Why start retirement planning early?
Compounding rewards early starters. Money invested at age 25 has 35 years to grow before retirement at 60; money invested at 45 has only 15. At a 10% annual return, 10,000 saved monthly from age 25 grows to roughly 38 million by 60 — starting at 45, the same monthly saving reaches only about 8 million.
The 4% rule
A popular guideline says you need about 25 times your annual expenses saved to retire safely, because withdrawing 4% per year lets the corpus last ~30 years. If you spend 1.2 million a year, aim for roughly 30 million — then adjust upward for inflation.
Don't ignore inflation
At 6% inflation, prices double every ~12 years. A 50 million corpus in 30 years buys what about 8.7 million buys today. Always plan in today's money — that is what Goal mode above uses.