A person reviewing monthly expenses on a calculator, illustrating the rule of 25 retirement number
Budgeting

The Rule of 25: A Simple Way to Turn Spending Habits Into a Retirement Number

Retirement can feel like a fog — a vague sense that you should be “saving more,” with no clear sense of how much is actually enough. The Rule of 25 cuts through that fog with one multiplication: take what you spend in a year and multiply it by 25. Suddenly retirement stops being a mood and becomes a number you can write on a sticky note. But the most useful part of this rule isn’t the number itself — it’s what it reveals about your spending, and how much power you already have to change your own target.