In March 2021, Ravi bought his startup ‘Handa ka Funda’, a CAT and MBA e-learning web site, which he based in 2013, to the edtech firm Unacademy for an undisclosed quantity. This allowed the 2, then of their late 30s, to attain monetary independence and retire early (FIRE) in 2022.
Among Indians, there’s a quickly rising curiosity in FIRE. Many want to exit the workforce to realize early monetary freedom and management over their life decisions. Ravi, now 42, has achieved that.
| Video Credit: Thamodharan B.
The FIRE motion has been grabbing headlines and social media curiosity this yr. In India, the dialog is choosing up tempo, with a number of podcasts and video interviews on the subject. The sub-Reddit FIRE_Ind has practically 65,000 members and round 46,000 weekly guests. Here, one can share anecdotes about their journey in the direction of monetary independence and search recommendation from ‘FIREd’ people resembling Ravi. But consultants say floor realities are starkly completely different from on-line projections. As the yr nears its finish, we take inventory of the scenario: younger India is raring to FIRE, however can they afford to take action?
Ravi and Neha Handa
A western import
Lavanya Mohan, chartered accountant and creator of Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees (2025), a private finance information, explains the thought migrated throughout the ocean. “[FIRE] is a cultural motion within the West, particularly amongst millennials who lived by the 2008 crash and watched job safety evaporate. For a lot of them, the aim wasn’t to cease working, it was to cease relying on work. The idea unfold from Silicon Valley engineers and private finance blogs to on a regular basis professionals who needed ‘time freedom’ and [a release from] the rat race,” she says.
Illustration by Arivarasu M.
A 2024 nationwide survey from Grant Thornton Bharat LLP titled ‘India’s pension panorama: A examine on retirement actuality and readiness’ discovered a rising need amongst younger Indians for early retirement: 43% within the under-25 group studied hoped to retire earlier than the age of 55. The age group prioritised work-life stability and leisure over prolonged profession spans.
FIRE, nevertheless, is vastly completely different from Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS). “VRS occurs when your employer presents you a bundle to depart early — it’s reactive. FIRE is proactive — one thing you architect for your self, usually years upfront, by saving and investing aggressively,” provides Mohan. “One is born out of redundancy; the opposite out of design.”
Save, make investments, stay (frugally), repeat
To obtain FIRE, the primary tip provided is clear: stay under your means. Mumbai-based mechanical engineer James Fernandes has been dwelling a “frugal” life since COVID-19. The pandemic-triggered spike in well being bills and job-market insecurities made him rethink his priorities. He applied a strict saving and investing routine: no on-line procuring, no consuming out, restricted social outings, and swapping trains for flights. “Budgeting is necessary. It doesn’t imply not spending in any respect however figuring out what one spends on,” says the 41-year-old, who hopes to retire within the subsequent 4 years.
James Fernandes
For Noida-based Jayant Kumar, 45, “the precedence was at all times to speculate earlier than spending”. Kumar managed to achieve his FIRE quantity — 35 occasions his annual bills, with separate buckets for kids’s schooling and marriage — by the top of 2023 and stop working full-time in October 2024. He says, “I began investing aggressively in 2015 and by 2020, I used to be saving greater than 60% of my earnings. Compounding did an important job of including wealth to my investments.” The former IT skilled, whose focus now could be household and well being, provides, “Saving small quantities may appear insignificant, however can yield multifold returns in the long term. Even with lease and EMIs, one ought to save 10%-20% of their wage persistently.”
Jayant Kumar.
As the thought travelled continents, FIRE aspirants have been chasing borrowed numbers and percentages, which consultants say unfold extra misinformation. According to Google search outcomes, to attain FIRE, one should save and make investments aggressively — usually 50%-75% of their earnings — to construct a corpus that’s roughly 25 occasions their annual bills. This permits them to take care of a secure withdrawal fee of 4% post-retirement. Does this apply to Indian realities? “Those figures come from the U.S., the place inflation hovers round 2%-3% and markets behave otherwise. In India, the maths is way much less forgiving,” explains Chennai-based Mohan. “Inflation is larger, returns are risky, and household obligations hardly ever shrink with age. Saving 75% of your earnings is difficult sufficient in California. In Indian metro cities, it’s near-impossible.” One also needs to be cautious of the well-known “4% rule”, she warns. “It collapses when your post-retirement medical and way of life prices develop sooner than your investments.”
