Why does the country I settle in matter so much?

Because your money has to last in that country, not in the one you live in today. The first question under Your Location is Where will you be living once you’re financially independent? The answer fixes three things for the whole plan: the currency every figure is reported in, the six rates the projection runs on, and the list of savings schemes under Investments.

What the choice changes

• The currency. Each country card shows its currency code beside its name. Every total, chart and verdict is reported in it.
• The six rates. General, education and medical inflation, income growth, and the two investment returns are filled in with that country’s figures. Medical costs, for example, rise at 12.0% a year by default in India and 8.2% in the United Kingdom.
• The schemes. The savings schemes block is relabelled for that country — EPF, PPF, VPF, NPS and Gratuity for India; CPF and SRS for Singapore; and so on.

Over a plan of thirty or forty years, a few points of inflation compound into a very different number. The ⓘ beside the heading says it plainly: using the wrong country’s assumptions is the single biggest source of a wrong independence number.

What it does not change

Choosing or changing this country never rewrites a figure you have already entered. A balance you typed in rupees stays a rupee balance even if you switch the plan to Singapore — it keeps its own currency and is converted at today’s rate wherever a figure is worked out. Scheme rows that hold money are carried over too, rather than deleted. Rows that are only zeros are simply replaced by the new country’s.

Weighing two countries

1. Open Your Location and choose the first country.
2. Press Re-generate my plan and note the verdict and the corpus.
3. Choose the second country and re-generate again. The whole plan reprices in the new currency and rates.
4. Switch back to the one you expect to settle in. Your entered figures are untouched by the round trip.