Retirement and early-retirement planning

How much is enough to stop working, and how do you make it last? We answer that from your own expenses, not from a headline number.

Your retirement plan is part of SahajMoney's fee-only financial plan, prepared by a SEBI Registered Investment Adviser for a fixed ₹15,000 for the first year, including GST.

You are 10 to 20 years from retirement and want to know whether you are on track.

You want to retire early, at 40, 45 or 50, and need a plan built for a retirement that may last 50 years.

You are about to retire, or have retired, and need to turn a corpus into a monthly income.

Your savings sit mostly in EPF, PPF, fixed deposits or property, and you are unsure they will be enough.

You are an NRI planning to retire in India.

Your retirement number: we start from what you expect to spend once you stop working, allow for inflation and for how many years the money must last, and add a margin of safety.

The gap: what your EPF, NPS, PPF, mutual funds and other savings are likely to add up to by your retirement date, and the monthly SIP or lump sum needed to close any shortfall.

A withdrawal plan: how much to draw each year, and from which investments, so that a market fall early in retirement does not force you to sell.

An asset mix: an equity–debt split matched to your risk profile, moving towards debt as retirement approaches.

Protection first: an emergency fund kept outside your retirement accounts, enough health cover, and a separate fund for medical costs, so EPF and NPS are not raided when something goes wrong.

An action list: specific funds and amounts, with direct links, that you invest through the platform of your choice.

We would rather plan on the safe side than be precisely wrong. So we assume prices rise faster, investments grow more slowly and you live longer than the past suggests, then test the plan against those tougher conditions.

We usually plan withdrawals below the 4% rule often quoted. That rule came from US data and a 30-year retirement; Indian retirees face higher medical inflation and often little pension cover.

Your plan includes a year-by-year projection of your corpus through retirement, built from your own figures.

Early retirement is possible, but harder than it looks on a spreadsheet. The money has to last through several market crashes and decades of inflation.

In our experience these plans rarely fail at once; they leak through lifestyle inflation and healthcare costs. Your plan builds the emergency fund and insurance first, raises your savings rate in steps, and sets a twice-yearly rebalancing routine.

First year: ₹15,000 per couple, including GST. Your written plan within 2 weeks of approving the initial analysis, a plan walk-through meeting, a review at 6 months, and email questions throughout the 12 months.

Renewal: ₹7,500 a year, including GST, with 2 portfolio reviews a year and email questions throughout the year. Renewal is optional.

Not included: tax filing, placing transactions, direct stock tips, crypto and PMS. We give advice; your money stays in your own accounts.

There is no single figure. It depends on what you will spend, how long the money must last and inflation along the way, so we start from your expenses.

We are cautious about it. We usually suggest a lower rate, and lower still if you retire early.

For most people, no. EPF is a sound debt base, but on its own it grows slowly. We usually add equity through NPS or mutual funds, in line with your risk profile.

Dividing your corpus by when you will need it: near-term spending in safe, liquid investments, the middle years in debt and balanced options, later years in equity. Money you need soon never has to be sold in a fall.

No. We are advisers, not distributors. You invest through the platform you choose, and we earn nothing from any product.

Abhishek Kumar on retirement

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