Real returns or nominal ones?

This calculator works entirely in today's money and asks for a return above inflation. Some calculators project a nominal balance against a target priced in today's money, which flatters the result badly over 25 years. If another tool gives you a much bigger number, this is usually why.

Does it keep your contributions running?

Coast FIRE means you stop adding. The solid line above assumes exactly that. Tools that quietly keep contributing in the background aren't answering the coasting question at all — they're answering a different one.

Which withdrawal rate is baked in?

Many tools hardcode 4% and never show it. That single choice moves your target by about 15% between 4% and 3.5%. Ours is a slider, and the target updates as you move it.

Is the spending figure before or after tax?

Almost no calculator is explicit about this, including this one — we take your spending at face value. If your retirement income is taxable, your real target is higher than any of these tools suggest.

What about the order the returns arrive in?

Every tool here, ours included, applies a smooth average return. Real markets don't. Two people with the same average can end up in very different places depending on which years the bad ones are. An average-return projection is a reasonable planning tool and a poor guarantee.

Coast FIRE calculator

Have you already saved enough that you could stop adding to it and still retire on time? Change anything below — every assumption is visible, and the answer updates as you go.

About 6 more years of saving.

$369,128

needed invested today to coast to 60

$119,128

short of that, right now

age 41

when you'd reach coasting at this rate

Keep saving $2,000/month and the gap closes around age 41 — after that, you could stop.

Your age nowAge you want to retireInvested todayEverything that's actually invested — not cash, not your house.$Annual spending in retirementIn today's money. What a year of your life costs.$Still saving each monthOnly used to work out when you'd reach coasting.$Guaranteed income later, a yearSocial Security or a pension, in today's money. 0 leaves it out. Your own estimate is in your my Social Security account at ssa.gov.$Age it starts67 is the full retirement age for anyone born in 1960 or later (SSA).

Return above inflation5%Real, not nominal. 5% real is a common assumption for stocks.Withdrawal rate4%4% is the rule of thumb. People who've arrived tend to aim at 3.5%.

if you stop contributing todayif you keep contributingthe target

The link carries your figures, so you can save it or paste it into a thread. Nothing is stored and nothing is sent to us.

Show the year-by-year numbers

Year by year projection of your portfolio
Age	If you stop now	If you keep saving
35	$250,000	$250,000
36	$262,500	$287,700
37	$275,625	$327,285
38	$289,406	$368,849
39	$303,877	$412,492
40	$319,070	$458,316
41	$335,024	$506,432
42	$351,775	$556,954
43	$369,364	$610,001
44	$387,832	$665,701
45	$407,224	$724,187
46	$427,585	$785,596
47	$448,964	$850,076
48	$471,412	$917,779
49	$494,983	$988,868
50	$519,732	$1,063,512
51	$545,719	$1,141,887
52	$573,005	$1,224,182
53	$601,655	$1,310,591
54	$631,738	$1,401,320
55	$663,324	$1,496,586
56	$696,491	$1,596,616
57	$731,315	$1,701,647
58	$767,881	$1,811,929
59	$806,275	$1,927,725
60	$846,589	$2,049,312

What is Coast FIRE?

Coast FIRE is the point where you've invested enough that compound growth alone will carry you to full financial independence by the age you want to retire — without you adding another dollar.

You usually keep working after you hit it. The difference is why: you're earning to cover this year's rent and groceries, not to build the retirement fund. That's already done. It's the earliest of the FIRE milestones to reach, which is what makes it worth knowing about.

The formula

Two steps, and nothing hidden:

Your target: annual spending ÷ withdrawal rate. $50,000 at 4% = $1,250,000.
Your Coast number: that target ÷ (1 + real return)^{years until retirement}. $1,250,000 discounted back 25 years at 5% = $369,128.

If what you have invested today clears the second figure, you're coasting.

Your Coast FIRE number by age

What you'd need invested today to coast to retirement at 65, assuming a 5% return above inflation and a 4% withdrawal rate. Change any of those in the calculator above — this grid is fixed at those assumptions so it stays comparable.

Coast FIRE number by current age and annual retirement spending
Your age now	$40,000/yr spending	$60,000/yr spending	$80,000/yr spending
25	$142,046	$213,069	$284,091
30	$181,290	$271,935	$362,581
35	$231,377	$347,066	$462,755
40	$295,303	$442,954	$590,606
45	$376,889	$565,334	$753,779
50	$481,017	$721,526	$962,034

The pattern is the whole point of Coast FIRE: the same retirement costs less the earlier you fund it. On these assumptions, waiting from 25 to 45 means needing about 2.7 times as much on the day — $142,046 against $376,889 at $40,000 of spending.

