Financial Independence, Retire Early
Independence has more than one date.
Full FI is the classic finish line: enough invested to cover your spending, so work becomes optional. Lean and Fat move that line down or up, and once you add part-time income, Barista lets that work cover the gap. fjordFIRE puts each on your timeline from your real expenses and currency mix, with the odds behind each date.
Their FI milestones · the demo household
Lean FI in 2044. Full FI in 2047.
Full FI is the baseline: enough invested to cover their whole lifestyle. The others move that line down or up. Choose one to see what it means and when Maya and Sam reach it, at the pace they save today.
Lean FI
On a smaller budget
Full FI
Their whole lifestyle
Fat FI
With a margin on top
Lean FI
2044 · age 56
Full FI
2047 · age 59
Fat FI
2052 · age 64
Full FI · 2047 · age 59 · 21 years away
Full FI is the classic finish line: enough invested to cover your whole lifestyle at your withdrawal rate, so work becomes optional. It’s what most people mean by financial independence.
Full FI at today’s pace and the long-run return. Across 1,000 market paths, three in four reach it by 2050 (cautious) and one in four by 2042 (hopeful). The odds, further down.
A date you could actually stop on
A pension is easy to add to the pile. That money is real, but you can’t touch it until 60 or 67, and the bills keep coming before then. fjordFIRE counts each pension from the month it opens, after its own tax, and only lands your FI date when the money you can reach carries you through the gap. For pension-heavy households that moves the date later. It’s also a date you could act on.
The bridge to the pensions · the demo household
FI at 59, then a 3-year bridge to Maya’s pension.
Their Growth investments carry them from 59 until each locked pension opens. As each one opens, it joins in, counted after its own tax.
Their savings
Growth investments they can reach
Maya’s pension
Locked until 62
Their savings
from 59
Maya’s pension
from 62
€30K after tax sits in pensions that open after the FI date.
Saved plans, compared side by side
Put a number on the big decisions
A career break. A move abroad. A child. An inheritance. Each one bends the date. In fjordFIRE you model them as life events, save them as named plans, and compare them side by side. The big decisions get an actual number attached while you’re still deciding.
Life events
Life doesn’t move in a straight line. Your plan shouldn’t either.
Model the moments you can see coming, and watch exactly how each one bends your path.
Their plan
Saving as they do today
With these events
2 life events
Their plan
May 2047 · age 59
With these events
Jul 2040 · age 52
What’s moving their date−6.8y
- The move to Valencia€1,788/mo less spending from Oct 2031, saved instead−8.8y
- A second child€358/mo more spending from Apr 2028, out of savings+2.9y
Each event on its own, from a May 2047 plan, with their income unchanged. Together they bring it to Jul 2040.
Change one number, watch the date move
The big decisions aren’t the only lever. Right under your FI date sit the two you control, saving and spending: nudge one and the date shifts as you go. Scenarios go further, with your expected return and the life events you can see coming, saved side by side. It is the fastest way to feel a trade-off: a little more set aside each month against a few months off the clock, before you commit to anything.
The two things you control
You can’t control the market. Savings and spending you can, and they move the FI date the most.
Savings rate
36.7%
€2,196/mo
The share of their income they invest each month. It’s the biggest lever: the more they save, the sooner they reach their FI number.
✓ Healthy: above 20% target
Annual expenses
€58,411
€4,868/mo
What the household spends in a year. It sets the FI number directly, so lower spending means a smaller FI number and an earlier FI date.
A quick look at what each move buys. Nothing changes until they make it real.
Every date comes with its odds
A single tidy year hides the uncertainty behind it. Whatever you set the dials to, fjordFIRE runs your real expenses and inflation-adjusted returns through a thousand market futures, good runs and bad, so each date arrives as a probability rather than false precision.
You see the odds of reaching it, and whether the money lasts once you do, tested to an age you can name. Try a different rule for a rough stretch, flexing in bad years or spending a bit less, and the odds move with it. The math runs on one well-sourced global baseline, with inflation measured for the country you live in, and it recalculates on your monthly check-in. The method page lists every assumption and its source.
Will it last
Will their money last after they stop?
75%
of model market paths last to age 95
Drawing €4,868/mo, their spending today (about €8,940/mo in 2047 money), from the €1,461,759 they can reach when they stop.
If a rough stretch hits, they would…
Draw the same amount, whatever the market does.
Monte Carlo · 1,000 market paths · each dot is 1% of them
One plan for two people, and every goal on it
Most FIRE math quietly assumes one person. fjordFIRE keeps each member’s income, pensions and progress, and the Household / You switch shows your own date beside the shared one. The other goals ride the same plan: a house deposit, a family fund, a sabbatical, each with whose it is, its own projected date, and whether it is ahead or behind.
Two people, one plan
Each one’s own numbers from their October 2026 check-in, and the plan they add up to.
Mayathriving
- Holds
- €172,950
- +€5,512 this month
- Spending they carry
- €3,110 a month
- 64% of the household’s
“A month where the plan just worked.”
Samsteady
- Holds
- €158,299
- +€5,592 this month
- Spending they carry
- €1,758 a month
- 36% of the household’s
“Quiet month. Kept the contributions going.”
Together €331,249One FI date at today’s pace 2047
In the app, each member can switch the FIRE page to You and see their own date beside this one. The public demo opens as a visitor, so it shows the household’s.
Dreams in this plan
The goals riding along with their path to FI, and where each one lands.
- Home DepositReaching it Jul 2032, about 3 months past their Apr 2032 target.3 mo behind3 mo behind
- Sabbatical FundOn track: reaching it Mar 2029, about 7 months early.7 mo ahead7 mo ahead
Run the numbers, or read the ideas
See your own FI date
A calculator answers one question. fjordFIRE keeps the whole picture current every month. It is open to everyone now, free. Manual entry, no bank logins.
Open fjordFIRE →