Every calculator prices one goal as if it were your only one. This one takes all of them against a single monthly budget and shows what each funding order costs.
Which goal should I fund first?
This page will not tell you, and be wary of one that does. It shows what each order costs in rupees and stops there, because the numbers cannot weigh a smaller wedding against a later retirement. What it can tell you honestly is the arithmetic: the goal furthest away compounds longest, so a rupee withheld from it costs the most. That is a fact about money, not a recommendation about your family.
Why is delaying retirement usually the most expensive choice?
Because it has the longest runway, and compounding is not linear in time. At 11%, ₹1,000 a month for 25 years becomes about ₹15,00,000, while the same ₹1,000 for 5 years becomes about ₹80,000. Retirement also has no fallback: there are education loans, there are home loans, and there is no loan for being 70 with no money. It is the goal that feels most deferrable and is least so.
What does "in today’s money" mean in the shortfall column?
A ₹10 lakh gap five years away and a ₹10 lakh gap twenty-five years away are not the same loss, so adding them raw would be meaningless. Each shortfall is divided by the general inflation between now and its date, which puts them all in the buying power of a rupee today. It is the only honest way to total gaps that fall due in different years.
What if I cannot afford any of the orders?
Then the arithmetic has told you something useful and unwelcome: this set of goals at these dates is not fundable on this income. You have four real levers, and only four. Invest more, which the step-up field is the cheapest version of. Give a goal more time. Make a goal smaller. Or accept a shortfall on one and fund it another way later. Rearranging the order alone will not conjure the money.
Where does the retirement corpus figure come from?
From the retirement calculator, which prices it properly against your spending, your life expectancy, and the lower return a corpus earns once it has to pay you. Use the figure it reports in today’s money, because that is what this page expects. Guessing it here would put a made-up number at the top of a plan.
Does this account for what I have already saved?
Not yet. Every goal here starts from zero, so the instalments are the full amount each needs. If you already have money earmarked for one of them, price that goal on its own page first, subtract what your savings grow to, and enter the smaller remaining target here. The order comparison is unaffected either way.
Should the return be the same for every goal?
Strictly, no. A five year house deposit belongs in debt and a twenty-five year retirement belongs in equity, and they will not earn the same. This page uses one rate across all goals, which slightly flatters the short ones. Price each goal on its own page for the accurate instalment, and use this page for the thing it does that no other page does: showing the trade between them.