What Is Coast FIRE?

Full early retirement isn’t the only way to win. Coast FIRE is the gentler version, and for a lot of burned-out high savers, it’s the more realistic one.

What Coast FIRE means

You’ve saved enough that, with no further contributions, compound growth alone will fund a traditional retirement at 60 or 65. You keep working, but only to cover current living expenses, not to save another dollar for retirement. The “coast” is the decades in between, where your portfolio grows while you live your life. It’s one flavor of the broader financial independence movement, just with a later finish line and a much lower savings bar.

The math

At 7% real returns, money roughly doubles every 10 years (the rule of 72). So:

• 30 years of growth: every dollar becomes ~$7.60
• 25 years of growth: every dollar becomes ~$5.40
• 20 years of growth: every dollar becomes ~$3.90

Example: you want $1.5 million at 65. With 30 years of compounding ahead, about $197,000 saved today gets you there with zero additional contributions. The formula: what you need now = target ÷ (1.07 ^ years until retirement).

That money, of course, has to actually earn those returns, which is why Coast FIRE portfolios tend to be stock-heavy and boring. The case for index funds applies double here, since you’re relying on decades of market growth.

A worked example: the 35-year-old who stops saving

Meet a 35-year-old with $200,000 invested. She stops contributing entirely and just covers her bills from her paycheck. At 7% real returns, that $200,000 grows to about $1.52 million by 65 (200,000 × 7.61). She never saves another dollar for retirement, yet retires with a seven-figure portfolio. The catch: she had to save that $200,000 first, which at a 30% savings rate on a $100,000 salary takes about seven years. Front-load the sacrifice, then coast.

What “enough” looks like at different ages

For a $1.5 million target at 65 and 7% real returns, your Coast number is roughly: $128,000 at 30 (35 years), $197,000 at 35 (30 years), $300,000 at 40 (25 years), $455,000 at 45 (20 years), and $680,000 at 50 (15 years). Notice how the number more than doubles every decade you wait. That’s the price of procrastination, and the reward for starting early. Run your own numbers at 5% and 6% too, since “enough” is sensitive to the return assumption.

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Coast FIRE vs. the other FIREs

• Lean FIRE: retire early on very little, often $1M or less total.
• Barista FIRE: quit the career, work part-time for benefits and fun money.
• Fat FIRE: retire early with a large portfolio, often $3-5M+, no lifestyle sacrifice.
• Coast FIRE: stop saving, keep working. The lowest bar of the bunch, and the only one where you don’t need to change your daily life much at all.

Your target number at the finish line still comes from the same place as everyone else’s: expected spending divided by a safe withdrawal rate.

Coast FIRE and the house philosophy

Coast FIRE is the Winchell House philosophy in miniature. Save aggressively while you’re young, invest the excess in broad-market index funds, and let compounding do the heavy lifting. Frugal living gets you to your Coast number faster; automatic saving gets you there without willpower; and a stock-heavy portfolio held for decades is what makes the math work. You don’t need to pick stocks or time markets. You need time, consistency, and the patience to let growth compound.

Who it’s for

High savers in their 30s and 40s who are burned out on the savings treadmill but don’t actually want to stop working. People who like their jobs but hate the pressure to maximize income forever. It’s also a natural milestone on the way to full FIRE, many people hit their Coast number years before their FIRE number. It’s not for anyone who wants to stop working soon (that’s full FIRE), or anyone without enough runway left for compounding to do the heavy lifting.

The catches

• It doesn’t fund early-retirement spending, you still need to cover your own bills until 60 or 65.
• Healthcare, housing, and kids don’t care about your Coast number. Big life costs can force you back into saving mode.
• The math assumes decades of decent returns. A bad decade early on does real damage, though continued (optional) contributions soften the blow.
• “Enough” is sensitive to your return assumption, run the numbers at 5% and 6% too, not just 7%.

Bottom line: Coast FIRE trades the extreme savings rates of full early retirement for patience. Save hard while you’re young, then let time do the part that effort can’t.