Plan a real retirement. Separate returns before and after you stop working, count your EPF and PPF, and see the exact age your corpus would run out.
Why do you ask for two different return rates?
Because you will not invest the same way at 70 as at 35. Before retirement your money can sit in equity and ride out a bad decade. Afterwards it has to pay your bills every month, so it moves into debt funds, fixed deposits, and schemes like SCSS that pay much less. Using your pre-retirement return for both halves is the single most common error in Indian retirement calculators, and it can understate the corpus you need by a third.
What is the depletion age, and why does it matter more than the corpus?
It is the age your savings run out. A corpus figure is abstract, and a plan that is 15% short does not look 15% wrong on a chart. It looks like running out at 77 instead of 85. Once you can see the age, the trade-offs become obvious: raise the SIP, spend less, work longer, or take more risk. This calculator computes it by drawing the corpus down year by year, not by applying a rule of thumb.
Why not use the 4% rule?
The 4% rule comes from American studies of American portfolios with American inflation and a 30 year retirement. It is a safe withdrawal rate only when the real return on your corpus is around 4%. An Indian retiree holding debt at 7% against 6% inflation has a real return closer to 1%, so a 4% draw empties the account. This page computes the drawdown directly instead of importing somebody else’s number.
Which of my expenses actually stop when I retire?
The commute, work clothes and lunches, your home loan EMI if it is paid off, children’s education, and often the term insurance premium. What rises is healthcare, travel, and help around the house. Most people find their spending drops by 10% to 20%, not by half, and then climbs again after 75.
Should I really plan to 85?
Plan to at least 85, and to 90 if your family has a history of living long. Life expectancy at birth is around 70, but that figure is dragged down by deaths at younger ages, and it is the wrong number to plan against. Running out of money at 84 because you planned to 82 is not a small error.
Why does healthcare have its own inflation rate?
Because medical costs in India have risen far faster than the consumer price index for years, and healthcare is the one expense that grows as you age. A hospital bill and a bag of rice do not inflate at the same rate, and averaging them into one number hides the risk in the years you can least afford it.
Does this count my EPF and NPS?
Yes, and it uses them twice. Their balances go into your existing corpus, and their mix tells you something. If most of your savings sit in EPF, PPF, and fixed deposits, the page warns you that your plan is really running at about 8% and not the 12% you entered. That warning is often worth more than the corpus figure.
What should I do if the number is frightening?
Change one thing at a time and watch the depletion age move. A yearly step-up on your SIP costs nothing today and does most of the work. Two more years of employment is usually worth more than a 2% higher return, because it adds a saving year and removes a spending year at the same time. And redo this every single year.