Why does my plan say Critical when the savings figure looks large?
The figure is in the money of the year you stop working, the life it pays for is priced in that money too, and a stretch below zero while working can sit behind it.
Because the figure and the word measure different things. The figure is how much you are projected to hold on the day you stop working. The word says whether that holding lasts to the end of your plan. A large figure can still run out early, and there are three usual reasons.
1. The figure is in future money
The projection quotes the savings in the money of the year they land in. Twenty or thirty years of inflation makes any figure look enormous. The outcome card says what it is worth today in the same sentence — “worth about … in today’s money” — and the first of the four numbers carries the note Judge it in today’s money. That is the figure to hold against what your life costs now.
2. The life it pays for is priced in that money too
Your spending is grown to the same year, each category at its own inflation rate. The strip inside the outcome card shows this: A year costs is your first full year without a salary at that year’s prices, and Years it covers is how many such years the savings would pay for with no further growth. If that is well short of the years you plan to live on them, growth has to carry the rest, and the verdict reflects whether it can.
3. A stretch below zero while you were still working
If your outgoings exceed your income for some working years, the balance goes below zero and carrying it is charged against the plan. Income often grows faster than spending, so the balance can climb back and still show a large figure when you stop. The outcome sentence then says “but only after” the years spent below zero, how deep it went, and what carrying it cost, and the first number’s note begins Do not read this as savings you simply put aside. See What is a shortfall while I am still working?
Your financial freedom outcome
Workable Lasts, with a modest cushion
₹8.45Cr at 55 — worth about ₹4.34Cr in today's money. It funds the plan to 90 and leaves ₹21.63Cr — enough to absorb something small going wrong, not something large.
An illustrative household. The sentence is computed from the plan’s own ledger, not written.
The site’s drawing of the outcome card for the illustrative household: the projected figure at 55, and a sentence restating it in today’s money and saying what is left at the end of the plan.
- The headline figure, in the money of the year it lands in.
- The reading: worth about ₹4.34Cr in today’s money; it funds the plan to 90 and leaves ₹21.63Cr — enough to absorb something small going wrong, not something large.
Illustrative figures — not anybody’s real plan.
What to do next
- Open the Retirement Tracker and find the year in Year by year where Closing savings first goes below zero.
- Look at what grows fastest in the years before it — usually living expenses, or a life goal landing in one year.
- Check What would move this on the Overview: each change is priced in years.
- Correct any figure that is still a starting point; How complete this plan is lists them.
See this in your own plan.
Open OverviewLast reviewed 1 October 2026.