Hey everyone, long time lurker here. 38 years old, data engineer with 12 years of experience. Been meaning to put this post together for a while.
Like most of you, I started with the classic "6 cr and I'm done" target. Felt good on paper. Then I actually sat down and inflation-adjusted everything and... yeah.
Here's my updated corpus breakdown assuming ~10 years to retirement at 48:
Category |Target
Kids Education (2 kids) |2.5 cr
Health & Medical |50 lakh (Emergency case)
Travel/Vacation | 20 Lakh
Kids Marriage |1.5 cr
Home Maintenance | 30 Lakh
Parents Care | 30 Lakh
FIRE Corpus (living expenses) | 6 cr
Total | ~ 11 cr
Key assumptions:
- Education inflation at 10%, medical at 10%, general at 6%
- ₹1L/month today becomes ₹1.8L/month in 10 years
- 3% SWR (conservative, because India retirement can be 40+ years)
- Own house, no rent factored in
What changed my thinking:
The biggest shock was the FIRE corpus itself. ₹1L/month sounds enough today. But in 10 years that's ₹1.8L/month. At 3% SWR you need 6 cr just for that. Most people I see online are still calculating in today's rupees and calling it a day.
Also — and I don't see this discussed enough — parents care. Both sets of parents are aging. That 30 Lakh is probably conservative honestly.
As a data engineer the irony isn't lost on me that I was working with bad data all along. Garbage in, garbage out. My FIRE plan was garbage in.
Currently at around 20% of this target. Aiming to hit 11 cr by 48. Let me know what I'm missing — happy to be roasted.