Financial Calculators
Terminal Benefits Planner
Your gratuity, commutation, leave encashment, DSOP and insurance all land within months of each other. This works out the total, then gives each part of it a job.
What landed
Read these off your PPO, service documents and fund statements. This tool does not work out your entitlement, it structures what you actually received.
AGIF, AFGIS or NGIS savings component
The monthly picture
After commutation, if you commuted
Housing, education, a wedding, a vehicle
Assumptions
Total terminal benefits
₹72,00,000
Your pension falls short of monthly expenses by ₹30,000. That gap is what the income bridge below has to close.
Emergency reserve
₹10,20,000
Immediate
14%
Stays liquid and untouched. This is not an investment.
Near-term commitments
₹10,00,000
0 to 3 years
14%
Money with a date attached. Capital protection matters more than growth.
Income bridge
₹25,83,791
Next 10 years
36%
Tops up pension to meet monthly expenses while a second career settles.
Long-term growth
₹25,96,209
Decades ahead
36%
The only portion with genuine time to ride out market cycles.
This is an allocation framework by time horizon. It does not name a scheme, a category or a product, and it is not investment advice.
Talk to the TeamThe hardest financial decision of a service career
It arrives at the worst possible moment for clear thinking. You are somewhere in your forties or fifties. The family is mid-relocation, often to a station you have not lived in before. Monthly income has just dropped to pension. And within a few months, several separate payments land in the account, together adding up to more money than has ever been in it at one time.
The phone starts ringing at about the same time. Everyone has a suggestion, and most of the suggestions are about a product rather than about you. The single most useful thing you can do before any of that is to work out what the money is actually for, and over what period.
How the split is worked out
Four buckets, filled in order of urgency. The emergency reserve is the number of months of household expenses you choose, held liquid and untouched. Near-term commitments are money with a date attached inside about three years. The income bridge is the present value of your monthly pension shortfall over the years you want it to cover, at a conservative rate. Whatever remains after those three is the only portion that genuinely has decades ahead of it.
The order matters. Filling the long-horizon bucket first is what leads to money being withdrawn from a long-term investment in year two, at whatever the market happens to be doing that month.
A worked example
Take the planner's default figures. Gratuity of ₹20,00,000, commuted pension of ₹25,00,000, leave encashment of ₹8,00,000, a DSOP balance of ₹15,00,000 and group insurance of ₹4,00,000 come to ₹72,00,000 in terminal benefits.
Pension is ₹55,000 a month against household expenses of ₹85,000, so there is a monthly gap of ₹30,000. Holding twelve months of expenses gives an emergency reserve of ₹10,20,000. Near-term commitments are ₹10,00,000. Closing a ₹30,000 monthly gap for ten years, at a conservative 7% a year, needs ₹25,83,791 set aside today as the income bridge.
That leaves ₹25,96,209 for the long-term bucket, about 36% of the total. Which is the number that matters, because it is the honest answer to "how much of this can I actually invest for the long run" - and it is usually a good deal less than the figure people have in mind when the money first lands.
Questions about terminal benefits
What are terminal benefits?
They are the one-time payments a service person receives on retirement, as distinct from the monthly pension. The main heads are retirement gratuity, the lump sum against commuted pension, encashment of accumulated leave, the DSOP or AFPP fund balance, and the savings component of group insurance such as AGIF, AFGIS or NGIS. They arrive within a few months of each other and together form the largest single sum most service families will ever hold.
Why does this planner ask me to enter the amounts instead of working them out?
Because entitlement rules change. Gratuity ceilings, commutation factors and leave encashment limits are set by Pay Commission rules and revise over time, so a tool that derives them silently goes stale and hands you a wrong figure at the worst possible moment. Your PPO, service documents and fund statements carry the real numbers. This planner totals what you actually received and structures it, which is the part no document does for you.
What is the income bridge?
Most service personnel retire decades before civilian retirement age, and the pension alone often does not cover household expenses at first. The income bridge is the portion of the corpus set aside to close that monthly gap while a second career or other income settles. The planner works it out as the present value of the monthly shortfall over the number of years you choose, at a conservative rate. Once your other income covers expenses, the bridge has done its job.
Why split the money into buckets at all?
Because a single large sum invites a single decision, and the money does not have a single job. Some of it must be reachable next week. Some has a date attached three years out. Some has to produce monthly income for the next decade. Only what remains after all of that has the time horizon to absorb market cycles. Separating the sum by when it is needed makes each portion's job obvious, and stops a long-horizon decision being made with money that was never available for it.
Does this tell me which funds or schemes to invest in?
No, and it is not designed to. The output is an allocation framework by time horizon: how much money has which job, and over what period. Which products suit each bucket depends on your tax position, your risk tolerance and your family's circumstances, and that is a conversation, not a calculator. Air Warrior Money is an AMFI-registered mutual fund distributor, not an investment adviser.
What if the planner shows a shortfall?
It means your reserve, near-term commitments and income bridge together need more than your terminal benefits provide. This is common and it is better discovered now than in year three. The levers are a shorter bridge, lower running expenses, deferring or staging a commitment, or earlier income from a second career. The planner is deliberately blunt about it, because the alternative is finding out later.
Are the projections guaranteed?
No. The income bridge uses a constant assumed rate for illustration, and real returns vary. Mutual fund investments are subject to market risks; read all scheme related documents carefully. Past performance is not indicative of future returns.
Deciding what goes where is the next conversation
This planner tells you how much money has which job. What suits each bucket depends on your tax position, your risk tolerance and your family's circumstances. Our founder is an Air Force veteran who has been through this transition, and we have helped hundreds of service families through it since.
This planner produces an allocation framework by time horizon for illustration. It does not name any scheme, fund category or product and is not investment advice. Air Warrior Money is an AMFI-registered mutual fund distributor, not a SEBI-registered investment adviser. Mutual fund investments are subject to market risks. Read all scheme related documents carefully.