Why the number looks like this
Everything here is in today's money
A retirement pot quoted in the shillings of thirty years' time is a large and meaningless number. Inflation makes it big; it does not make it worth more. So this calculator never shows you one — the figure it gives is what the same lifestyle costs in the shillings you are holding right now.
The gap is not small. The stat at the top of this page — the value of starting ten years earlier — is 1.7× in today's money and 2.9× in nominal shillings. Same savings, same return, same person: only the units differ. Whenever you meet a projection that sounds extraordinary, the first question is which of those two it is quoting.
Why 3.0% a year, after inflation and tax
Long government bonds are paying 5.2%–5.4% after tax and inflation, and Treasury bills 1.0%–1.1%. Planning at 3.0% therefore assumes less than the bonds on offer today and more than the bills — deliberately, so the plan does not depend on this moment lasting.
Net real yields on Kenyan government paper, against the 3.0% planning rate| Instrument | After tax | After inflation |
|---|
| 91-day T-bill | 7.7% | 1.0% |
|---|
| 364-day T-bill | 7.7% | 1.0% |
|---|
| 182-day T-bill | 7.7% | 1.1% |
|---|
| 7–12y bond | 10.7% | 3.9% |
|---|
| 12–20y bond | 12.1% | 5.2% |
|---|
| 20y+ bond | 12.4% | 5.4% |
|---|
Bills sit below the planning rate and long bonds above it, which is the point: the plan assumes less than the bonds on offer today, so it does not depend on today lasting. If it turns out conservative, you finish early — the direction worth being wrong in.
CBK auction of 3 Sept 2026, via Mwangaza Yield; inflation CBK, 31 Aug 2026, via Mwangaza Yield — these figures are more than a fortnight old, so treat them as indicative.
The medical decision expires before retirement does
Kenyan insurers commonly refuse new entrants past their mid-sixties, and price cover on continuous membership. So the choice about retirement medical cover has a deadline years earlier than the retirement it is for. A plan that gives you the number but not the deadline has left out the part that cannot be fixed later.
This is also why medical is modelled apart from everything else. Ordinary living costs drift down in real terms once you retire — the fees end, the commute goes — at about 1.0% a year here. Medical does the opposite, climbing roughly 3.0% a year on top of inflation, because you age into a more expensive band as well as into a more expensive year. A single blended rate hides both movements and gets the composition wrong even when the total looks about right.
Why there is no 25× rule here
The 4% rule — save 25× your spending — comes from Bengen's 1994 study of US market and inflation history, and it sizes a pot meant to last forever. You are funding something different: a finite span, to age 90 here, with living costs falling in real terms and medical costs rising. That has no single multiple, which is why this tool prices the actual years instead and lets the multiple fall out at the end.
Across a wide spread of incomes, ages and medical bills it lands around 20× in the middle — so the rule of thumb is not absurd. But the range runs from about 18× to well over 30×, and what moves it is almost entirely the medical bill. That spread is the argument: a fixed multiple is not merely imprecise, it is most wrong exactly for the households carrying the most health cost, who can least afford to be told a number that is too small.
See what inflation alone does to a balance →
Ready to build toward this number?
Use the Retirement Planner to model your monthly contributions, investment growth, and the exact year you reach Financial Independence — with Kenya's MMF and T-Bill yields built in.
⚠️
81%
of Kenya's workforce contributes nothing to a pension — retirement will arrive whether they plan for it or not.
RBA Pensioners Survey 2024
🌅
1.7× more
spending power at 60 by starting Ksh 3,000/month at 28 rather than 38 — about Ksh 1,999,175 in today's money. Starting early is still the single biggest lever.
Computed by JiPange at 10% p.a. compounded monthly, then deflated by inflation published by Mwangaza Yield. In nominal shillings the same figure reads 2.9× — same money, different units.
