At an assumed 10% annual return — an assumption, not a guarantee — ₹1 crore withdrawing ₹50,000 a month lasts 362 months. That's just over 30 years, so if you start at 60 the money runs out around 90. But that answer only holds if you raise the withdrawal 6% a year to keep pace with inflation.
Keep taking a flat ₹50,000 forever and the same ₹1 crore never runs out at all: on the identical 10% assumption it is still worth about ₹22 crore after 40 years, having paid you ₹2.4 crore along the way. Both numbers come out of the same calculator. Only one of them describes a retirement.
The flat ₹50,000 answer is a mirage
₹50,000 a month buys a particular life today. At 6% inflation it buys about ₹27,920 worth of that life in 10 years, ₹15,590 in 20 years and ₹8,706 in 30 — roughly a sixth of what you started with. A plan where the withdrawal never rises isn't a corpus that lasts forever; it's a standard of living that quietly falls about 83% while the balance on your statement climbs.
To hold that life roughly steady, the withdrawal has to keep climbing: the plan pays about ₹84,474 a month in year 10, ₹1,51,280 in year 20 and ₹2,70,919 in year 30. That harder plan is what the 362-month answer models.
What actually happens to the ₹1 crore
- Year 5: ₹1.21 crore — the corpus is still growing
- Year 10: ₹1.42 crore — returns are comfortably ahead of withdrawals
- Year 17: ₹1.58 crore — the peak
- Year 20: ₹1.54 crore — it has quietly turned
- Year 25: ₹1.15 crore — five years of money left
- Month 362, just past year 30: zero, after paying out ₹4.78 crore in total
For the first 17 years the return on the balance is bigger than that year's withdrawals, so the corpus climbs — and it is very easy to look at ₹1.58 crore in year 17 and decide you are safe. You aren't.
The withdrawal is compounding at 6% a year as well, and once it overtakes the return on a shrinking balance the drop is steep: the corpus only falls back below its original ₹1 crore in year 26, and it is gone four years after that. Almost nothing warns you until the final stretch.
The return assumption moves the answer by years
- 12% a year: survives the full 40-year projection, with about ₹15.8 crore still invested
- 10% a year: 362 months — about 30.2 years
- 8% a year: 258 months — about 21.5 years
- 7% a year: 231 months — about 19.25 years
Two percentage points of assumed return is close to nine years of retirement, and nobody can tell you in advance which one you'll actually get — which is the argument for planning on the lower figure.
If you want ₹50,000 a month, inflation-adjusted, to survive a full 40 years to age 100 at that same 10% assumption, you need roughly ₹1.14 crore rather than ₹1 crore — about 14% more. Or keep the ₹1 crore and start the withdrawal at about ₹44,000 a month instead of ₹50,000.
These are before-tax figures; withdrawals from an equity fund are taxed only on the gain portion of each redemption, so what you actually keep is lower. Put your own corpus, withdrawal and expected return into the SWP calculator, switch on the yearly step-up, and find where your own line hits zero.
Where to go next
FAQs
Only if you never raise the withdrawal. At an assumed 10% return a flat ₹50,000 a month is far less than the corpus earns, so the balance keeps climbing — but ₹50,000 is worth only about ₹8,706 in today's purchasing power after 30 years at 6% inflation. Once you step the withdrawal up 6% a year to hold your standard of living, the same ₹1 crore lasts 362 months, or about 30 years.
Withdrawing ₹50,000 a month raised 6% a year, ₹1 crore lasts about 30.2 years at an assumed 10% return, 21.5 years at 8% and 19.25 years at 7%. None of these are guarantees — they are what a constant-return projection gives at each assumption, and real returns vary year to year.
To fund ₹50,000 a month raised 6% a year for 40 years — age 60 to 100 — you'd need roughly ₹1.14 crore at an assumed 10% return, against about ₹1 crore to reach age 90. Both figures rise sharply if the return is lower, so treat them as a floor and run your own inputs rather than a fixed target.
Educational information, not financial advice. Figures are illustrative and assume the stated return or rate; actual outcomes vary and aren't guaranteed. Run your own numbers before deciding.