Pensions actuary Palak Chauhan, Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of India, who has labored as a worldwide worker advantages advisor for Nestlé, Citigroup, General Motors and General Electric, says it doesn’t add up within the Indian context. “People suppose private finance is so simple as placing all the things in a system. It’s not. One wants to think about assumptions which might be related to every financial system. And 25 occasions of 1’s annual bills is irrelevant to India. A extra lifelike estimate of the fitting expense quantity involves round 30-33 occasions.”
She goes a step additional so as to add that in a rustic as huge as India, there are too many variables at play that make it very troublesome to zero in on a selected proportion; numbers floating on-line aren’t etched in stone. Monika Halan, private finance professional and creator of Let’s Talk Money: You’ve Worked Hard for It, Now Make It Work for You (2018), says every life is completely different. “You must take skilled assist to do retirement planning.”
Monika Halan, private finance professional and creator.
“Young individuals need shortcuts to make some huge cash rapidly. In my expertise, it is a positive strategy to lose some huge cash and peace of thoughts.”Monika HalanPersonal finance professional and creator of Let’s Talk Money
A pipe dream?
Mohan presents a grounded perspective. “FIRE assumes it can save you half or extra of your earnings. That’s a luxurious once you’re juggling EMIs, caregiving, and inflation that gained’t stop. DINK (double earnings, no youngsters) {couples} and high-income professionals might handle it, however for many middle-class Indians, the actual dream is to retire with dignity, not early,” she says.
For Mumbai-based customer-service worker Eeshan (identify modified on request), 28, saving 75% is far-fetched when making ends meet is a precedence. “Living alone on lease, managing all bills with none monetary help, makes the thought of early retirement really feel unattainable,” he says. “After paying lease, EMIs, payments, and different crucial bills, I make it a degree to put aside a small quantity every month — I can handle 5% in SIPs. With the bills ever growing and salaries not matching them, it appears unattainable to get out of this cycle,” he provides. It, thus, seems that solely a sure part can afford to attain FIRE — the high-net-worth people (HNIs) and ultra-HNIs.
Money makes cash
Vivek Kaul, finance columnist and creator of Bad Money: Inside the NPA Mess and How It Threatens the Indian Banking System (2020), says, “Only when one invests some huge cash, and catches the upcycle [like some people have managed to do in the last five years in the stock market], does the idea of FIRE work. Invested cash grows and leaves one with more cash to retire early. This is a vital level that individuals are inclined to overlook.”
Vivek Kaul, finance commentator and creator.
What captures the creativeness of FIRE fanatics are the success tales. FIRE permits Ravi to go on prolonged international journeys along with his household, usually impromptu. “We have a look at our bills after the journey as an alternative of planning the finances,” the IIT Kharagpur alumnus says. “Earlier, length, airways and seats, mode of transport, lodging, neighbourhoods, and locations to eat could be budgeted. Now, we plan based mostly on consolation.” In Singapore, he splurged on Express passes at Universal Studios, which value him round $300 (approx. ₹20,397) for his household of three. Before FIRE, he would have opted to face in lengthy queues within the sweltering warmth as an alternative.
Paradox of leisure
Psychologist Dhara Ghuntla, affiliated with Mumbai’s Sujay Hospital, warns that early retirement experiences won’t be the identical for everybody. “Early retirement is usually imagined as freedom from stress, however it might probably additionally imply freedom from construction, stimulation, and which means — the three pillars that maintain emotional and cognitive well being.” The scenario is likely to be even worse for a social butterfly. “Occupational environments present built-in alternatives for social regulation — interplay, suggestions loops, and a way of contribution. These play a protecting function towards social withdrawal and emotional dysregulation. When work is abruptly eliminated, particularly with out various social roles, one may face elevated isolation, lack of social confidence, and emotional blunting,” says Ghuntla.
