What is Retirement Corpus? How to calculate it?

Losing sleep thinking about the amount of money you need after retirement? You’re not alone. People are increasingly becoming aware of retirement planning and retirement corpus calculation. A survey conducted in 2025 shows that 50% of urban Indians believe that retirement planning should begin before the age of 35. Back in 2022, this number was just 39%.

Now, the good news. It’s time to bid goodbye to all those nagging thoughts about retirement corpus calculation. In this blog post, we take you through what is retirement corpus, the importance of calculating your retirement corpus and how to calculate your retirement corpus. 

What Is Retirement Corpus?

A retirement corpus, also referred to as a retirement fund or nest egg is the total amount of money and assets that an individual or a couple saves and sets aside during their working years to support their financial needs post retirement. In simple terms, a retirement corpus is the amount that would help a person to fund their lifestyle, expenses, and other financial requirements and lead a peaceful and hassle-free life after retirement.

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Importance of Retirement Corpus Calculation

Now let’s check why calculating your retirement corpus is so important. There are 5 main reasons due to which the retirement corpus calculation has become so relevant.

1. Financial security

Just imagine those post-retirement days when you’ll no longer have a regular income from your employment. Having said that, if you have a well-calculated retirement corpus, you will be in a much safer position. Here, a major advantage is that you will be having the financial security to meet your expenses and lead a hassle-free, comfortable life during your retirement years.

2. Longer life expectancy

Due to factors such as betterment of healthcare and improved living conditions in the present world, people are living longer. Life expectancy in India has witnessed a drastic increase from a low of 35.21 years in 1950 to approximately 70.19 years in 2022. Thus while calculating your retirement corpus, the possibility of a longer life should be taken into consideration. This ensures that you have ample funds to support yourself for an extended period.

3. Protection from inflation

Inflation is an important element as it reduces the purchasing power of money over time. Thus, account for inflation while calculating your retirement corpus. By doing this, you can be ensured that you have enough money to cover future expenses which will be way higher than today’s costs.

4. Benefit of planning and investing early

If you start calculating your retirement corpus in the early days of your career, it lets you plan and invest accordingly. Here a big advantage is that it gives your assets ample time to grow and compound, thus leading to a huge retirement corpus.

5. Assessment of retirement goals

It is quite important to assess whether your retirement goals are realistic and achievable. In case your current savings fall short, you can take the necessary steps to enhance your savings rate or make amendments to your retirement plans accordingly.

6. Optimisation of tax and retirement account

Assume that you have a clear idea about the amount required for retirement. It lets you make calculated decisions about contributing to tax-advantaged retirement accounts. As a result, you can optimize your tax situation and also increase your retirement savings.

How To Calculate Retirement Corpus?

Now you might be thinking about how to do the retirement corpus calculation. It’s pretty simple. All you have to do is to follow the below 5 steps.

1. Monthly expenses – the starting point

First things first. Start by jotting down the items for which you have spent today. It can be anything ranging from groceries to utilities and transport to lifestyle costs. Assume that the sum total of all your monthly expenses is Rs.50,000.

Keep in mind that once your kids become independent, these expenses will come down. However, on the other hand medical expenses and leisure spending could increase. Thus, make sure that you take a realistic average.

2. Account for inflation 

Inflation is a critical aspect that most people forget to take into consideration. Monthly expenses of Rs.50,000 today will not remain the same 20 years from now. With inflation at 6%, it doubles almost every 12 years. Hence, if you are retiring 20 years from now, your monthly expenses may be somewhere around Rs. 1.6 lakh. To keep it simple, that’s the number you need to accumulate to sustain the same lifestyle you are following today.

3. Think about the number of years

As you know by now, in India life expectancy is rising. Thus, to be on a safer side, it’s better to plan for 20-25 years of retirement. Planning for some more years is also fine. Going by our earlier calculation, your monthly expenses of Rs.1.6 lakh amounts to Rs 19-20 lakh a year. If you multiply that figure by 25 years, it will be a sum of around ₹5 crore in future value. It may sound scary, but there’s no need to panic.

4. Consider returns on your savings

Where do you generally invest your savings? It may be in Bank Fixed Deposit, mutual funds, post office, stocks etc. Let’s assume that your retirement savings will continue to give you returns in the range of 6-8% from all those debt and equity investments. The growth in these investments brings down the amount you actually need to save. With the help of online retirement calculators, crunching those numbers is pretty easy now. All you have to do is to type the inflation, expected returns, and years to retirement.

5. Work backwards from your goal

Once you have figured out that corpus number, say Rs 5 crore, the next step is to calculate how much you need to save today. Once you are done with it, break your investments into monthly SIPs or annual contributions to EPF, NPS, PPF, or mutual funds. 

If you start early, it makes a huge difference. Let’s take the case of a 30-year-old person who is investing Rs. 25,000 every month. On the other hand, a 40-year-old person has a monthly savings of Rs. 50,000. The latter has to struggle to reach the same goal as the former, as he started at a much later age.

Key Takeaways

• A retirement corpus is the amount that one needs to fund their lifestyle, expenses, and other financial requirements for leading a peaceful and hassle-free life after retirement.
• Retirement corpus calculation is quite important due to reasons such as financial security, longer life expectancy, inflation protection, the benefit of planning and investing early, assessment of retirement goals and optimisation of tax and retirement accounts.
• For calculating retirement corpus, you need to take into consideration factors such as monthly expenses, inflation, life expectancy, returns on your savings and working backwards from your goal.