A cynical FIRE calculator
Financial independence, minus the wishful thinking.
Most FIRE calculators assume a smooth 7% forever. Smart FIRE throws in market crashes, taxes what you earn, inflates what you spend, and makes your money last exactly as long as you do. Then it tells you the honest year you can stop working.
Free. Look around without an account, and sign up only when you want to save.
What the optimistic calculators leave out
Every input below is a lever you control. The defaults are pessimistic on purpose.
Market crises, priced in
Choose how many downturns to expect, how long each one lasts and how much it takes. They are spread evenly from today to your life expectancy, retirement years included.
Returns after tax
Each asset carries its own return and tax rate. Projections run on what you actually keep, and cash sitting at 0% earns exactly that.
Inflation, plus your margin
Set base inflation and an extra buffer of your own, because official figures rarely match your grocery bill.
Money that runs out on schedule
No infinite 4% rule. The target is the capital that carries your retirement expenses to your life expectancy, with an emergency fund and inheritance goal on top.
Four inputs. One honest answer.
- 01
Set your profile
Age, life expectancy, inflation, and how many crises you expect to live through.
- 02
Log income and expenses
Your current monthly numbers. The gap between them is what gets invested.
- 03
Add your portfolio
Every asset with its value, expected return, and the tax you pay on it.
- 04
Read your FIRE age
A wealth trajectory chart and a year-by-year breakdown, crises included.
Your numbers stay yours.
Look around without an account. Once you save your plan, it is protected like this.
Only you can see your plan
Row-level security in the database lets each account read and change only its own numbers. Other users cannot query them.
Stored in Switzerland
Your data is kept in a database in Zurich. The app servers that process it run in Frankfurt, in the EU.
Encrypted in transit and at rest
Every connection uses HTTPS with TLS, and stored data is encrypted with AES-256.
Certified infrastructure
Smart FIRE runs on Vercel and Supabase. Both are audited for SOC 2 Type 2 and certified to ISO 27001.
The details are in our Privacy Policy.
Questions
Straight answers about Smart FIRE
What the calculator does, what it refuses to promise, and what happens to your data.
What is Smart FIRE?
Smart FIRE is a free, web-based financial independence (FIRE) calculator that deliberately models the bad years. Instead of one flat average return, it simulates recurring market crises, applies taxes to investment gains, adjusts for inflation, and requires your portfolio to last until your life expectancy. It is built and maintained by Alan Gallicchio and is currently free to use while in beta.
How is Smart FIRE different from a standard FIRE calculator?
Most FIRE calculators assume a constant average return and a perpetual withdrawal rate, which produces optimistic retirement dates. Smart FIRE injects periodic market crashes with recovery periods, taxes your returns before they compound, inflates your future expenses, and plans a spend-down to life expectancy rather than an infinite portfolio. The result is a later but more defensible retirement year.
What does FIRE mean?
FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. It describes saving and investing aggressively until your portfolio can cover your living expenses, so paid work becomes optional. Your FIRE number is the portfolio size at which that becomes true.
What information do I need to enter?
You enter your income, your expenses, your current portfolio and investments, and a handful of retirement assumptions such as expected return, inflation, target retirement age, and life expectancy. Smart FIRE then projects your portfolio year by year and shows the age at which you reach financial independence.
Do I need an account to use Smart FIRE?
No. You can open the app and look around without signing up. A free account is only needed to save your numbers: the first time you save, Smart FIRE asks you to sign up or log in and then keeps what you entered.
Is my financial data private?
Yes. Row-level security in the database lets each account read and change only its own data. Your plan is stored in Zurich, Switzerland, encrypted with AES-256 at rest and TLS in transit, on infrastructure from Vercel and Supabase that is audited for SOC 2 Type 2 and certified to ISO 27001. Smart FIRE does not sell personal or financial data. Details are in the Privacy Policy at smartfire.li/privacy.
Is Smart FIRE financial advice?
No. Smart FIRE is a planning and modelling tool, not financial, tax, or investment advice. Its projections depend on the assumptions you provide and on simplified market models. Consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions.
Ready for the honest number?
Open the app and fill in your numbers in a few minutes. You only need a free account to save them.