Saving 50% of your income

The short answer

Saving 50% of your income reaches financial independence in about 19.1 years from a standing start, at a 5% real return. Beginning at 30 that is independence around age 49, with a target of 30.8 times spending drawn at 3.25%. Your salary is not part of that calculation.

Change the inputs that do matter

Income is here only to show the dollar amounts. Move it and the number of years does not budge.

Saving each year $40,000
Living on $40,000
Target at 30.8x $1.23M

How much the return assumption moves it

Years to independence by real return
Real returnYearsIndependent at
3%22.152
4%20.550
5%19.149
6%18.048
7%17.047

Saving 50%

19.1years

Independent at 49, starting from 30.

Living on 50% of income
Target multiple 30.8x spending
Moving to 60% −4.6 yrs

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Against every other rate

The curve is steep at the bottom and flat at the top. Moving from 10% to 15% buys far more time than moving from 60% to 70%, which is worth knowing before setting a heroic target.

Years to financial independence by savings rate
Savings rateLive onYears to FIIndependent at
10%90%51.481
15%85%42.873
20%80%37.868
25%75%34.164
30%70%30.160
35%65%26.657
40%60%24.555
50% this page50%19.149
60%40%14.544
70%30%10.440

Worth knowing: most published versions of this table fix the target at 25 times spending, which assumes a 30-year retirement no matter how early you finish. That flatters the high rates. Save 70% and you stop in your forties, needing the money to last 50 years, where a 4% withdrawal has a poor record. The multiple here is solved rather than assumed, so it rises to 30.8 times at this rate. That is why the figures run a little longer than the ones you may have seen. Where the rate comes from covers the research.

Common questions

How long does it take to retire saving 50% of your income?

About 19 years from a standing start, at a 5% real return. Starting at 30 that puts independence around age 49. Your income does not appear in that answer, which surprises most people the first time they see it.

Why does income not matter?

Because the savings rate does two jobs at once. It sets how fast the portfolio fills, and it sets how small a portfolio you need, since what you do not save is what you live on. Earn $70,000 and save 50%, or earn $250,000 and save 50%, and the number of years is identical. Income changes how comfortable those years are, not how many there are.

Is 50% a good savings rate?

It is a very high rate and it buys a short timeline: roughly 19 years. The constraint is rarely willpower. It is whether the gap between income and fixed costs, mostly housing, leaves 50% available at all. For many households it does not, which is why Coast FIRE is the more useful milestone than a heroic savings rate.

What would move the date most?

Raising the rate. Going from 50% to 60% takes 4.6 years off the timeline. Cutting spending does it twice over, because every dollar you stop spending is a dollar saved and roughly 31 dollars off the target. Counting Social Security also lowers the target materially, which this page leaves out.

Assumptions on this page. Starting from zero invested, saving a constant share of a constant real income, at a constant real return, with the plan modelled through age 95. Real means after inflation, so every figure is in today's dollars. The target multiple is solved by iterating until the retirement age and the withdrawal rate agree, rather than fixed at 25 times. Existing savings shorten all of these; a raise you do not spend shortens them further. Social Security is excluded and counting it lowers the target materially, which the spending-level pages work through. Taxes are excluded, so read the savings rate as a share of take-home pay rather than gross. These are planning estimates, not advice; read the model's limitations.

Saving a different share

10%15%20%25%30%35%40%60%70%

Related: What is FIRE, Coast FIRE, Spending levels, All savings rates.