New Delhi, June 20 -- Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) is a strategy that combines aggressive saving and intentional investing to accumulate enough money to retire early.

The math behind the FIRE movement is beautifully simple in a vacuum: minimise your liabilities, maximise your investable surplus, and let compounding do the rest.

But real life rarely fits into a pristine spreadsheet. For a 29-year-old techie with exactly half of their take-home pay wiped out by home loan EMI, I asked ChatGPT if an 11-year window is enough for early retirement.

I am a 29-year-old software professional with a monthly take-home salary of Rs.2 lakh. Currently, half of my income goes toward servicing a home loan EMI of Rs.1 lakh. I am deeply in...