Guide · Updated 2026-05-08

Coast FIRE: when can you stop saving and still retire?

By Yi Liu · Updated May 8, 2026 · 11 min read

Coast FIRE is the point where your invested nest egg is big enough that compounding alone — with zero new contributions — will carry you to a traditional retirement at 65. Hit your Coast number and you buy optionality: quit the grind, go part-time, switch careers, raise kids, take a pay cut. The math does the saving for you from here on out.

Key takeaways

  • Coast FIRE = invested amount today that, with zero new contributions, grows to your retirement target by 65.
  • The formula is one line: Target ÷ (1 + r)n. At 7% real, $200K at 30 → $1.5M at 65.
  • Once you clear the number you can stop personal retirement contributions and still retire comfortably.
  • Stress-test at 5% real before stopping — 7% is historical, not guaranteed.

Answer box

Coast FIRE is the invested amount today that, left completely alone at a 7% real return, will grow to your chosen retirement target by age 65.

The formula is a one-liner: Coast FIRE number = Target ÷ (1 + r)n where r is your expected real return and n is years until age 65.

Why people care: once you clear the number, you can stop personal retirement contributions and still land at a comfortable retirement. That unlocks career flexibility — sabbaticals, lower-paid but meaningful work, parenting years, solo business experiments — without sabotaging retirement.

Coast FIRE number by age and target (7% real return)

Pick your current age and your retirement target. The cell shows roughly what you need invested today, with zero new contributions, to coast to that target by 65 assuming a 7% real return (S&P 500-style long-run average after inflation).

Current ageYears to 65$1M target$1.5M target$2M target
2540$67K$100K$134K
3035$94K$141K$187K
3530$131K$197K$263K
4025$184K$276K$369K
4520$258K$388K$517K
5015$362K$544K$725K
5510$508K$762K$1.02M
605$713K$1.07M$1.43M

Rounded to readable figures. The canonical headline — $200K at 30 → $1.5M at 65 — comes from the slightly more conservative back-of-envelope double-every-10-yearsheuristic (the “rule of 72” at 7%). The table uses exact (1.07)n math; treat both as within rounding distance of each other.

The math, in one paragraph

The underlying identity is the plain future-value formula FV = PV × (1 + r)n. Rearrange for present value (what you need today) and you get PV = FV ÷ (1 + r)n. Pick r= 0.07 (7% real, which is roughly the US equity market's long-run return after inflation), pick n = 65 − your age, pick FV = your target (commonly 25× annual expenses via the 4% rule). That is your Coast FIRE number. No spreadsheet required — a single calculator keystroke of 1.07^n gives you the divisor.

Coast FIRE vs Lean FIRE vs Fat FIRE vs Barista FIRE

All of them are labels on the same underlying idea (retire earlier, work less), but they describe different conditions. Here is the taxonomy on one line each.

FlavorAnnual spendPortfolio targetStill working?
Lean FIRE~$25–40K~$625K–1MNo
Regular FIRE~$40–80K~$1–2MNo
Fat FIRE$100K+$2.5M+No
Coast FIRENot yet retiredEnough to coast to target at 65Yes — covering current expenses only
Barista FIREPartially covered by portfolioPartial (e.g. 50% of full FIRE)Yes — part-time for healthcare/gaps

Coast FIRE and Barista FIRE both rely on working income to cover current spending. Coast FIRE specifically stops retirement saving; Barista FIRE draws a partial retirement stipend from the portfolio while part-time work handles the rest.

Risks of stopping early (read this before you quit contributing)

Watch out

Coast FIRE is a very attractive model in spreadsheets. The failure modes live in three places the spreadsheet ignores.

  • Sequence of returns beforethe coast point doesn't hurt you — but sequence after 65 still does. Because Coast FIRE assumes no further contributions and no withdrawals during the accumulation phase, the dollar-cost-averaging concern is gone. But once you start drawing in retirement, a bad first decade of returns can still cause portfolio failure. Plan the withdrawal phase separately using the Safe Withdrawal Rate calculator.
  • 7% real may not be the next 35 years. The historical US equity premium is backed by a single sample path of one country. At 5% real (a defensible conservative assumption), $200K at 30 grows to roughly $1.10M at 65, not $1.5M — a 27% shortfall. Stress-test your plan at 4–5% real before stopping.
  • Your target will drift. Lifestyle inflation, a kid, a medical diagnosis, divorce, or simply moving to a higher-cost-of-living area can push the $1.5M target to $2.5M. Coast FIRE is only locked in if your future spend locks in too.
  • Pre-65 healthcare. Coast FIRE assumes you work until 65. If you later decide to pull forward retirement, you inherit the ACA/pre-Medicare gap problem — see our pre-Medicare gap guide.

What “stop saving” actually means

Coast FIRE writeups oversimplify this. In practice, successful coasters almost never zero out every retirement-adjacent dollar. Here is what most of them actually do:

  • Keep the full employer 401(k) match.It is a ~50–100% instant return on the contribution. Walking away from it is giving up free money — even a “coasting” plan should capture it.
  • Drop discretionary personal retirement contributions. The extra after-match 401(k) deferral and the $7,000 IRA contribution are the two levers that actually go to zero. This is where the cash-flow room shows up in your budget.
  • Keep maxing the HSA if you have a high-deductible plan.It is a triple-tax-advantaged retirement account in disguise and the contribution limits are small enough not to derail the “coasting” intent.
  • Keep a 3–6 month emergency fund fully funded. A coaster with less employment stability needs more liquidity, not less.
  • Do not touch the existing nest egg. The whole point of Coast FIRE is letting the existing portfolio compound untouched — withdrawals break the math.

