How it’s calculated
- Your current monthly expense is grown by inflation until retirement: expense × (1 + inflation)years to retirement.
- That monthly figure × 12 gives the yearly expense at retirement.
- Corpus = yearly expense ÷ post-retirement return. At that size, the corpus earns enough each year to cover the expense without being used up.
Example: ₹50,000 a month today, retiring in 30 years, 6% inflation and 8% return: expenses grow to about ₹2,87,175 a month (₹34,46,095 a year), so the corpus needed is about ₹4.31 crore.
This is a simplified estimate. It does not raise expenses for inflation after you retire, and it ignores taxes and one-off costs. Use it as a starting point, not a plan.