About LifeCost.in

What LifeCost.in is

LifeCost.in is a free set of personal-finance calculators and plain-English guides built for Indian households. Instead of planning each goal on its own, our flagship Life Cost Calculator adds up the big costs most families face — a wedding, a home, children's education, an emergency fund and retirement — and adjusts every one of them for inflation, so you can see the whole picture in one place.

Every calculator is free, needs no sign-up, and runs entirely inside your browser. The numbers you type are not sent to our servers or stored by us.

Who is behind it

LifeCost.in is run by a small, independent editorial team — the LifeCost.in Editorial Team. We are not owned by, or paid by, any bank, fund house, insurer or broker.

The site started as a set of personal planning sheets for the questions every Indian household faces — how much to put into a SIP, whether to prepay a home loan, how much a child's education will really cost in fifteen years — and grew into the tools you see here. We judge our work by one test: does it help you make a clearer decision with your own numbers?

How our calculators work

Our calculators use standard, published financial formulas (compound growth, SIP future value, reducing-balance EMI, inflation adjustment) and show the assumptions they use, so you can change them. Default assumptions are India-specific, for example:

• General inflation of 6% a year, education inflation of 10% and medical inflation of 12%.
• A long-term equity return assumption of 12% a year for SIP projections, which you can lower for a more conservative plan.
• Income-tax rules, slabs and deduction limits for the current financial year (FY 2026-27).

These are planning assumptions, not guarantees. Real returns, prices and tax rules change, and we update our tools when they do.

How we write our guides

Our guides explain one money question at a time — for example NPS vs EPF vs PPF, or the old vs new tax regime — with worked examples in rupees and a link to the calculator that lets you run your own numbers.

• Sources: we base rules and limits on official sources such as the Income Tax Department, EPFO, PFRDA, RBI and SEBI.
• Use of AI: guides are drafted with the help of AI writing tools and then put through an editorial review step that checks them against current Indian rules, removes unsupported claims and adds practical examples before publishing.
• Corrections: if you spot an error or an outdated rule, email hello@lifecost.in. We correct confirmed errors promptly and update the page.
• Independence: we do not accept payment to recommend any fund, bank or product. The site is supported by advertising shown through Google AdSense.

Contact

Questions, corrections or ideas for a new calculator? Visit our contact page or email hello@lifecost.in.

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