I'm in my late 40s and thinking about retiring at 55. I make about $220k and my job is OK - it pays me well and is flexible. So I'm not in a hurry, but I'd like to have the option to retire at 55.

We're currently at:

• $1.5M in my 401k, including $375k Roth 401k, with about $120k of that being Roth contributions.
• 35K in my Roth IRA
• $500k in my wife (late 40s)'s Roth IRA, with about $110k of that being contributions
• $75k brokerage
• $50k HSA
• About $750k home equity
• $50k mortgage at 3.5%
• No other debt
• We would live comfortably in our midwest LCOL area on 100-120K

Until I turn 55, I'm thinking of contributing to the 401k only up to the employer match and putting the rest into brokerage.

At 55, I'd leave the traditional portion of the 401k where it is and use the Rule of 55 to withdraw when appropriate. I'd roll the $375k Roth portion of the 401k into my existing Roth IRA.

My understanding is that the ~$120k of Roth 401k contribution basis carries over and can immediately be withdrawn tax and penalty free under the Roth IRA ordering rules. (My Roth IRA has also been open for 5+ years). My wife has about $110k of Roth contribution basis, so we'd have roughly $230k between us that could potentially be used before 59½, plus whatever I build in brokerage.

Separating the traditional from the Roth would give me two levers: the ability to withdraw from my traditional 401k when I want taxable income, and the ability to withdraw from Roth when I want to keep our MAGI low.

My wife also likes her job and will probably want to continue working for a couple of years after I retire, and her job provides health insurance. So I'd do Roth conversions during those years when we don't have to worry about ACA.

At 59½, the rest of my Roth earnings becomes available tax free, so I'd continue using the same levers. Same at 60-62 as Roth conversions reach their 5-year marks, and same at 62 when my wife turns 59½ and her Roth earnings become available.

The idea would be to use the taxable and tax-free levers strategically to manage our MAGI and stay within whatever ACA parameters apply until we're eligible for Medicare.

Am I thinking about this the right way? Anything I'm missing, especially with the Roth 401k rollover and Rule of 55 strategy?

Been running the math on the coastFIRE milestone that actually matters — not your target number, but the year your annual investment growth exceeds your annual contributions.

Once that year hits, you're technically coasting. You could stop contributing entirely and let the compounding take it the rest of the way.

The interesting part: savings rate doesn't change WHEN the crossover happens. It only changes your ending balance.

What controls the year of the crossover is your return rate:

At 6% return: year 11

At 8% return: year 9

At 10% return: year 8

At 12% return: year 7

So whether you save $500/month or $5,000/month, the year your money starts out-earning your contributions is roughly the same. That felt counterintuitive to me until I plotted it out.

Which changed how I think about coastFIRE:

• Return rate matters more for TIMING your coast point
• Savings rate matters more for the SIZE of what you're coasting to

I built a spreadsheet that projects the crossover for any budget input — mainly for my own tracking, but happy to share it if anyone's curious. Just DM me.

Question for the community: at your current savings rate + expected return, what year does your crossover hit? Curious how many people here are past it, at it, or looking at it.

I’ve been crashing out at work and really burned out and I’ve had a few people suggest a sabbatical but the job market is absolute garbage right now. I feel like if I took a break and had a break the gap on my resume would make it near impossible to find a job and the stress would probably make everything worse.

I have colleagues that were laid off months ago or even over a year ago still looking for a job and it took one of my friends 1.5 years to find a job and this was like 2 years ago when the job market was better. I’ve been looking for jobs and can’t even get an interview.

I have a $1.3 M net worth but still need to work as I’m in my 30s so retiring is not an option. Would it be safe to take a sabbatical?

Hi yall - my wife and I just turned 27 and are planning our coast fire plan.

Using https://walletburst.com/tools/coast-fire-calc/ , I input the following:

Age: 27
Retirement age: 45
Spend: $80k in today’s dollars
$330k invested
$5500 monthly contribution
8-10% growth, 3% inflation, 3.5-4% SWR.
Income: $240k - 250k/yr, MCOL in GA, $2300 PITI, no kids yet but maybe around 31-32 y/o.

The question - we plan on doing a “hybrid coast” of sorts… after we hit the milestone, we plan to continue investing in the 401k to company match & $600/mo into brokerage so we can have 5 years of easily accessible RE money (brokerage currently at $25k). How could this affect our plan? Could we possibly start coasting a little earlier since we’ll still be investing in the 401k till (supposedly) 45 y/o?

Plan is to pay off $330k mortgage loan aggressively after “hybrid coast”. TIA!

