Spend your FIRE number
The fun one: set a portfolio, an SWR and taxes, get your yearly budget — then buy a lifestyle. Housing tiers, trips, kids, toys. See what your number really pays for.
Gross withdrawal: €32,000 − taxes: €3,200
Essentials — pick one tier each
The non-negotiables. Every lifestyle needs one of each; the tier is your choice.
The good stuff — add what you want
Trips, dinners, kids, toys. Each + adds one per year.
Anything the list doesn't cover, per year: gifts, insurance extras, hobbies with gear…
Your year, priced
Your portfolio covers this basket with room to spare: €161,111. That's your basket ÷ (1 − tax) ÷ SWR — the real FIRE number for the life you just built.
A thinking toy, not a plan. Costs are rough Italian yearly averages — your city and habits will differ. The SWR model ignores sequence-of-returns risk (see the Monte Carlo tool for that), and the tax field is an effective rate you control, not tax advice.
How the budget is computed
Each year you sell portfolio × SWR of your investments (the gross withdrawal), pay taxes on it, and live on the rest: net budget = portfolio × SWR × (1 − tax). With the defaults — €800,000 at 4% and 10% tax — that's €28,800 a year, or €2,400 a month. The whole game is seeing what that number actually buys.
Why the tax default is 10% and not 26%
Italy taxes capital gains at 26%, but when you sell €20,000 of an ETF you don't pay 26% on the whole sale — only on the gain portion of what you sold. Early in retirement, gains might be a third of each sale, so the effective rate on the withdrawal is closer to 8–12%; it drifts up over the decades as the gain share grows. That's why the default is 10% and the field is yours to change.
The inversion is the point
Most FIRE calculators start from spending and give you a number. This one also works backwards: build the life you want, and the summary shows the portfolio it requires — basket ÷ (1 − tax) ÷ SWR. A €30,000/year lifestyle at 4% SWR and 10% tax needs about €833,000. Every tier you upgrade moves that number; watching it move is the education.
What's missing
- Sequence-of-returns risk — a fixed SWR pretends markets are smooth. They aren't; see the Monte Carlo simulator for the real distribution.
- Inflation drift — costs are today's euros; the SWR framework assumes you adjust withdrawals with inflation.
- Your actual prices — the catalog uses rough Italian yearly averages. Milan rent and small-town rent are different planets.
- One-off shocks — a roof, a medical event, a wedding. Keep a buffer outside the SWR math.