Retirement Portfolio Check: Are You 20 Years Short?

Most Indians never check if their retirement savings will actually last their lifetime. Here is a simple way to review your retirement portfolio and find out if you are truly financially independent — before it is too late.

Here's what happened: Retirement planning in India is often set-and-forget — most people accumulate savings but never test if the corpus can fund 20–30 years of post-retirement expenses.. A basic retirement review involves three checks: current corpus value, annual withdrawal rate, and whether returns beat inflation over the long term.. With average Indian life expectancy now crossing 70 years and urban retirement age at 58–60, a retiree may need funds for 15 to 25 years after stopping work..

What you should do: Calculate how many years your current corpus can sustain your monthly expenses — divide total savings by your annual spending to get a raw estimate.. Check if your portfolio is rebalanced for your age: equity exposure should gradually reduce after 50, shifting more into debt, FDs, and monthly income instruments.. Review your withdrawal rate — if you are drawing more than 4% of your corpus annually, your savings risk running out before your 80s; adjust or top up now..

Pro tip: A ₹1 crore corpus at 6% annual return gives you roughly ₹50,000/month — but at 7% inflation, your real purchasing power halves every 10 years. Plan for that gap.