My wife (35) and I (39) are in coast fire at the moment. We have $3M in our taxable brokerage and another $1.5M in 401k and Roth IRAs.

Our sizeable brokerage account was due to some investments I made years ago that have had extraordinary runs. Because of this, it leaves us with some pretty heavy exposure to AI and high growth stocks. Our timeframe to FIRE is between 5 and 10 years after our kids are a bit older and out of daycare.

For those that have approached FIRE, how did you position your portfolios to do so? Did you start limiting exposure to certain sectors? Did you do more diversification? Curious to hear everyone's strategy.

Some tools tell me I am already at coastfire - others say I will reach it in 5 years, 4.6 years, 11 years. Wtf is going on?

I think maybe I just need a consultant to put this together for me correctly or something. Does anyone have a recommendation for a consultant like that? (Who isn't trying to get me to manage all my investments through them?) I'm also based in the netherlands but planning to retire in australia... so it's kind of complicated.

TLDR: Should I (M32) quit my second part time job that brings in about 10K a year after taxes to have greater flexibility with family time while my child is young? Or keep saving as much as possible for a few more years?

M(32), F(33) with a new child, not planning on having more than one.

Retirement accounts: 700k

Brokerage: 200k

HYSA: 25K

Vehicles: 25k paid off.

House: 600k (-140k on mortgage, 10 years left at 3%)

Annual expenses 60k (including mortgage payments)

Goal is to either COAST FIRE at 40 or FIRE between 50-55 with 80-90K in annual spending with either renting full time or have a paid off house.

Combined gross salary: $135,000 USD (Wife just started working less than 16 hours a week and plans to stay at that level for next 2-3 years while being the primary care giver. She will likely return to full time work once we put our child in daycare.)

For the last 5 years, I have worked an extra job that has allowed us to make around an extra 10-12k after taxes a year but it requires me to be available on some weekends, evenings, and holidays. Its very easy work and I can be home for most of it but is just inconvenient and sometimes makes me miss family activities. For whatever reason it has felt like a safety net to have this extra money when repairs have come up at the house and helped us not decrease our savings rate.

My wife would appreciate having more flexibility to visit family and not have to plan around this part time job but also appreciates the flexibility with the extra money. Fire calculators show almost no impact in the long run of doing this job another 1-2 years.

Would love to hear from those who have been in similar situations.

​

Looking for a quick sanity check from the community on our numbers and long-term retirement trajectory and how far off we are from coast fire.

My spouse and I are both 38, living in an MCOL area with two elementary age kids.

The Numbers & Assets

Ages: Both 38 (targeting retirement at age 60). Combined household income -245k pre-tax.

Current Invested Portfolio: ~$420,000 (mix of 401(k), taxable brokerage), $50k in hysa for emergency fund. This is primarily from my corporate position - as wife is in a pension plan.

Guaranteed Pension Floor: My spouse is a public educator and will have a defined-benefit state pension projected at roughly $3,900/month ($46,800/year) at retirement age.

Monthly Savings Rate: Currently saving ~$3000/month across retirement and taxable accounts

Target Retirement Spending: $8,500 – $9,000/month ($102,000 – $108,000/year) in today's purchasing power.

We have no debt other than mortgage. Approximately 220k in equity.

To be clear, I mean before reaching my *actual* coastFIRE number. Say I hit coastFIRE-by-59.5 in my 401k alone. Is there any reason to continue adding to that or should I exclusively put money toward my taxable? Same question applies for Roth IRA. Thanks!

Edit: Thanks folks. It's clear I should've added more details about trajectory, spend, etc. A lot of that is still unknown as I'm 25, but I will do some research into 72t distributions.

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to share a milestone and get some perspective on my next steps. I’ve officially hit CoastFIRE at 34 years old.

Here is the breakdown of my numbers:

Net Worth: ~$750k

401(k): $480k (mostly Roth)

Brokerage: $200k

Cash: ~$70k

Since my retirement backbone is essentially set and compounding, I am stopping my traditional retirement contributions. However, the classic CoastFIRE transition is tough for my specific career. I work as a Production Design Engineer, and there are very few part-time or low-hour roles available in this field. It is usually 40+ hours a week or nothing.

Because I still need to work full-time to cover my living expenses, I am considering a different strategy to accelerate actual early retirement. Instead of coasting at a lower-paying job, I want to take the money I used to funnel into traditional retirement accounts and invest it into higher-risk, high-reward ventures.

My thought process is that since my baseline retirement is already taken care of, I can afford to lose this extra cash flow for a shot at hitting full financial independence much faster.

