How many years could your money already pay for?
Your Firelytics is the number of years of the life you chose that your money could pay for today. Put in what that life costs and what you have.
Your Firelytics
8.3of 25
Years of the life you chose your money could already pay for, at $50,000 a year.
3.3 years reachable now: retirement accounts usually open at 59½. Some open sooner: the Rule of 55 pays from the 401(k) of a job you leave in or after the year you turn 55, and a 72(t) series can draw on an IRA at any age.
Each year of work now buys you 0.2 of a freedom year, at what you save in a year.
Left out on purpose: the home you live in (you can't spend it without selling it or borrowing against it), a business you own (it may not sell), and low-rate debt such as a mortgage or car loan (its payments belong in the yearly cost).
Share your number
The card and the link show your number and your step only, never an amount.
My Firelytics
8.3of 25
Step: Keep
Keeps these settings as the start of your own plan, saved in this browser only. You see your figures, and anything it would change in a plan you already have, before they are added.
The link carries your figures after the #, so you can save or share it. Your figures are not sent to us. The share card is drawn in your browser.
One sum
Money you could live on, divided by what a year of the life you chose costs. In the example above that is $416,000 over $50,000: 8.3 freedom years, of 25 at a 4% rate.
Because it is the life you chose, changing the plan moves the number as much as saving does. A cheaper city, part-time work you like or a year off each change the cost, and so the years.
Questions people ask
- What is a freedom year?
- One year of the life you chose, paid for by money you already have. If that life costs $50,000 a year and you could live on $416,000, you have 8.3 freedom years. It never needs your income and it has no currency, so you can say it out loud without saying what you own.
- Why is free 25?
- At a 4% withdrawal rate, money worth 25 years of spending is the usual line for paying for that life through a 30-year retirement. Change the rate and the line moves: 28.6 at 3.5%. The 4% figure comes from US market history over 30-year retirements, so a longer retirement or another country may call for a lower rate.
- Why don't you count my home?
- You live in it: the only way to spend it is to sell it or borrow against it, so it is left out. Other property counts at its value minus its mortgage. A business you own is left out because it may not sell, and low-rate debt such as a mortgage or car loan is not subtracted, because its payments belong in the yearly cost.
- What does locked mean?
- Money in a 401(k) or IRA counts toward your number, but before 59½ you usually cannot take it out without a 10% additional tax. There are routes in sooner: the Rule of 55 for the 401(k) of a job you leave in or after the year you turn 55, and a 72(t) series on an IRA at any age. The page shows a second line: how many years the money you can reach today would pay for.
- What if my debt is bigger than my savings?
- The number shows 0, and the line under it says how many months of the life you chose your costly debt is worth. Clearing it is the first move; the number starts counting from there.
Next: find the date you reach free with the FIRE calculator, or whether you could stop saving already with the Coast FIRE calculator.
Sources: the 4% rate, W. P. Bengen, “Determining Withdrawal Rates Using Historical Data”, Journal of Financial Planning (1994); access to retirement accounts before 59½, Internal Revenue Code §72(t).