FIRE Calculator — Australia

Most FIRE calculators grow your savings at a flat rate and stop when they reach 25 times your spending. In Australia that misses three things: how much of your wealth sits in super, how it is taxed on the way in, and when you are allowed to touch it. This calculator runs your pay through the 2026-27 rules every year until you retire, then draws the money down year by year to the age you plan to.

Money outside super grows at its own return, less fees and any tax drag you set. Super grows at a return quoted after the fund's tax on earnings, which is how funds report it. Once you retire, spending comes from investments outside super until 60, then from both pools in proportion. The rates come from the ATO and its key super rates and thresholds; Assumptions & method lists every one.

Super is preserved until you meet a condition of release. For anyone born on or after 1 July 1964 the preservation age is 60, which in practice means you can draw on super once you are 60 and have retired or left an employment arrangement, or from 65 whether or not you still work (Moneysmart, ATO).

So if you stop work at 45, there are 15 years to fund entirely from money outside super: shares, ETFs, cash, an investment property or part-time income. Those years are the bridge. A plan can hold enough in super for a long retirement and still fail, because the money is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The calculator tests this directly. For every retirement age it tries, spending before 60 can only come from your accessible investments. If they run out before 60, that age fails, whatever your super balance. The bridge panel then shows how much you need outside super to cover the gap, how much the projection has there, and the difference.

A transition to retirement income stream does not change the picture for an early retiree: it only starts at preservation age, and until you retire or turn 65 it pays out no more than 10% of its balance a year (Moneysmart).

Your FIRE age is the earliest age at which the money lasts to your plan-to age, 92 by default, with every year's spending paid in full.

Today's dollars. Every balance is shown in today's purchasing power, so a balance decades away is shown as what it would buy now. The Australian calculators also show the present value on ASIC's standard basis, which uses wage growth before retirement, so you can compare it with your super fund's own forecasts.

Fixed returns. The projection assumes the same return every year. That keeps the answer stable and readable, but it hides sequence risk: a run of poor years early in retirement. Run the same plan through the drawdown simulator to see a range of outcomes.

It can beat the 4% rule. The engine may find a FIRE age at which your portfolio is smaller than 25 times your spending. That happens when the assumed returns, after fees and inflation, fund the plan in steady markets. The 4% rule was built to survive the worst historical sequences, so it is more cautious, and the gap between the two is the margin given up.

The Age Pension is left out unless you add it under Other income & expenses. It is means-tested, and many early retirees with substantial assets receive a part pension or none for some years.

• Retirement spending. At a 4% withdrawal rate, every extra $1,000 a year of spending needs about $25,000 more invested. Spending less now also raises your savings, so it works from both ends.
• Your savings rate. The share of take-home pay you invest sets how fast the gap closes. The savings rate calculator shows that relationship on its own.
• Where the savings go. Salary sacrifice is taxed at 15% instead of your marginal rate, so more ends up invested, but it is locked until 60. Money outside super is taxed at your marginal rate first but can fund the bridge. The calculator shows both effects at once.
• Fees. The defaults are 0.7% a year in super and 0.2% outside it, and they compound for decades. The "What actually moves your date" panel shows how many years a fee difference is worth on your figures.
• Return assumptions. 8% before fees outside super and 7.5% in super, with 2.5% inflation, are mainstream long-run assumptions, not forecasts. Why the defaults are reasonable explains each one.