Coast FIRE Calculator
There's a point where you can stop saving for retirement entirely and still retire on time. Most people blow right past it without ever knowing it was there.
It's called Coast FIRE: the moment your invested money is big enough that compounding alone carries it to your full FIRE number by retirement age, with zero new contributions. Hit it, and you can downshift to a job that only has to cover today's bills. Miss it, and you keep over-saving for years you didn't need to.
This Coast FIRE calculator finds the exact number you need invested today. Takes 30 seconds.
Your Results
Escape the 9-5 with FIRE
You just ran the numbers. The number is the easy part.
Most FIRE plans don't fail because the math was wrong. They fail in the gap between the number and the path: tax moves done in the wrong order, lifestyle creep that quietly resets the target, and One More Year Syndrome dragging the timeline five years past the day someone could have walked away. This book covers the path between the two, in 30 pages with no fluff.
- The savings rate table — see exactly how many years you can cut by saving 10% more
- Coast & Barista FIRE — the two paths most people overlook that get you out years earlier
- The Double Effect — why every spending cut does two jobs at once and why it beats a raise
- The tax stack — 401k → HSA → Roth Ladder, in the exact order that saves $20–50k over your career
- Sequence of returns risk — the timing problem that can wreck a perfect plan, and how to protect against it
- One More Year Syndrome — the trap that keeps people working five years past their number
- Plus the 2026 Tax Cheat Sheet — every contribution limit, bracket, and FIRE number on two pages, updated yearly
The calculator gives you the number. The book walks you through the moves that get you there.
Instant download — both PDFs.
FIRE Planning Workbook
You found your number. The Workbook shows you how to keep it through the tax maze.
Hitting your FIRE number is mostly arithmetic. The hard part starts the day you stop working and start withdrawing, because the order you pull money decides how much the IRS takes. The FIRE Planning Workbook takes your real numbers, your state, and your account mix, then runs the full US tax picture of your drawdown for every year of retirement. It's the Google Sheet you'd build yourself if you had a CPA and a free month.
- Tax-aware withdrawal tab — federal tax, cap-gains stacking, Social Security, MAGI, ACA exposure, IRMAA tier, and RMD for every year
- Six built-in calculators — Roth ladder, Rule 72(t) SEPP, 0% LTCG harvesting, ACA cliff, IRMAA projector, RMD
- Five-path scenarios — Lean, Regular, Fat, Coast, and Barista side by side, each with its own number and timeline
- Live dashboard, 50-year projection, and monthly net-worth tracker, all in today's dollars
- The 2026 Tax Cheat Sheet built in, with free updates through tax year 2030
Already read the ebook? This is the engine that runs those moves on your own numbers.
Instant access. Yours to copy and keep.
Coast FIRE Calculator: stop saving, start coasting
Coast FIRE (also written CoastFIRE) is the point where you stop actively saving for retirement, and let compound growth finish the job. Your portfolio is big enough today that, with zero new contributions, it grows to your full FIRE number by traditional retirement age.
Use this Coast FIRE calculator to find the exact number: how much you need invested right now so you can downshift, take the lower-stress job, or go freelance without wrecking your retirement.
How Coast FIRE works: pick your target retirement age, set your annual retirement spending, and the calculator works backwards to find today's coast number. The math: Coast number = (annual spending × 25) ÷ (1 + return)years. Every year you delay Coast FIRE, the number grows, because compounding has less time to work. Hit Coast FIRE 10 years earlier and you roughly halve the required portfolio.
Coast FIRE vs Standard FIRE: Standard FIRE means full early retirement with no job needed. Coast FIRE means optional work decades earlier: you still cover current expenses, but you never have to save another dollar toward retirement. For most people it's the fastest way to make work optional.
How the FIRE calculator works
This calculator uses the 4% safe withdrawal rule, the cornerstone of the FIRE movement. It was established by William Bengen in 1994 and confirmed by the Trinity Study: if you withdraw 4% of your portfolio in year one of retirement and adjust for inflation annually, your portfolio has historically survived 30+ years in 96% of scenarios.
Your FIRE number is your annual retirement spending divided by your withdrawal rate. At 4%, that's your annual expenses multiplied by 25. Once your invested portfolio reaches this number, you're financially independent and work becomes optional.
The calculator iterates year by year, growing your portfolio at the expected return and adding your annual savings, until it crosses your FIRE number.
Frequently asked questions
What is the FIRE number?
Your FIRE number is the total investment portfolio you need to retire early. It's your annual retirement expenses divided by your safe withdrawal rate. At 4%, your FIRE number is annual expenses × 25. If you spend $50,000/year, your FIRE number is $1,250,000.
What is the 4% rule?
The 4% rule states that you can safely withdraw 4% of your portfolio in year one of retirement, then adjust for inflation each year, with a high probability (around 96%) that your portfolio will last 30+ years. It was established by the 1994 Bengen study and confirmed by the 1998 Trinity Study. Some financial planners suggest 3.5% for early retirees planning for 40–50 year retirements.
What is Coast FIRE?
Coast FIRE means you have enough invested today that compound growth will carry your portfolio to your FIRE number by traditional retirement age, without adding another dollar. You can "coast" by working just enough to cover current expenses, with no need to save more for retirement.
What is Barista FIRE?
Barista FIRE means semi-retiring with part-time work that covers some of your expenses. Because your part-time income reduces how much you need from your portfolio, your required portfolio is much smaller. Every $1 of part-time income reduces your required portfolio by $25 (at 4% SWR). See the dedicated Barista FIRE calculator for the part-time income and healthcare math.
How much do I need to retire at 40?
To retire at 40, you need 25× your annual expenses (at 4% SWR). If you spend $50,000/year, you need $1,250,000. For a 50-year retirement, consider using 3.5% SWR instead, which works out to about 28.6× your expenses, or roughly $1,430,000 for $50K annual spending. The earlier you retire, the more conservative your withdrawal rate should be.
What return rate should I use?
The US stock market has returned approximately 10% annually before inflation (7% after inflation) over long historical periods. Most FIRE practitioners use 7% as a nominal return and 5% as a real (inflation-adjusted) return. This calculator uses nominal returns by default, so set it to 5% if you want inflation-adjusted projections.
Test your withdrawal rate
See how often a 4% (or any) withdrawal rate has historically survived your retirement length.
Open the SWR Calculator →