How much money do you need to retire in 20 years?

Summary: This article starts like a psychological thriller. The more you read, the scarier your retirement number gets. But stick around and we’d whip up a plan that makes it more doable. Like all great sports films, this one opens with you flat on your back, staring at the metaphorical stadium lights, wondering why life seems to specialise in taking things away. Your dreams, your aspirations, your will to wake up on Monday mornings… all gone. To make things worse, the odds of a turnaround look insurmountable. (Spoiler: they’ll still look insurmountable if you only read half this article.) At this point, the logical thing might be to slam your laptop shut, grab a tub of ice cream and spend two hours watching Chak De!, where at least you know the underdog wins in the end. But stay with me. Because, like every sports film worth its montage sequence, the comeback is coming. By the time we’re done here (fingers crossed), the clouds will part, the angels will descend — or, more realistically, the SIP calculator will — and your financial future will look a little less like a horror film and a little more like a happy ending where you finally get to raise the trophy. All this is my long-winded and dramatic way of saying, “Don’t quit reading this article halfway

This article was originally published on September 17, 2025.