerun the headline calculation at 3%, 3.5%, 4% and 5% (5% for comparison only) and show the years until FIRE; a rate that doesn't get there before 90 reads "not by 90" instead of drawing a bar.

Range of outcomes (1,000 simulated markets)

The headline uses the same return every month. Real markets swing, so the range chart replays your plan through 1,000 simulated markets: save each month until your FIRE date, then withdraw your spending each month, raised with inflation, until 95 (if you are already there, withdrawals start today). Each month's return is drawn from a lognormal distribution whose median compounds at your expected return, the same return the steady-return line earns every month; once withdrawals start, a run of bad years early on can drain a market that steady returns would have carried, which is the sequence risk the band and the lowest line show. Balances are in today's dollars, which turns the inflating FIRE target into the flat dashed line spending / withdrawal rate. The shaded band holds the middle half of markets (25th to 75th percentile) and the lowest line is the 10th percentile: 1 in 10 markets end up below it, and the birthday it reaches $0 is the age by which the weakest 1 in 10 have run dry. The best 1 in 10 are left off the chart on purpose: by 95 they run to many times the FIRE number and would flatten everything else. The meter above the chart is the share of markets that never run dry before 95 when you retire on the steady-return date, shaded red up to 70%, gold up to 85% and green above that; its note also says when the steady-return plan itself would run dry, if it does before 95. If a steady return does not get you to your FIRE number by 90, nothing is drawn: the chart follows your saving to 90 and the meter shows the share of markets that reach the number by then. The same markets also keep saving past that date to find when each first reaches your FIRE number, using the headline's test; the gold stripe runs from the age by which the fastest 1 in 10 get there to the age by which 9 in 10 have. A market only has to touch the number once, so half of them usually get there a little before the steady-return date. The markets are seeded, so the same link always shows the same range.

Volatility assumption. FP Canada publishes expected returns, not volatility, and this page has no stock and bond split, so the volatility is inferred from the return you enter. Your return implies a stock share between the FP Canada fixed-income return (3.2%, all bonds) and the average of its Canadian, US and international equity returns (6.4%, all stocks). That mix is combined with long-run volatility of 15% a year for stocks and 5% for bonds, with a correlation of 0.2 between them. Your return gives about 13.1% a year. Tax, CPP, OAS, fees, fat-tailed crashes and changing volatility are not modelled, so read the range as a guide to how wide the outcomes are, not a forecast.

Spend less or save more?

Each cell of the grid reruns the same month-by-month calculation as the headline with two changes: your annual retirement spending, in steps of 10% down the rows (rounded to $1,000, or to a finer step for very small amounts), and your monthly savings, from half to double across the columns (rounded to $50, or plus $250 to $2,000 a month when you save under $400). Your assets, return, inflation and withdrawal rate stay as entered, and the outlined cell, your own numbers, always matches the headline age. Spending less in retirement shrinks the FIRE number itself (every $1,000 a year less is $25,000 less at 4%), while saving more grows the portfolio faster; in practice the two often go together, since a lower spending habit frees more to save today.

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, healthcare/benefit gaps for early retirees, and one-off costs. The headline, path chart, grid and table assume a steady return; the range chart adds market swings and sequence risk, but not fat-tailed crashes or changing volatility. 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.