FI Progress Explained: How Close Are You to Financial Independence?
The One-Sentence Definition
FI Progress is your net worth divided by your FI number, expressed as a percentage. Hit 100% and you could, in theory, live off your investments forever.
On Turbo Pro, the Overview's Financial independence card works this out from your spending and net worth, and estimates the year you get there. See it on your Overview →
The Intuition: 25× Your Annual Expenses
The math behind FI is straightforward. Take your annual spending and multiply by 25. That's your FI number - the amount of invested wealth that can fund your lifestyle indefinitely.
Person A: 30,000/year spend
FI number = 25 × 30,000 = 750,000. If they have 375,000 invested, their FI Progress is 50% - halfway there.Person B: 60,000/year spend
FI number = 25 × 60,000 = 1,500,000. If they have 375,000 invested, their FI Progress is only 25% - same wealth, very different finish line.Lowering your spending is mathematically the most efficient FI lever. Cutting 10,000 from annual expenses drops your FI number by 250,000 - equivalent to earning that much investing.
The 4% Rule: Where 25× Comes From
The 4% rule comes from a 1998 study at Trinity University, since refined many times. It found that a portfolio of 60% stocks / 40% bonds, withdrawing 4% in year one and adjusting for inflation each year after, had a 95%+ historical success rate over 30-year retirements.
4% per year of a 1,000,000 portfolio = 40,000/year. So a 1M portfolio supports 40k/year spending. Flip it around: to support 40k/year spending, you need 25× = 1M invested.
What the Mixed Badge Means
Inside Turbobulls, the info icon next to a card's title opens a short explanation, with a small scope badge that tells you what data feeds the figure. The Financial independence card carries the Mixed badge.
That means it blends two scopes:
- Total net worth (cash accounts + holdings + broker cash - debt) - the numerator
- Annual spending (the expenses you track in the Wallet) - the denominator
Both have to be tracked accurately for the figure to be meaningful. It is also why the card shows only when the Wallet is on in your workspace: without the spending side, there is no target to measure against.
How to Read the Number
| FI Progress | What stage you're in |
|---|---|
| 0% - 10% | Building phase. Wealth growth is mostly from saving, not from returns. Focus on savings rate. |
| 10% - 25% | Foundation built. Investment returns are now meaningful contributors to growth. |
| 25% - 50% | Acceleration phase. Compounding starts visibly outpacing your contributions. |
| 50% - 75% | Coasting becomes possible. Some FIRE adherents downshift to "Coast FI" here. |
| 75% - 100% | Final stretch. Sequence-of-returns risk becomes real - one bad year here matters a lot. |
| 100%+ | Financially independent by the 4% rule. Work becomes optional. |
See How Close You Are to Financial Independence
The Catch: Your FI Number Moves
This is the most important caveat. FI Progress depends on both your wealth AND your expenses. If you save more by spending less, your numerator (wealth) goes up AND your denominator (FI number) goes down - a double speedup.
This is the hedonic treadmill problem. Building wealth without controlling lifestyle creep is like running on a treadmill that's speeding up. FI Progress catches it ruthlessly.
How Turbobulls Calculates FI Progress
In plain words: Turbobulls takes your average spending over the period picked at the top of the Overview, makes it a year, and multiplies by 25 to find what you need. It divides your net worth by that target. Then it rolls your net worth forward a year at a time, growing it 5% and adding a year of your current saving, to estimate when you get there.
You find it on the Overview, in the Financial independence card, on Turbo Pro and during the 14-day free trial. The headline says how much of the way there you are, and the line under it reads, for example, "About 27 years at the current pace, around 2053". Four tiles sit underneath: Needed (25 years of spending), Spending a year, Saving a year (money in less spent) and Could take out a year (4% of your net worth). On the free plan, Spending Pro and Investing Pro, the card is there with its figures hidden: an FI figure needs both the earning and the spending side, and a plan that covers one side sees only half of it.
Needed = avgMonthlyExpenses × 12 × 25 (equivalent to × 300)
FI Progress = totalNetWorth / Needed × 100
worth next year = worth × 1.05 + saving a year
Find average monthly spending. Wallet expenses over the period, divided by its number of days, scaled to 30 days.
Multiply to annual. Times 12. This is the card's Spending a year.
Multiply by 25. The 4% rule turned around: 4% of the target pays for a year of spending. This is Needed.
Compute the ratio. Net worth divided by Needed. The headline shows it up to 100%.
Count the years. Starting from today's net worth, each year grows it 5% and adds a year of saving (average monthly money in less spending, times 12). The first year that reaches Needed is the estimate.
When FI Progress Matters - and When to Ignore It
- Long-term planning. The single best "am I on track" headline number.
- Evaluating spending changes. See how lifestyle changes shift the goalposts.
- Setting retirement dates. The card's estimate gives a year at your current saving and 5% growth.
- Comparing strategies. Two paths can reach FI at very different ages.
- You just started tracking. Without a few months of expense data, the FI number is noisy.
- Your expenses are atypical. One-off big purchases inflate the FI number temporarily.
- You're 5+ years from FI. Sequence-of-returns risk is irrelevant; focus on savings rate.
- You don't want traditional FI. Coast FI, Barista FI, and Lean FI have different thresholds.
The Full Picture: Pair FI Progress With These
FI Progress tells you "how close", and the card's estimate tells you "how long" at 5% growth. To see how your savings rate moves that timeline, the FIRE calculator walks through the arithmetic. Pair it with these for the full picture:
Savings rate - the single biggest lever on how fast FI Progress climbs
Cash runway - your short-term safety net while you're building long-term FI
Growth rate (CAGR) - your historical compounding speed
The 4% rule - where the target you are measuring against comes from
Savings targets by age - how the common salary-multiple benchmarks compare
One Number That Answers 'When Can I Stop Working?'
On Turbo Pro, Turbobulls works out your FI Progress from your spending and net worth, and estimates the year you get there. Watch the percentage climb and spot lifestyle inflation as it happens.
- FI Progress on Turbo Pro, by the 4% rule (25× a year of spending)
- Years to FI, estimated at 5% growth and your current saving
- Updates with every expense and net worth change
- Pairs with Savings Rate and Wealth Velocity for full FI analysis
- Tracks lifestyle creep through the FI number's movement
- Multi-currency wealth and expenses handled natively
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