What Is Coast FIRE?

A quick example

Say you’re 30, you expect to spend about $40,000 a year in retirement, and you have $270,000 invested. At a 4% withdrawal rate you need $1 million by 65. With a 7% return and 3% inflation, that $270,000 turns into a little over $1 million on its own. You’re coasting. Your actual Coast FIRE number in this case is $263,555, so you’re slightly past it.

That doesn’t mean you quit your job. It means the money you earn from here on only has to cover rent, groceries and whatever else you’re paying for this year. Your 70-year-old self is already taken care of, at least on paper.

Check your own number

7% return · 3% inflation · 4% withdrawal

AgeRetire atYearly spending$Invested$

Coast FIRE number$263,555

You've hit Coast FIRE

Full calculator

Where the idea comes from

FIRE stands for financial independence, retire early. It picked up a big following in the 2010s through personal finance blogs and the r/financialindependence community. The classic version asks you to save half your income or more until your portfolio can pay for everything. That works for some people. For a lot of others it means a decade of spreadsheets and turning down things they’d enjoy.

Coast FIRE grew out of those same communities as a gentler checkpoint. Instead of asking when you can stop working, it asks when you can stop saving for retirement. The math is the same compound growth, pointed at a different question.

How is it different from regular FIRE?

Regular FIRE is the finish line: enough money that you never have to work again. Coast FIRE is a checkpoint you reach years before that, often a decade or more, because compound growth is doing most of the work for you. You still need a paycheck. It just doesn’t have to fund a 401(k) anymore.

I like it as a first target because it feels reachable. $1.5 million is an abstract number at 28. $300,000 or $400,000 is one you can actually plan around.

Coast FIRE vs. Barista FIRE

People mix these two up all the time. With Barista FIRE you’ve saved enough that a part-time job covers the gap between what your portfolio pays out and what you spend, so you’re already drawing on your investments. With Coast FIRE you aren’t touching them at all. If you’re weighing the two, the full comparison walks through the same person under both plans.

The catch

The math assumes average returns arrive on schedule. They don’t. A bad decade right after you stop contributing can push your retirement date back by years, which is why most people who hit Coast FIRE keep investing something, even if it’s a lot less than before.

The simple version also leaves out a few things you should think about:

• Taxes. A dollar in a traditional 401(k) isn’t a dollar you can spend, so if most of your savings are pre-tax, build that into your spending figure.
• Fees. At 30 with $60,000 a year of spending, a 1% fee that turns a 7% return into 6% moves your Coast FIRE number from $395,332 to $549,147.
• Your future spending. It’s a guess about a person you haven’t met yet. If it goes up, so does the number.
• Health insurance, if the plan is to switch to a job that doesn’t offer it. Our health insurance guide covers the options before Medicare.

Is Coast FIRE worth aiming for?

For most people in their 20s and 30s, I think yes. It gives you a concrete number, and once you pass it your career choices open up in a way that a vague savings goal never does. You can take the job you actually want, or a year off, and know your retirement isn’t going to fall apart because of it.

It’s less useful if you’re starting late. At 50, the target for $60,000 a year is about $847,019, and you’re close enough to retirement that planning for regular FIRE directly is usually simpler.

If you’re nowhere near your number yet, that’s normal. Put your real monthly contribution into the Coast FIRE calculator and look at the age where you cross the line. That date tends to be more motivating than the target itself, and this step-by-step plan covers how to get there. Planning with a partner? Start with Coast FIRE for couples.