Coast FIRE with $1 million

What $1M pays for at 65

If you add nothing more and leave $1,000,000 invested until 65, this is the yearly spending it supports, in today's dollars.

Growth is 7% a year before inflation and 3% inflation, about 3.88% a year after it. Social Security and any pension come on top.

Is $1M already Coast FIRE?

"Yes" means $1,000,000 grows to your full FIRE number (spending divided by 4%) by 65 on its own. Otherwise the cell shows the age you'd cross the line if you kept adding $1,000 a month.

A million dollars is where Coast FIRE usually stops being the goal and becomes something you’ve already passed. If you’re under 50 with a normal retirement budget, the tables above probably say “Yes”. What matters now is when you could stop working entirely. Taxes on the way out and the market’s first few years after you stop decide a lot of that.

Who has $1 million invested?

Not many, at any age. In the Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, the median retirement balance for families aged 55 to 64 who had an account was $185,000. A household that reaches $1 million in its 40s usually has two good incomes and 15 or more years of steady saving behind it. That’s rare, and it changes which questions are worth your time.

Marisol and Curtis: coasting next year, free at 59

Marisol and Curtis are both 48. Between two 401(k)s, two Roth IRAs and a brokerage account they have $1,000,000, and they still put in $3,000 a month. They plan on $80,000 a year in retirement.

Their FIRE number is $2,000,000. Their Coast FIRE number today is $1,046,498, just $46,498 above what they have, so at their current pace they cross the line at 49. If they stopped adding money then, their balance would still reach the full $2,000,000 by 65.

But they’re not planning to coast for 16 years. If they keep saving $3,000 a month, they reach the full number at 59. With a more cautious 3.5% withdrawal rate the target rises to $2,285,714 and they get there at 62. For them, Coast FIRE is mostly a safety net. If one of them loses a job at 52, the plan still works.

What taxes take out of $80,000

A balance held mostly in traditional 401(k)s and IRAs isn’t all theirs to spend. Withdrawals are taxed as ordinary income. At 2026 federal rates, a married couple taking $80,000 from pre-tax accounts subtracts the $32,200 standard deduction and pays tax on $47,800. That comes to about $5,240, or 6.6% of the withdrawal, before any state tax.

That’s a modest bite, and a mix of account types can make it smaller. Qualified Roth withdrawals aren’t taxed at all. Long-term gains in a brokerage account are taxed at 0% for a joint return while taxable income stays under $98,900 in 2026, per Rev. Proc. 2025-32. A couple who draws partly from each can often keep their federal bill very low. Later on, required minimum distributions will force some pre-tax money out every year whether they need it or not, which is one argument for converting some of it to Roth in the low-income years before Social Security starts.

Why the first five years matter most

At $1 million and up, the risk that worries me isn’t a low average return. It’s a bad sequence. Suppose Marisol and Curtis reach exactly $2,000,000, take out $80,000 for their first year, and the market then falls 30%. They’re left with $1,344,000, and next year’s $80,000 is 6.0% of it. The same crash at 80 would matter much less, with far fewer years left to fund.

The fixes are ordinary. Keep a year or two of spending in cash or short-term bonds as you approach the date. Be willing to spend less, or earn a little, for a couple of years after a bad market. The 4% rule calculator shows how often a withdrawal rate survives random markets, and the Monte Carlo calculator shows how often you’d reach the number at all.

Stopping before 59½ or 65

If they stop at 59, they’re months short of 59½. Most early withdrawals from a 401(k) or IRA before then carry a 10% additional tax. The rule of 55 lets you take money without that tax from the plan of the job you leave in or after the year you turn 55, though it doesn’t cover IRAs. The rule of 55 calculator shows how that bridge works.

Health insurance is the bigger bill. Medicare starts at 65, so stopping at 59 means about six years of buying their own coverage. Our guide to health insurance before 65 covers what that costs and how withdrawals affect subsidies. With $1 million, those are the real planning problems. Hitting the number isn’t.

Other balances: Coast FIRE with $100K, Coast FIRE with $200K, Coast FIRE with $300K, Coast FIRE with $500K, Coast FIRE with $3M. You can compare them all on one page, or see the Coast FIRE number by age from 20 to 60.