Risk
Inflation Calculator
Enter your household budget line by line, apply a different rate to categories like healthcare, and see the monthly figure you would need later.
Last updated 9 August 2026 · Free · No sign-up · Nothing you type leaves your browser
Your monthly budget today
Inflating at 10.0%, not the headline rate
Assumptions
The RBI's mandate is to keep CPI inflation at 4%, within a 2%–6% band.
Medical costs have generally risen faster than the headline basket, which matters because healthcare is the one line that grows as you age.
The same lifestyle, 25 years from now
₹2,88,396/month
You spend ₹55,000 a month today. Buying exactly the same things in 25 years costs 5.2× as much — ₹34.6 L a year.
Today
₹55,000
Per month
In 25 years
₹2,88,396
Per month, same lifestyle
Prices double in
11.9 yrs
At 6.00% a year
Your monthly bill, year by year
Line by line
Applying one average rate to a whole budget hides the categories that hurt. Healthcare is the usual offender.
| Category | Today | In 25 yrs | × |
|---|---|---|---|
| Food and groceries | ₹15,000 | ₹64,378 | 4.3× |
| Housing and rent | ₹20,000 | ₹85,837 | 4.3× |
| Healthcare | ₹8,000 | ₹86,678 | 10.8× |
| Utilities and bills | ₹5,000 | ₹21,459 | 4.3× |
| Travel and leisure | ₹7,000 | ₹30,043 | 4.3× |
| Total | ₹55,000 | ₹2,88,396 | 5.2× |
Inflation is the reason retirement planning is hard
Every other risk in a retirement plan is occasional. Markets fall sometimes. Jobs are lost sometimes. Inflation is different: it operates every single year, in the same direction, without pause, and it is the only risk that is guaranteed to show up.
The effect is easy to state and difficult to feel. At 6%, prices double roughly every twelve years. Someone retiring at 60 and living to 85 will see their cost of living roughly quadruple during retirement alone — on top of everything inflation did during the thirty working years before it.
Why one average rate is not enough
Most inflation calculators take a single number and apply it to a single total. That is a reasonable approximation for a short horizon and a poor one for a retirement plan, because the categories inside a household budget do not move together.
Healthcare is the clearest example. It has generally risen faster than headline CPI in India, and it is the one line that grows structurally with age — a 75-year-old's medical spending bears little relation to a 45-year-old's. Meanwhile housing costs may plateau or vanish entirely if a loan is repaid. Modelling these separately, as the calculator above does, gives a materially different total to a blended average.
What the RBI target does and does not promise
India's monetary policy framework commits the RBI to keeping consumer price inflation at 4%, within a tolerance band of 2% to 6%. That is a target for a national index over the medium term. It is not a promise about your grocery bill, your insurance premium or your child's fees, and it is not a guarantee for any individual year.
For planning purposes the sensible response is to treat the target as a floor for your assumption rather than a ceiling, and to check what happens if you are wrong. That is the entire purpose of the conservative scenario in our retirement corpus calculator.
What inflation does to retirement income
The mirror image of rising expenses is shrinking income. A fixed monthly income — from an annuity, a fixed-rate instrument, or an SWP you never increase — buys less every year with complete predictability.
This is why our SWP calculator includes an annual increase input, and why turning it on shortens how long the corpus lasts so sharply. Keeping purchasing power constant is expensive. Not keeping it constant is simply a decision to become poorer slowly, and it is better made deliberately than by accident.
Frequently asked questions
What inflation rate should I use for retirement planning?
The RBI operates a flexible inflation-targeting framework with a 4% CPI target and a 2%–6% tolerance band. For planning a household budget over decades, many people use 6% as a working assumption because the basket a family actually buys has tended to outpace the headline index. The most useful exercise is not picking one number but comparing 5%, 6% and 7% and seeing how much the answer moves.
Why does this calculator use a different rate for healthcare?
Because applying one average rate to an entire budget hides the categories that do the damage. Medical costs in India have generally risen faster than headline CPI, and healthcare is the one line item that reliably grows as you age — exactly when your ability to earn more has ended. Modelling it at the same rate as groceries understates the problem.
How quickly do prices double?
At 6% inflation, roughly every 12 years. At 7%, about every 10 years. At 5%, about every 14. Over a retirement that might span 30 years, that means the same lifestyle can cost four to eight times what it does at the start — which is why a fixed retirement income is a slowly failing plan.
Is my personal inflation rate the same as CPI?
Almost certainly not. CPI measures a representative national basket with fixed weights. Your actual experience depends on what you buy, where you live and what stage of life you are in. A household with school fees and medical bills typically experiences higher inflation than the index; one that owns its home outright and travels little may experience less.
How does inflation change how much I need to retire?
Enormously, in two compounding ways. It raises the expense figure you start retirement with, and it keeps raising it every year you are retired. A single percentage point of extra inflation over a 25-year accumulation and a 25-year retirement can move the required corpus by tens of percent. Our retirement corpus calculator lets you see the exact effect on your own numbers.