How many years of your life are already paid for?
Runway measures your savings in the unit that actually means something: years of your own spending. Learn what financial independence is, work out your own number with every assumption in plain view, and watch the years fill in as you go.
Example figures. Each block is one year of spending.
From a vague idea to a number you can picture.
Financial independence gets talked about in acronyms and rules of thumb. Runway goes through it in order, at whatever pace suits you.
Understand it
What financial independence means, where the famous 4% comes from, and where it falls short. Short pages, with sources.
Work out your number
Your yearly spending and a withdrawal rate you choose. Three common rates shown side by side, none of them marked as the right one.
Track the years
Type in your balances every so often. The number becomes a row of years that fills in over time.
Keep your own notes
A journal and a list of steps, both written by you, so the reasons behind your numbers don’t get lost.
Your number
Twenty-five times a year of spending, and why that’s only a start
The classic rule says that drawing 4% a year has historically lasted about 30 years, which works out to 25 times your yearly spending. That’s a year, not a month: $4,000 a month is $48,000 a year, and 25 times that is $1.2 million.
The research behind it comes mostly from US history. Longer retirements have held up at lower rates. So Runway shows 3%, 3.5% and 4% together and lets you pick, with the reasoning a tap away.
From $48,000 a year of spending. The selected rate becomes your plan; change it any time and the old plan stays on record.
Super and everything else
Two colours, because super waits until 60
Super is generally locked until you’re 60 if you were born on or after 1 July 1964. Money outside super is the only thing that can cover the years before then.
Runway keeps the two apart, so you can see how many of your years are reachable now and how many are waiting.
Example: stopping work at 45, 6 years outside super reaches 51. Super’s 5 years only start at 60, leaving 9 years in between uncovered.
Snapshots
Two figures every so often, and the row moves
No syncing and no connected accounts. When you feel like checking in, type your super balance and what’s invested outside it. Runway turns that into years covered and adds a point to your history.
Want to see where a pace of saving might lead? Turn on a scenario line with your own assumptions. It’s drawn dashed and labelled as a scenario, never a forecast.
| Date | Total | Covered |
|---|---|---|
| 20 Sep 2026 | $548,000 | 11.4 yrs |
| 30 Jun 2026 | $473,000 | 9.9 yrs |
| 31 Mar 2026 | $410,000 | 8.5 yrs |
| 31 Dec 2025 | $378,000 | 7.9 yrs |
Compare ETFs
Fees, franking and tax, on equal terms
Put the same amount into up to four Australian-listed ETFs and see what each one pays, what franking credits come with it, what tax is left after them, and what fees cost in dollars.
Every fund gets the same growth assumption, so the differences come only from what’s really different. Fund figures are dated, sourced and yours to edit. Nothing is ranked and no fund pays to be listed.
| On $100,000, first year | Fund A | Fund B |
|---|---|---|
| Distributions | $3,300 | $1,600 |
| Franking credits | $1,032 | $0 |
| Tax after credits | $354 | $512 |
| Fees | $70 | $180 |
| Income after tax | $2,946 | $1,088 |
Example at $90,000 of other income, 2026-27 rates. Shown in the order you add funds.
A date worth knowing
30 June 2027
From 1 July 2027 the 50% capital gains discount is replaced by indexing to inflation, with a 30% minimum tax on capital gains. The law passed in June 2026. Gains up to that date keep the old treatment, worked out from what each holding is worth then.
Runway puts a reminder in your steps to record those values, and the comparison can show either set of rules.
A dated step, not a suggestion about what to buy or sell.
Journal and steps
Your reasons, kept next to your numbers
Why the spending figure changed. What you were thinking when you picked a rate. The steps you’ve set yourself. Finished steps stay visible with the date you did them, so the list doubles as a record.
- Work out yearly spending
- Save a first FI number
- List where each investment is held
- Record each holding’s value at 30 June 2027
Learn
The ideas, explained once and properly
Short pages in plain language, each dated and each listing where its facts come from. Read them in order or dip in when something in the app needs explaining.
- What FI means
- Finding your number
- Where 4% comes from
- Longer horizons
- Two ways to test it
- Kinds of FI
- Super and the years before 60
- Franking credits
- Capital gains from 1 July 2027
Already keeping a Ledger?
Glidma Ledger works out a financial independence figure from the spending you log. Runway is where that figure goes further: super, the years before 60, and progress over time.
The two apps don’t share an account or pass data between them. Copy your yearly spending figure across by hand, the same way everything else in Glidma gets entered: on purpose, by you.
What Runway is, and isn’t
Your numbers, not advice
Runway shows your own figures under assumptions you choose. It never says what to invest in, which rate to use, or when to stop working. No auto-generated suggestions, ever.
Nothing to link
No bank, broker or super fund connection, and no account numbers or tax file number. Every figure is there because you typed it.
Assumptions labelled as assumptions
The 4% rule, fund yields, tax rates: each is shown with its source, its date and its limits. Projections are drawn as scenarios, not predictions.
Your data stays yours
Never sold, never shared with advertisers or fund managers. Download it or delete your account whenever you like.
Privacy detailsStart with what you spend in a year.
Free while it’s finding its feet. No credit card, nothing to connect.
Works in any browser. On a phone, add it to your home screen and it opens like an app.