Definition of FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early)
FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. It is a personal finance movement where individuals aggressively save and invest a large portion of their income with the goal of accumulating enough wealth to retire much earlier than the traditional retirement age of 60.
The core idea is to build a corpus large enough that your investment returns cover all your living expenses indefinitely, freeing you from the need to work for money. The most common formula is: FIRE Corpus = Annual Expenses ÷ Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR). Using a 3.5% SWR, if you spend ₹8 lakh a year, your FIRE number is ₹2.28 crore.
In India, the FIRE movement is growing among millennials in tech and finance who earn ₹10 lakh+ per year. Types of FIRE include Lean FIRE (frugal, ₹1–1.5 crore corpus), Regular FIRE (comfortable, ₹2–3 crore), and Fat FIRE (luxury, ₹6+ crore). Use InvestKit's FIRE Calculator to find your number.