Your FIRE number
FIRE means Financial Independence, Retire Early — the pot that lets your money cover your life without a wage. Here's the maths on your numbers. It's information, not advice — every figure is editable and illustrative.
Your FIRE number is how much you'd draw from, not spend. The 4% rule comes from US research over a 30-year retirement — retiring early means a longer horizon, so many in the UK use 3 to 3.5%. Pick the one you trust; we'll show the rest.
Where you are · headline 3.5% → about £1.14m
You're £280,000 of the way — about 25% there. On £1,500 a month at 3% real growth, you reach your number at about age 63 (2049).
You want to stop at 52, but a pension can't be touched until 57 (from April 2028). Those 5 years must come from money you can actually reach — ISAs, LISA, ordinary savings. Keep about this much accessible.
If you had this much invested today and never added another penny, it would grow to your full number by the pension access age on its own. Past it, you only need to cover today's bills — you can ease off saving.
For a decision this size, a regulated adviser is the right person.
How this is worked out: FIRE number = your yearly spending × (100 ÷ withdrawal rate). Years-to-there grows your pot and monthly savings at the real (after-inflation) return you set. The bridge is your yearly spending across the years between stopping and pension age. Coast is your number discounted back to today at your real return. Every figure is "about" and illustrative — this shows the maths on the numbers you entered, not a recommendation. Investments can fall as well as rise; past growth doesn't predict the future; pension and tax rules (and your protected pension age) can change. For a decision this size, a regulated adviser is the right person. Tap any ? to see how a number is built.