Retiring Broke? 3 Moves to Build ₹3.5Cr Corpus

Most Indians are not saving enough to retire comfortably. If you start late or save too little, you could outlive your money. Here is what retirement actually costs and what you must do now to fix it.

Here's what happened: A comfortable retirement for a 30-year-old Indian today likely requires a corpus of ₹3–5 crore by age 60, accounting for 25+ years of post-retirement expenses and 6% average inflation.. Most salaried Indians rely only on EPF and PPF, which typically accumulate ₹50–80 lakh by retirement — a massive gap against what they actually need to sustain their lifestyle.. Indians are living longer — average life expectancy is now 70+ years — meaning your retirement corpus must last 20–30 years, not 10, making under-saving far more dangerous than most realise..

What you should do: Calculate your retirement number now: multiply your current monthly expenses by 300 (the 25-year rule) and adjust for inflation using an online retirement calculator — this gives your target corpus.. Start or increase your SIP immediately — even ₹5,000 per month in an equity mutual fund SIP at 12% returns over 25 years grows to approximately ₹94 lakh; delay by 5 years and you lose nearly ₹40 lakh.. Open a National Pension System (NPS) account if you haven't — it gives an extra ₹50,000 tax deduction under Section 80CCD(1B) and forces disciplined long-term investing you cannot easily withdraw from..

The 50-30-20 rule says save 20% of income — but for retirement alone, aim to earmark at least 10–15% exclusively toward long-term corpus-building instruments like NPS, equity MFs, and PPF combined.

For readers weighing their credit and loan options, our personal loan guide and CIBIL score resources put this update in context.