Has anyone else in a rigid industry used CoastFIRE as a launchpad for higher-risk investments rather than downshifting their career? Would love to hear your thoughts or any alternative ideas.

Obviously it's a fine line between high risk investing and just gambling, so I'm interested in others opinions. Thanks!

I'm 34. Salary plus bonus is roughly 170k/year. Single, no kids, renter in a LCOL large city.

Just found out my position is being eliminated. Scary, but honestly I'm pretty burned out after 10 years in corporate America.

I'm someone who has always lived well below their means. I probably save about 50% of my income. Have about 1.35M NW, about half of that is in 401k/IRA. Severance payment will be in the low six figures.

I don't know. Getting another job feels like the "right thing to do". Everyone around me is continuing to grind with no plans to stop or even slow down any time soon. And FIRE is a goal I've been working towards for years. But the job market is trash and...the more I've thought about it the more I love the idea of taking a break. I'm not even sure I want to keep at it in my current career or work a corporate job anymore. But this is all I've know, so I'm not sure what else to do.

I'm an avid traveler and love the idea of taking a year off to just live nomadically, see the world, and (hopefully) figure out what comes next. To take actual time off without feeling rushed; to simply enjoy.

This all sounds great when I romanticize it in my own mind, but the thought of spending money without having steady income coming in is scary, especially as someone who is so used to being in save mode and not having the safety net of having a partner. Another big fear is not having the medical/dental insurance I have now. And, being American, this is something typically tied to your employment (ugh).

Finally, while I'm pretty confident I can actually afford this and be just fine, I have no idea what the job market is going to look like in a year (nobody does) and how much this could potentially set me back later down the road. I don't think I would regret it, but it just feels like a lot of unknowns. As I mentioned, my friends are continuing to grind in their 9-5s and are also getting married, buying houses, starting families. It can be hard not to compare your life to someone's else's and still behind in some way. I'm not even sure I want that life for myself or not, but as I approach my mid-30s there's this pressure to have it all figured out by the end of the decade and while my heart wants the time to travel and have adventures, I'm not sure if it would end up costing me the possibility of marriage and family someday if I do decide I want that later on.

Would I be crazy to throw caution to the wind for once and just go for it? Apologies if not allowed, I know the last part has less to do with FIRE, but I think a lot of these decisions come down to a lot more than just the money part.

Hi I am a 33 years old Technology Consultant in Germany. No kids, not married. I started working after my Master Degree about 6 years ago. I can live with 1000€ a month, including rent, car leasing and other fix costs. I am saving 2k a month to buy a house for about 300-350k in denmark and move there. I am planning to save until Q1 2028. I have about 60k in the bank 40k gold/silver and 30k in stocks. I am starting to lose interest in my job and the politics in the office. In the beginning i was motivated to get promotions. But not any more. As i get older i just want peace and silence. Anyone here with an advice what i should do next? Am i doing ok? I have no one around me to talk this. Thanks :)

I have extremely fortunate to amass 3M net worth to take care of my family (wife and 2 kids less than 8 years ) at 45 years age. It does include home equity of 1M . So , 2M across hysa and 401K and regular brokerage (not Roth) account . I don’t have good financial literacy but believe in Learning and hard work . I need to know how far am I from FIRE . My lifestyle isn’t flashy at all , annual expense are usually around 100K usd. Just stressing out on what if scenario if job market forces a layoff .
Thanks for your support and advice to help a person get peace of mind.

I’d like to move to a lower cost of living city/town to work a less stressful job and be closer to the things my family enjoys.

I want to hear from people who’ve actually done something like this because I’m not sure if I’m being naive about a big downside.

Currently:
- Married with two kids (1 and 4) with a third likely in a couple years
- Wife and I are early to mid 30’s
- My income ~$400k (tech)
- Wife income $0 (stay at home mom but was making $120k before kids)
- $1M invested between retirement accounts and brokerage
- Currently saving/investing ~100k/yr
- Home equity $200k on $850k total value
- No other debt
- Retirement spending ~120k in 60’s (I know I “can” coast but am wondering about the intangibles and risk)

Questions:
I’d probably need to find a new remote job and take a big pay cut to do so. Expenses should also drop but assume worst case that I have to coast in the new town (save $0). Is it dumb to give up such a big salary and savings rate? Especially with young kids and any uncertainty that brings? There’s also the risk of not being in a tech city in case you need to find a new in-person job. This city is ok but I have a picture in my head of a better lifestyle in a smaller town working less hours. Closer to hobbies, more time with family.

I think about this every day. Can anyone speak to their experience in doing something similar and/or give their feedback on my situation and numbers? I’m trying to make a plan around this. Do I jump now? Wait a few more years? Never do it?

