An honest calculation, long overdue

How many more years do you actually need to work?

A free early retirement calculator, built by someone who actually retired. Start with a thirty-second pass, then build a serious estimate in about thirty minutes.

Not chasing retirement? See other questions ETQ answers

  • private
  • no account
  • stays in your browser
  • not financial advice
A lone kitesurfer cutting across a calm Mediterranean bay beneath a wide open sky, a single yellow kite tethered above. A limestone hilltop village with a church dome sits on the distant coastline.
Where to start

Three ways in. One engine.

Start small, then go deeper when it becomes useful. Your answers come with you.

The quick estimate and the walkthrough answer the earliest-age question. The full calculator answers all four: the earliest age you could stop, a retirement age you choose, spending once you have retired, and where your finances could stand with no date in mind.

Quick estimate

Thirty-second estimate

The age at which work becomes a choice — a back-of-envelope estimate in six questions.

All in your browser. The numbers you enter never leave it. Your inputs are remembered locally so you can come back to them; clear them any time.

Earliest viable at

Illustrative model output, not financial advice. Sensitive to your inputs and ETQ's default assumptions. See limitations.

Refine this estimate by adding your partner, property and rental income, debts, major events, market scenarios and reserve goals.

Behind the estimate

The full retirement calculator

A year-by-year picture of the rest of your financial life — cash, assets and net worth to end of life, recalculating live with every figure you change.

The ETQ Full Calculator: an inputs panel beside live cash and net-worth charts comparing two retirement ages, next to a timeline of life events such as property sales, pension start and loans repaid.
The example plan, open in the Full Calculator. Every chart, table and milestone recalculates as you type.

What you can model

  • Your earliest viable retirement age, tested year by year
  • Cash and net worth projected to end of life
  • Property purchases, sales and downsizing
  • Market crashes and the years they take to recover
  • Pensions, part-time income and one-off events
  • Saved scenarios you can compare side by side

Other questions it can answer

  • “What happens if I retire at the age I have in mind?”
  • “Now I’ve retired, what could I afford to spend?”
  • “Where could my finances stand by retirement?”
  • “Can we afford the house by the sea?”
  • “What does a crash the year I stop do to the plan?”
  • “What if I sell the flat in three years’ time?”
  • “Can I pay for my daughter’s wedding and stay in retirement?”
  • …and many others

Choose your question under Planning Mode at the top of the calculator. You can switch modes any time using the same figures.

Illustrative projections, not financial advice. Free, no account, all in your browser. See how it is calculated.

Who built this, and why
A sleeping dog on a sunlit Mediterranean terrace overlooking the sea, a closed laptop with a notebook, pen, coffee and folded glasses resting on a nearby side table — the builder just out of frame.
— the builder, on a Tuesday afternoon

ETQ is not authorised or regulated as a financial adviser, investment firm, pension adviser, credit intermediary, or insurer in any jurisdiction, and it does not give regulated financial advice or personal recommendations.

The hardest part was knowing I had enough

I am Kenneth Bonnici, and I retired at 53. I had genuinely enjoyed much of my career as a management consultant and corporate CFO, so this was not an escape from work I hated. It was a decision to use the time I had left on my own terms.

Money had always meant independence to me, not luxury cars, designer labels, or a villa with a pool. Still, I spent years saying I would retire early without doing the one thing my career had trained me to do: check the numbers properly.

The turning point came when I mapped every year of cash flow for the rest of my life, all the way to 95. For the first time, I could see my income, spending, pensions, assets and investments moving together. I could see that I had enough.

The 4% rule is useful shorthand, but one multiple could not reflect the life I was actually planning. So I built the model I needed. That personal spreadsheet became ETQ.

This is not a promise that anyone can retire at 53. It is a way to make the choice less vague: put your real life into the model, test the difficult years, and see what spending below your means, investing and building your income may already have bought you. Perhaps it is more freedom than you think.

Read the guide: how much do you really need to retire early? →

Or start with a specific age: how much you need to retire at 55 or at 60.

More about Kenneth and why he built this →

We build wealth for freedom, then forget to be free.

A serious estimate is waiting.

Start where you like — thirty seconds, a guided walkthrough, or the full calculator.

Find your number →

take the guided walkthrough →open the full calculator →