Financial Independence Calculator
What is your financial independence number?
Five numbers decide when work becomes optional: the thin number that covers your essentials, the full number that funds the life you live now, and the point where compounding finishes the job for you. Calculate all of them, in whatever currency you actually live in.
Step 1 of 2: What your life costs
What you spend
Your FI number is built from your spending, not your income. Enter annual figures in the currency you live in.
£
Bare minimum to live: housing, food, healthcare, insurance, utilities. Nothing discretionary.
£
What you actually spend in a normal year, including the comfortable extras.
£
The upgraded life: more travel, larger margin, no trade-offs. Leave blank to skip Fat FI.
Please enter a currency and both your essential and current annual expenses.
Step 2 of 2: Where you stand today
Where you stand
This calculates Coast FI and how many years away each number is. Returns are entered after inflation, so every figure stays in today's money.
£
Total liquid investments: pensions, ISAs, brokerage, UCITS. Exclude your primary home.
£
Used to estimate how many years until you reach each number.
£
Income you would keep earning part-time. Leave blank to skip Barista FI.
Please enter your age, a later target age, and your current assets.
Your thin number · Lean FI
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Full FIYour lifestyle today
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Fat FIThe upgraded life
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Coast FINeeded invested today
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Barista FIWith part-time income
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Coast FI
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One number, one currency. This calculator keeps everything in a single currency by design. If you spend in one currency and hold assets in another, your real FI target moves with the exchange rate. The arithmetic gives you the goal. The structure underneath, currency and jurisdiction included, decides whether the goal holds.
Assumptions used
From number to plan
A number tells you the target. Structure tells you whether you reach it.
Most expats obsess over which funds to hold. The real leverage is the architecture underneath: currency, jurisdiction, and the wrapper your assets sit in. If you want to know whether your number actually holds across borders, that is a conversation worth having.
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Financial independence numbers, explained
What is a financial independence (FI) number?
Your FI number is the size of portfolio that can fund your annual spending indefinitely from investment returns alone. It is your annual expenses divided by a safe withdrawal rate. At a 4% withdrawal rate that means 25 times your annual spending. Once your invested assets reach this number, paid work becomes optional rather than required.
What is the difference between Lean FI, Full FI, and Fat FI?
Lean FI, the thin number, covers only essentials: housing, food, healthcare, and insurance. Full FI covers your actual current lifestyle. Fat FI covers an upgraded life with travel, larger discretionary spending, and a wide safety margin. They are the same calculation applied to three different annual spending figures.
What is Coast FI?
Coast FI is the amount you need invested today so that, with no further contributions, compounding alone grows it into your full FI number by your target age. Once you reach Coast FI you can stop saving for retirement and still arrive on schedule, because the existing portfolio does the remaining work.
What is Barista FI?
Barista FI is the portfolio size where a 4% withdrawal plus modest part-time income together cover your full expenses. It is lower than Full FI because part-time earnings carry part of the load, allowing you to step back from full-time work earlier.
Does the 4% rule work for expats with multiple currencies?
The 4% rule is a useful starting point, but it was built on a single-currency, single-country assumption. An expat who spends in one currency and holds assets in another carries currency risk the rule ignores. The arithmetic still gives you a target. The structure underneath, including currency and jurisdiction, is what determines whether the target actually holds.