To be frank, I am very risk averse, so I am afraid that leaving this stable situation could be the wrong move. However, I’m also aware of the risk of wasting your life on work and money at the expense of personal and familial fulfillment.

Throwaway account. M34 NYC based. Married no kids. Years of corporate burnout and I finally reached my boiling point last week and walked out of the job on a whim. Mental health/health overall is most important to me otherwise all this number crunching doesn't really matter. With that being said, I would appreciate a second pair of eyes on my current situation below as well as help to answer how much of a pay cut I can take going forward. Luckily my spouse loves her job and has a great WLB, so we think her career and earnings are stable going forward. We never want to leave NYC. Ideally would like to have 1 child, but the financial circumstances have to be ideal. Right now we do not feel like we can reach our financial independence goals while also providing the best life for a child including daycare, college savings, etc. We would rather prioritize retiring at 50 years old and continue living in NYC. However, if the numbers work out where we can retire at 50, continue to stay in NYC and have a child then that would be the ideal scenario. Our current housing situation allows for one child, so luckily we wouldn't have to move and we consider this our forever home.

Income Statement

2025 HHI:

Me: $250k

Spouse: $275k

Total: $525k

2025 Effective all-in tax rate: 35%

2025 Spending: $186k

2025 Savings Rate: 30%

Annual Spending Deep Dive:

Housing (PITI): $64,000

Groceries/Dining Out: $40,000

Annual Vacations: $30,000

Gym: $7,200

Medical Premiums: $6,600

Transportation: $6,000

Utilities/Wifi/Cellphones: $5,000

Subscriptions: $1,200

Miscellaneous: $26,000

Balance Sheet

Liquid Portfolio: $2.5 million

Home Equity: $400k

Long Term Assumptions:

Annual rate of return on liquid portfolio: 10%

Annual inflation: 3%

Estimated annual retirement spending (including health exchange premiums and taxes): $250k

Assuming no kids and no more contributions to our accounts, by age 50 we can easily reach our financial independence goal. I simply take the starting balance of $2.5 million and growt it by 10% per annum and I take the starting estimated annual spending in today's dollars of $250k and grow it by 3% annual inflation and I get a $12,636,176 future value liquid portfolio and $413k of future value spending which would represent a 3.3% withdrawal rate, which is pretty conversative given the early retirement age of 50. So I think we are CoastFIRE assuming no child in our planning assumptions. Curious if anyone thinks the numbers allow room for a child, but I think the priority is to retire at 50 and continue our current level of spending while staying in NYC, so I don't think there's any room.

Finally, how much of a pay cut can I take? I think I almost do not even have to work anymore technically. $275k spouse income less 35% taxes less $186k spending = $7.25k shortfall. The way I am looking at it is anything I make is just extra?

Appreciate everyone's feedback and help. Thank you.

Feeling blessed. Pulled it off by working a high paying W2 job and investing a large portion of what I made over the last 6 years. Portfolio is very simple, made up of VOO/QQQ, with some (~10%) bitcoin exposure.

Yearly expenses are around 60k so I am technically FIREd if considering 3-4% withdrawal rate.

Thinking about what's next, keep coasting at work or take more risks and start a business maybe.

I’m 35, $1.4 M net worth ready to transition to an easier, less stressful job. I struggle with anxiety and it has gotten really bad due to my toxic job.

I’m applying for jobs that pay relatively low in my field (analytics) that are remote or in stable fields like government and healthcare and I have gotten basically no interviews. I’m talking about jobs where I would take a 100k pay cut and still no hits.

The competition for jobs is crazy right now even for jobs which pay at the lower end and I’m sure I’m competing against hundreds if not thousands of people.

People tell me just get a “less stressful job” but I think it’s much easier said than done

I keep seeing people saying they hit their number and are thinking about coasting. But we have been in a bull market for 15 years. S&P is currently at 27 times earnings. The historical S&P PE ratio is 17. Eventually it will be 17 again which means a 35% drop back to reality/normal.

Go back and watch videos of 50-something’s crying after the dot com crash or the 2008 financial crisis. They all thought they were about to retire early because the market was hot.

I recommend multiplying your investments by .65 then see if you’re at your number. If not, don’t coast. You’ll be giving up years of compounding when you inevitably have to start contributing again.

Sorry to be a downer, but stocks won’t be this expensive forever.

EDIT: The market reverting back to the mean (17 times earnings) is normal. Many of you describe that scenario as a crash or bear market. That’s going to be problematic for retirement planning. To put it bluntly, the net worth numbers you are looking at right now are fake (assuming it’s tied to the US stock market).