FAQ

What is the difference between Coast FIRE and Barista FIRE?

Coast FIRE means you have enough invested today that compounding alone gets you to retirement at 65 — you still work, but only to cover current expenses, and you stop making retirement contributions. Barista FIRE means you rely on part-time work (often for employer-subsidized health insurance, hence the 'Starbucks barista' reference) plus partial withdrawals from your portfolio to cover living expenses before full retirement. Coast FIRE needs a fully-funded future retirement; Barista FIRE needs only a partially-funded one and uses part-time income to close the gap.

Can I Coast FIRE with $100K at age 30?

At 7% real return, $100K at 30 grows to roughly $1.07M by 65 — that is enough to coast to a $1M retirement target (about $40K/year at a 4% withdrawal rate), but short of the more common $1.5M target by about 30%. If your planned retirement spending is genuinely lean (~$40K in today's dollars), $100K at 30 is a legitimate Coast FIRE number. If you want a middle-class retirement, keep contributing until you hit ~$140K-$200K.

What return assumption should I use for Coast FIRE math?

7% real (after inflation) is the conventional assumption based on the long-run US equity premium. That is defensible for a 100% stock portfolio over 30+ years. For a 60/40 stock/bond portfolio, use 5% real. For a conservative sanity check — the number you should also calculate to avoid over-coasting — use 4%. If your plan still works at 5% real, you have a margin of safety; if it only works at 7% or above, you are running a tight plan.

What happens if the market crashes 50% right after I hit Coast FIRE?

A 50% drop right after coasting is the worst-case scenario for a Coast FIRE plan because you have stopped contributing and cannot buy the dip. However, because Coast FIRE relies on 30+ years of future compounding, recovery time is typically on your side — the S&P 500 has fully recovered from every historical 50% drawdown within 5-7 years. Protection strategies: (1) resume contributions for 12-24 months if you can, effectively dollar-cost-averaging into the recovery; (2) delay retirement by 2-3 years; (3) build the original plan around a 5% real return so you have a buffer.

Do I count home equity in my Coast FIRE number?

Generally no. Coast FIRE math assumes the $1.5M is invested in market-return assets (stocks/bonds), not real estate. Home equity is illiquid, produces no retirement cash flow unless you sell or do a reverse mortgage, and does not compound at 7% real. The only exception: if you plan to downsize in retirement and convert, say, $300K of home equity into your portfolio at age 65, you can reasonably pre-credit that amount — but conservatively at 4-5% real growth, not 7%.

Should Social Security be included in Coast FIRE calculations?

Excluding it is the conservative default and what most Coast FIRE writeups use — it gives you a margin of safety. Including it lowers your Coast number meaningfully: the average Social Security benefit of ~$1,900/month is about $23K/year, which at a 4% withdrawal rate is equivalent to having an extra $575K in the portfolio. If you include Social Security, haircut the official benefit estimate by 20-25% to account for potential trust fund shortfalls after 2034 under current law.

What about taxes on the future $1.5M?

The $1.5M target is typically stated in pre-tax terms if the money is in a traditional 401(k) or IRA — you will owe ordinary income tax on withdrawals, so the real spending power is closer to $1.1-1.2M. In a Roth account, $1.5M equals $1.5M of tax-free spending. In a taxable brokerage account, $1.5M incurs long-term capital gains tax (0%, 15%, or 20% federal depending on income bracket) only on the gains portion when sold. Most Coast FIRE plans mix all three — the safest rule of thumb is to target 20-25% more than your spending goal if your portfolio is traditional-tax-deferred-heavy.

How does Coast FIRE math work for a married couple?

Coast FIRE works the same way for couples — just use combined invested assets and a combined spending target. The common mistake is using one spouse's employer 401(k) balance as 'our Coast number' while ignoring the other spouse's retirement accounts, or failing to combine two separate targets into one shared household target. A couple targeting $2M combined at 65 needs roughly $280K combined at 30 (at 7% real) to coast — which is usually well below the sum of two individual $140K numbers, because shared spending creates scale economies.

Methodology & assumptions

  • Real return = 7%.Approximates the long-run real (after-CPI) total return of the S&P 500 over the 1928–2024 window. Not a guarantee for the next 35 years.
  • Retirement age = 65.The standard “Coast FIRE” anchor used in the original Walking to FIRE / Bigger Pockets Money framing, and aligned with US Medicare eligibility.
  • $1.5M target.Picked as a conservative middle-class retirement number — close to the $1.46M figure Americans report needing in the 2024 Northwestern Mutual Planning & Progress Study, and close to 25× $60K of annual spend per the 4% rule.
  • Taxes and fees ignored. Returns are gross of fund expense ratios and account-level taxes. Index funds and tax-advantaged accounts (401(k), IRA, HSA) make this a small adjustment in practice; taxable accounts need a tax-drag haircut of roughly 0.3–0.7%.
  • Inflation handled in real terms.Because we use a real (not nominal) return, the target dollar amount is in today's purchasing power — no separate inflation adjustment needed.

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