Guides
How retirement income, SWP, dividends and related mechanics actually work, written to be read alongside the calculators rather than instead of them. New guides are added every week; the full list is below.
Retirement
How Much Money Do I Need to Retire?
The arithmetic behind the number, and why round figures like "1 crore" are usually the wrong way to think about it.
What Is a Retirement Corpus?
The capital that has to fund every year you are not earning — and how it differs from savings.
How Inflation Affects Your Retirement
Why the single biggest risk to a retirement plan is the one that shows up every year without fail.
Retiring at 40: What It Actually Takes
The maths of an unusually long retirement, and the assumptions that matter most.
Retiring at 50: What It Actually Takes
Ten fewer working years and ten more retired ones — how that trade shows up in the numbers.
Retiring at 60: What It Actually Takes
The most common retirement age in India, and the corpus a standard timeline requires.
Longevity Risk: The Danger of Outliving Your Money
Why planning to a longer life expectancy is the cheapest insurance in retirement planning.
Healthcare Costs in Retirement
The one budget line that reliably grows as you age, and reliably inflates faster than everything else.
How Much Should I Save for Retirement Each Month?
Turning a distant target into a monthly number you can actually act on.
NPS vs Mutual Funds for Retirement
How the two compare on lock-in, annuity rules, costs, flexibility and tax, without picking a winner for everyone.
Step-Up SIP for Retirement: Why Raising It Each Year Matters
How raising your SIP with your income changes the corpus you reach, compared with a flat SIP.
Retirement Planning at 40: Is It Too Late?
SoonWhat starting at 40 means for the monthly amount you need to invest, and the levers that still move the number.
How Much Will EPF Give You at Retirement?
SoonProjecting an EPF balance from salary, contribution and interest assumptions, and what it covers.
Retirement Planning in Your 30s
SoonWhat starting early does to the monthly amount you need to invest, shown with simple arithmetic.
SWP
What Is SWP and How Does It Work?
The mechanics of a Systematic Withdrawal Plan, how it is taxed, and how it differs from a fixed monthly payout.
How Long Can an SWP Last?
The relationship between withdrawal rate, return and time — and why the boundary is narrower than it looks.
Sequence-of-Returns Risk, Explained
Why a market fall in your first year of retirement can matter more than the same fall ten years in.
SWP vs Fixed Deposit: How the Income Compares
Two ways to draw a monthly income from savings, and how differently they behave once tax and inflation are added.
SWP vs Dividend Income
Redeeming your own units versus being paid out of company profits — the cash-flow and tax differences that matter.
How Is an SWP Taxed in India?
Why only the gain portion of each withdrawal is taxable, how equity and debt funds differ, and a worked example.
Does the 4% Rule Work in India?
Where the 4% withdrawal rule comes from, and why higher Indian inflation changes the arithmetic.
Annuity vs SWP for Retirement Income
SoonA fixed payout for life versus a flexible withdrawal plan: certainty, inflation and what is left behind.
The Bucket Strategy for Retirement Income
SoonSplitting a corpus by time horizon to manage withdrawals, and the trade-offs that come with it.
Dividend Income
What Is Dividend Income?
How a payout from company profits becomes cash in your account, and why it is never guaranteed.
How Is Dividend Yield Calculated?
The ratio that decides how much income a given investment produces, and why it moves when the price does.
Building Retirement Income From Dividends
What it actually takes to live off distributions, and where the plan tends to break.
REIT & InvIT
What Is a REIT and How Does It Work?
How a real-estate investment trust pays out rental income, and what drives the yield up or down.
REIT vs InvIT: What Is the Difference?
SoonTwo listed trust structures that distribute cash flows, and the assets and risks that separate them.
Investing
How Much Income Can ₹1 Crore Generate?
Running the same corpus through an SWP and through a dividend-yield lens, side by side.
Can ₹1 Crore Be Enough for Retirement?
It depends entirely on what you spend and when you retire — the arithmetic that actually answers the question.
Can ₹2 Crore Be Enough for Retirement?
A bigger corpus changes the odds, not the method — the arithmetic that shows where ₹2 crore holds up and where it does not.
How Much Do I Need for ₹50,000 Monthly Retirement Income?
The capital required under an SWP versus a dividend-income approach, compared directly.
Income Tax on FD Interest: How It Works in India
SoonHow FD interest is taxed at your slab rate, when TDS applies, and what the after-tax return really is.
How Much Do I Need for ₹1 Lakh Monthly Retirement Income?
SoonThe capital a ₹1 lakh monthly income needs under different withdrawal rates and inflation assumptions.
Can ₹3 Crore Be Enough for Retirement?
SoonWhere a ₹3 crore corpus holds up, where it strains, and the spending levels that decide it.
What Is Real Return and Why Does It Matter?
SoonReturn after inflation is the number that decides whether a corpus grows in purchasing power.
FIRE
What Is FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early)?
The idea behind the movement, the 25x rule it is built on, and where that rule tends to be too optimistic for India.
Lean FIRE vs Fat FIRE
SoonTwo ends of the financial-independence spectrum and the corpus each implies.
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