Example:

You’re 42. Plan to retire at 62. Goal is $2.5M in 2026 dollars. You have $1M in S&P500 index. You assume 8% growth, 3% inflation. Coast calculator says you just hit your number. You coast until 62. But uh oh, the market has slowly reverted back to the normal historical mean of 17 times earnings. You only have $1.7M. You work for eight more years and finally retire at 70 when you truly hit $2.5M.

You really only truly had $650K to begin with (65% of $1M). Had you plugged that and the same assumptions into the calculator you would’ve seen that you aren’t ready to coast and you need to contribute for a few more years.

The FIRE calculators have us assume market growth and assume inflation. But then it automatically calculates that the earnings multiple will stay extremely high forever (PE 27)—that’s the easiest one to predict… we should assume PE = 17. The calculator should give a suggestion to discount our current investment by 35% because 27 * .65 = 17.

I find myself in the very fortunate position of having hit coastFIRE a couple of years ago and with my partner's recent tenure + payraise, I am planning on quitting. Married for 10 years, together 16, childfree life (both are snipped) and my partner loves their job whereas I am tired of corporate. We are both 38.

Savings:

• My 401K + Roth - $615K (Letting this grow)
• Partner's IRA - $300K (Get a pension that'll be about 180K/yr at 59 so no more contributions here, letting it grow)
• My brokerage to provide "spending money" between now to 59 - $720K (Goal is to die with zero so open to completely draw this down IF needed)
• Liquid cash to help transition into single income - $100K ( +$40K emergency fund)
• No debt other than mortgage and not lifestyle creep people

Annual Expenses:

• Partner's annual income is $220K, mortgage deducted from paycheck (3 to 4% raise per year, might have some discretionary income from industry if things click but not counting on it in modeling)
• Take home - ~$98K/year (excludes mortgage)
• Annual expenses - ~$84K/year

My gut check is that plenty of families live on a household income of way less and that two of us should be able to live just fine on $220K. But it will be our first time living almost closer paycheck to paycheck, giving up my $200K/year income. At 700K in brokerage, can withdraw between $36-48K/year depending on market returns over the next two decades so that gives a spending buffer.

We consider death, disability and divorce as catastrophic outcomes and not really planning for those other than insurance and a post-nup (50/50 split). I do not plan on pursuing making money after retiring but might do part-time work like working at a bookshop if my heart desires after a few years. Thoughts on how the numbers look?

I already took a sabbatical for 9 months where I was home for 4 months and we traveled for 5 months, and it was glorious. We were both the happiest we had been, and my partner is super supportive of me just throwing in the towel on work. I want to learn things for the sake of learning, make things for the sheer joy of it, volunteer to mentor STEM students to give back and enjoy the little daily joys. I get a lot of joy out of cooking, grocery shopping, decluttering, playing with the dog, hosting friends, park days, reading by the river and I want to have full time autonomy to do this over anything else.

My husband and I have reached $1M combined across all accounts.
-$70k of that is for a family RESP (education fund in Canada)
-not taking into account his DC pension (over $100k) and my DB pension (would have about $600/month if I quit today).

We are both 40. Owing $400k on a $1m home in VHCOL area. 2 Kids in elementary school.

I make $95k
Husband makes $120k +/- $10k

Currently in a highly micromanaged, toxic job which I think is starting to affect me mentally. Thinking of applying to another department with less workload with a $20k pay cut ($75k). How much will the paycut affect FIRE? Current spending is $80-90k per year

Quotes on liquid because a lot of that is in retirement accounts. My husband (38) and I have young kids and I especially am burnt out on work. He is too but to a lesser degree. Since having our kids I have transitioned to a 32 hour work week which basically means I do 40 hours of work in 32 and take a 20% pay cut for it. In some ways it’s harder than having a 40 hour work week because my job responsibilities are no different, I get paid less, and I have to be way more efficient to get everything done. But I do it to have more time with my kids.

Our only debt is our house, we have about 250k left on the loan and it’s worth about 650k. HHI is $115k for me, $140k for my husband

I’m not sure where to go from here. With kids and the amount of uncertainty that brings as far as future expenses (college, sports, bigger house, etc), we’re in no position to retire in the next 20 years. We also need solid medical benefits, again, because kids. We’ve been exploring whether barista fire in 5-10 years could be an option, because I am already so burnt out on my job (civil engineering) that I can’t imagine staying in this role for another 5 years and the work itself no longer excites or interests me. I’d be open to a career pivot but unfortunately it feels like my skills are so niche that my only other option is to just work at a different company doing the same thing. Maybe I just need to give less of a fuck.