How to plan your retirement corpus step by step

Steps

1. Enter your age, the age you want to retire and the age you plan to live to: 35, 60 and 85.
2. Enter your monthly expenses today, ₹50,000, and the inflation rate, 6%.
3. Enter the returns you expect before and after retirement: 10% and 8%.
4. Add any savings you already have set aside for retirement.
5. Read the corpus needed and the monthly SIP to reach it, and test other ages and returns.

How the corpus is worked out

First, today’s expenses are raised by inflation to the year you retire: ₹6,00,000 a year becomes ₹25,75,122 in the first retirement year after 25 years at 6%. Then the calculator finds the sum that pays those growing expenses for the years you plan, while the rest earns the after-retirement return. That gives ₹5,19,11,228.

The monthly SIP is what you must invest from now to the retirement age, at the pre-retirement return, to grow to that corpus: about ₹38,801.

Test what you can change

Retire at 55 instead of 60 and the corpus is ₹4,46,01,505, but the SIP rises to ₹58,250, because you have five fewer years to build it. Start at 25 instead of 35 and the corpus is larger, ₹9,29,65,102, since you plan for 35 years of inflation, but the SIP falls to ₹24,284. Spend ₹30,000 instead of ₹50,000 and the corpus is ₹3,11,46,737 and the SIP ₹23,280.

If you already have ₹10,00,000 saved for retirement, the SIP falls from ₹38,801 to ₹30,702.

A planning estimate, not a promise

The calculator uses steady returns and one inflation rate. It does not include tax, pensions, rental income, a change in lifestyle or big medical costs. Revisit the plan every year or two, and keep a cash buffer for the years when markets fall.