Summary of this article
Big financial goals are meant to inspire discipline. But sometimes, they do the opposite.
Post retirement, expenses often fall - not dramatically, but meaningfully. EMIs disappear. Children become financially independent. The daily costs of working life - commuting, eating out, maintaining a certain professional image - begin to fade.
The real danger isn’t that you won’t reach the Rs 40-crore goal. It’s that you’ll see that number, feel defeated, and stop investing altogether.
It’s the kind of number that can stop you mid-scroll: Rs 40 crore!
That’s what Sandeep Jethwani, co-founder of Dezerv, a wealth management company, suggested in a recent appearance on The Money Mindset podcast. The premise was simple but startling: If you’re in your late 30s, living in an Indian metro, and spending Rs 1–2 lakh a month, you may need a retirement corpus of Rs 40 crore by the time you turn 60.
On paper, it sounds prudent. In practice, for many, it feels paralysing.
Because somewhere in a 2BHK apartment in Gurugram or Mumbai, there’s a 28-year-old professional earning Rs 14 lakh a year, staring at that number and quietly wondering: What’s the point of even trying?
The Fear That Numbers Create
Big financial goals are meant to inspire discipline. But sometimes, they do the opposite.
Abhishek Kumar, Founder of SahajMoney, puts it bluntly: “The guy telling you that you need Rs 40 crore is often the same guy selling you the plan to get there.”
It’s a sharp critique, but it reflects a growing anxiety in India’s personal finance landscape - where extreme projections can feel less like guidance and more like pressure.
And pressure, in money matters, rarely leads to good decisions.
The Assumptions Behind The Rs 40 Crore Dream
The Rs 40-crore figure isn’t conjured out of thin air. It’s arrived at based on certain assumptions – some reasonable, some disputable.
These include:
You’ll live your current lifestyle until you die
Your expenses will never materially decrease
Inflation will continue to take away your purchasing power
You’ll draw down nearly all your money from your investment corpus
Life doesn’t work like that though.
What Actually Changes After Retirement
Talk to retirees, and a different picture emerges.
Expenses often fall - not dramatically, but meaningfully. EMIs disappear. Children become financially independent. The daily costs of working life - commuting, eating out, maintaining a certain professional image - begin to fade.
“For many Indian households, spending drops by 30-40 per cent post-retirement. Not because they compromise, but because their lives naturally simplify,” informs Kumar.
The Assets You’re Probably Ignoring
There’s another quiet truth: most salaried Indians are already building a retirement cushion - even if they don’t actively track it.
Provident funds, gratuity, National Pension System (NPS), Public Provident Fund (PPF) - these aren’t flashy, but they are powerful. Add a paid-off home to the mix, and the dependency on a massive corpus reduces significantly.
Yet, these rarely feature in viral “retirement math” calculations.
The Math That Actually Matters
The Rs 40-crore claim assumes Rs 2 lakh current monthly expenses for a 40-year-old planning to retire by 60 with 9 per cent inflation and then a 30-year retirement.
“Doing this math, Rs 2 lakh today inflates to 10 lakh per month at 60. Using the 4 per cent safe withdrawal rule, one would need roughly Rs 40 crore with conservative estimate to factor in healthcare, lifestyle creep, and longer life expectancy,” says Kumar.
So, the figure isn’t wrong, but it’s not universal either.
If your actual expenses are closer to Rs 60,000–Rs 80,000, your required corpus could be dramatically lower. Retirement planning isn’t about matching someone else’s lifestyle - it’s about sustaining your own.
Consider this:
A 28-year-old investing Rs 25,000 a month in equity mutual funds, earning an average return of 11 per cent, could accumulate roughly Rs 7–8 crore by age 60.
It’s not Rs 40 crore. But for many, it’s enough.
Enough to maintain dignity. Enough to preserve independence. Enough to sleep well at night.
So, “one shouldn’t get paralysed by the headline number and instead calculate their required corpus based on their expenses that would continue during retirement,” adds Kumar.
The Real Risk Isn’t Falling Short
The real danger isn’t that you won’t reach the Rs 40-crore goal. It’s that you’ll see that number, feel defeated, and stop investing altogether.
Because in personal finance, the biggest mistakes aren’t mathematical - they’re emotional.
Starting late hurts. Saving too little hurts.
But quitting? That’s the one decision that compounds against you forever.
A More Human Way to Think About Retirement
Maybe the better question isn’t: How do I reach Rs 40 crore?
It’s: What kind of life do I want at 60? What will it actually cost me? And what can I start doing today - consistently - to get there?
Because retirement planning isn’t about chasing a headline number. It’s about building a life that still feels like your own, long after the paycheques stop.
And perhaps that’s the real takeaway: Don’t inherit someone else’s financial anxiety. Run your own numbers.