A youngsters’s edutainment workshop organised by Neha Handa.
The lack of an expert identification post-FIRE is why Ravi is constructing an AI-driven personal-finance platform for Indians. “I’m calling it Handa Uncle — the identification disaster is clear.” With the financial cushion to experiment, he provides that there’s additionally an arrogance issue connected to it. “Who is aware of, due to [Handa Uncle], sometime I is likely to be on the duvet of Forbes journal.”
His spouse, Neha, 41, prioritises motherhood now. She drops off and picks up their four-year-old from college and organises weekend edutainment workshops (by alternative, not necessity) of their housing society in Jaipur. “There’s play, arts and crafts, storytelling, and different mind fitness center actions,” she says.
Dr Ruksheda Syeda, psychiatrist and psychotherapist at Trellis Family Centre, Mumbai. (Special association)
It seems that an ingrained hustle tradition in Indians is one more reason why leisure can’t be loved, regardless of working exhausting in the direction of an early retirement. Dr Ruksheda Syeda, psychiatrist and psychotherapist at Trellis Family Centre, Mumbai, says, “Indian programs of household, schooling, social constructions, and gender roles are constructed in response to the pursuit of achievements as a mark of success, class, identification and self price. The worry of shedding to competitors encourages the fixed grind and engagement [in work].” The former President Bombay Psychiatric Society says {that a} discouragement to discover passions exterior of educational excellence and work achievements can be accountable. “Interests, additional curricular actions, and hobbies exterior of teachers and professions aren’t given as a lot significance. Post retirement, what can an individual take pleasure in whereas remaining productive, entertained and cognitively sharp when one hasn’t explored and developed a curiosity in youthful days?”
A phrase from the sceptics
Meanwhile, monetary consultants advise warning in the case of on-line posts about success tales. “FIRE is mainly promoting a story — by these within the enterprise of managing cash,” says Kaul. “They want a catchy story to promote to their potential shoppers. The second one makes use of a time period like FIRE, it grabs the eye of people who find themselves financially illiterate or not as literate to have the ability to see by the truth that it’s mere storytelling. It is necessary to look past what’s being projected as a narrative on social media.”
Halan agrees. “FIRE is a dream bought by influencers who show their existence to others and encourage them to both take extra dangers with their cash or do some facet hustle to make more cash than a job pays,” she says. “But it does take a very good 20-25 years to get there [to FIRE] on a wage.”
Regardless of FIRE, financial savings are suggested as necessary for working and non-working people. Kaul says, “The first purpose must be to save cash and construct an emergency fund, after which go about constructing extra financial savings.” While he acknowledges that individuals usually have a tendency to avoid wasting for a selected aim, he says one ought to purpose to avoid wasting as a way to make higher selections for themselves “and to have some management over your time”. “Say, you’re confronted with sudden unemployment however have cash within the financial institution, which means you’ve barely extra time to search for a brand new job as an alternative of settling for no matter comes your manner,” he provides.
Go straightforward, not aggressive
Instead of operating behind numbers off the Internet to avoid wasting aggressively past your means, Mohan suggests going straightforward on hard-core FIRE and to go for Coast FIRE or Barista FIRE, which really feel “extra humane”.
“The level isn’t to retire at 35 with an enormous corpus. It’s to achieve a stage the place cash doesn’t dictate each choice,” says Mohan. “FIRE just isn’t about by no means working once more. It’s about optionality and by no means feeling trapped once more. You can work fewer hours, freelance, seek the advice of, educate, run a enterprise, or do one thing fully completely different.”
Luck by likelihood
FIRE may seem to be an exit technique from an all-consuming 9-to-5 rat race, however the path to monetary independence is fraught with dangers and requires the right alignment of many elements. “There’s a lot competitors in India, exhausting work and expertise usually are not sufficient — one wants luck [and privilege] by their facet,” says Ravi. “Someone can hold saving and do all the fitting issues, however they will nonetheless find yourself in an unlucky scenario.”
The creator is a Bengaluru-based options author.
