Retire by 60? A 27-Year-Old Needs This Much

A young couple in their late 20s living in a metro like Mumbai needs to build a massive retirement corpus by age 60. Starting early with SIPs can make this goal surprisingly achievable — even on a middle-class salary.

Here's what happened: A Mumbai-based couple aged 27 would need an estimated ₹12–15 crore corpus to retire comfortably at 60, factoring in inflation and rising city living costs.. With Indian inflation averaging 6% annually, today's ₹60,000 monthly expense could balloon to over ₹3–4 lakh per month by the time they hit 60.. Starting SIPs of ₹15,000–₹20,000 per month at age 27 in equity mutual funds earning ~12% annually can realistically build this corpus over 33 years..

What you should do: Start a SIP today — even ₹5,000/month in a diversified equity mutual fund is a powerful first step; increase it by 10% every year as your salary grows.. Calculate your own retirement number using the 25x rule: multiply your expected annual retirement expenses by 25 to estimate the corpus you need.. Open an NPS (National Pension System) account to get an additional ₹50,000 tax deduction under Section 80CCD(1B) while building a retirement fund..

Delaying your SIP by just 5 years — from 27 to 32 — can reduce your final corpus by nearly 40%, forcing you to invest almost double each month to catch up.