FIRE Calculator — Two-Bucket Withdrawal Simulator
Simulates your retirement corpus month by month using 31 years of real Indian market returns (cycled repeatedly once exhausted).
How this works
- Your corpus is split into a Fixed Bucket (fixed deposit, steady return) and a Market Bucket(invested, follows real market returns).
- Every month, your expense is withdrawn from the Fixed Bucket. Once a year, that expense amount increases by your inflation rate.
- The Market Bucket grows or shrinks each month by that month's historical return. When the data runs out, it starts over from the beginning of the series.
- If the Fixed Bucket ever gets too low to cover a month's withdrawal, money is moved over from the Market Bucket to top it back up (highlighted in the table below as a rebalance) — then the withdrawal is taken as usual.
- If both buckets ever hit zero, the corpus is considered depleted and the simulation stops there.
Hover to inspect any month. Exact figures for every month are in the table below.
| Month | Market return | Withdrawal | Fixed Bucket (7%) | Market Bucket | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Year 1Market return: +10.5% | |||||
| Month 1 | -0.0% | ₹35,000 | ₹8.10L | ₹1.60L | ₹9.70L |
| Month 2 | +1.9% | ₹35,000 | ₹7.80L | ₹1.63L | ₹9.43L |
| Month 3 | +4.5% | ₹35,000 | ₹7.49L | ₹1.70L | ₹9.19L |
| Month 4 | +0.8% | ₹35,000 | ₹7.19L | ₹1.72L | ₹8.90L |
| Month 5 | -1.7% | ₹35,000 | ₹6.88L | ₹1.69L | ₹8.56L |
| Month 6 | -2.9% | ₹35,000 | ₹6.57L | ₹1.64L | ₹8.20L |
| Month 7 | +3.1% | ₹35,000 | ₹6.26L | ₹1.69L | ₹7.94L |
| Month 8 | +1.7% | ₹35,000 | ₹5.94L | ₹1.72L | ₹7.66L |
| Month 9 | +3.5% | ₹35,000 | ₹5.63L | ₹1.78L | ₹7.40L |
| Month 10 | +6.3% | ₹35,000 | ₹5.31L | ₹1.89L | ₹7.20L |
| Month 11 | -5.9% | ₹35,000 | ₹4.99L | ₹1.78L | ₹6.77L |
| Month 12 | -0.6% | ₹35,000 | ₹4.67L | ₹1.77L | ₹6.44L |
Year 2Market return: +8.2% | |||||
| Month 13 | -2.1% | ₹37,100 | ₹4.33L | ₹1.73L | ₹6.06L |
| Month 14 | +0.5% | ₹37,100 | ₹3.98L | ₹1.74L | ₹5.72L |
| Month 15 | -5.8% | ₹37,100 | ₹3.63L | ₹1.64L | ₹5.27L |
| Month 16 | +2.6% | ₹37,100 | ₹3.28L | ₹1.68L | ₹4.96L |
| Month 17 | +0.8% | ₹37,100 | ₹2.93L | ₹1.69L | ₹4.62L |
| Month 18 | +2.9% | ₹37,100 | ₹2.58L | ₹1.74L | ₹4.32L |
| Month 19 | +6.9% | ₹37,100 | ₹2.22L | ₹1.86L | ₹4.08L |
| Month 20 | -0.7% | ₹37,100 | ₹1.86L | ₹1.85L | ₹3.71L |
| Month 21 | +1.1% | ₹37,100 | ₹1.50L | ₹1.87L | ₹3.37L |
| Month 22 | +1.6% | ₹37,100 | ₹1.14L | ₹1.90L | ₹3.04L |
| Month 23 | +1.0% | ₹37,100 | ₹77,624 | ₹1.92L | ₹2.69L |
| Month 24 | -0.7% | ₹37,100 | ₹40,977 | ₹1.91L | ₹2.31L |
Year 3Market return: +18.7% | |||||
| Month 25 | +7.8% | ₹39,326 | ₹1,890 | ₹2.05L | ₹2.07L |
| Month 26 | +4.9% | ₹39,326 | ₹1.78L ⇆ Rebalanced +₹2.15L | ₹0 | ₹1.78L |
| Month 27 | -3.0% | ₹39,326 | ₹1.40L | ₹0 | ₹1.40L |
| Month 28 | +1.5% | ₹39,326 | ₹1.01L | ₹0 | ₹1.01L |
| Month 29 | -2.5% | ₹39,326 | ₹62,482 | ₹0 | ₹62,482 |
| Month 30 | +2.8% | ₹39,326 | ₹23,520 | ₹0 | ₹23,520 |
| Month 31 | +3.3% | ₹23,658 | ₹0 | ₹0 | ₹0 |
31 months shown.
Frequently asked questions
What is the two-bucket FIRE strategy?
It divides your retirement corpus between a stable fixed-return bucket for near-term expenses and a market bucket for longer-term growth.
How are withdrawals increased over time?
The monthly withdrawal increases once every 12 months by the inflation rate you enter.
What market returns does the calculator use?
It uses monthly historical returns from the included Indian market dataset covering 1995 through 2025, then cycles through that history when the simulation continues further.
What happens when the fixed bucket runs low?
The calculator transfers money from the market bucket to refill the fixed bucket before taking the withdrawal.
Does never depleted guarantee financial security?
No. It only means the modeled corpus survived the simulation period and assumptions. It is not a guarantee of future investment performance.