Coast FIRE vs Barista FIRE vs full FIRE

Three different answers to “how much is enough?”, and they need very different amounts saved.

Coast FIRE compared with Barista FIRE and full FIRE
	Coast FIRE	Barista FIRE	Full FIRE
What it means	You've saved enough that growth alone reaches your number. You stop adding.	A part-time income covers some of your spending, so the portfolio covers less.	Your portfolio covers all your spending. You never have to earn again.
Still working?	Yes — but only to cover today's costs, not to save.	Yes, part-time, for as long as the plan needs it.	No — that's the definition.
What you need saved	The least of the three, today.	Less than full FIRE — reduced by whatever the job reliably covers.	The full number: spending ÷ withdrawal rate.
Best if	You're early enough that compounding does the heavy lifting.	You want out of the career job, not out of work entirely.	You want a clean stop.

Work out the other two: Barista FIRE calculator · FIRE calculator

Three things your number above doesn't tell you

Not reasons to give up on the idea. Reasons to know how good the figure you just got actually is. US figures throughout.

$15,914
a year, at 60
is the unsubsidised cost of a benchmark health plan in the years before Medicare.
The calculator above assumes your spending figure already covers healthcare. Most people's doesn't. That $15,914 is the benchmark silver premium for a 60-year-old earning $65,000 — just above the income line where subsidies stop. $10,389 of it is new: that is how much more they pay now the enhanced premium tax credits have lapsed. Premiums are age-rated, so a 45-year-old pays substantially less. The years just before Medicare are the expensive ones, and they are the ones plans tend to skip.
KFF. Assumes the enhanced premium tax credits remain lapsed — live legislation. US only. As of July 2026.
What health cover really costs before Medicare →
3.5%
not 4%
is the rate people aim for once they have actually arrived.
The withdrawal rate is the single most powerful input above — it sets your target. At 4% you need roughly 25 times your annual spending; at 3.5%, roughly 29 times. Among survey respondents who had reached financial independence, the rate they set for themselves drops to 3.5%. Try moving the slider and watch the target move with it.
r/financialindependence 2025 reader survey, n=1,149 (297 reporting FI). Self-selected and self-reported; the survey states it skews heavily to high-income US tech workers and is not representative. These are rates people target, not what they withdraw.
72%
of those who got there
are still working.
Of the 297 respondents who said they had reached financial independence, 213 still worked in some form. Coasting assumes you keep earning enough to cover today's costs — and in practice, most people carry on earning well past the point where they had to. Reaching the number and stopping are two separate decisions.
Same survey, same limits. Continuing to work after retiring is also the general norm, not something specific to this group — bridge jobs run at roughly 50–64% in the wider retirement literature.
What actually happens after you hit your number →

Why Coast FIRE calculators disagree with each other

Put the same numbers into three of these and you'll get three answers. It isn't that some are broken — they make different assumptions and mostly don't tell you which. Here are the five that actually move the result.

01Real returns or nominal ones?: This calculator works entirely in today's money and asks for a return above inflation. Some calculators project a nominal balance against a target priced in today's money, which flatters the result badly over 25 years. If another tool gives you a much bigger number, this is usually why.
02Does it keep your contributions running?: Coast FIRE means you stop adding. The solid line above assumes exactly that. Tools that quietly keep contributing in the background aren't answering the coasting question at all — they're answering a different one.
03Which withdrawal rate is baked in?: Many tools hardcode 4% and never show it. That single choice moves your target by about 15% between 4% and 3.5%. Ours is a slider, and the target updates as you move it.
04Is the spending figure before or after tax?: Almost no calculator is explicit about this, including this one — we take your spending at face value. If your retirement income is taxable, your real target is higher than any of these tools suggest.
05What about the order the returns arrive in?: Every tool here, ours included, applies a smooth average return. Real markets don't. Two people with the same average can end up in very different places depending on which years the bad ones are. An average-return projection is a reasonable planning tool and a poor guarantee.

And one thing the money was never going to fix

People consistently mispredict what they'll miss. It isn't the sense of purpose. It's the colleagues — and almost nobody sees it coming.

17%

expected to miss the social side, before they stopped

34%

actually did, afterwards — roughly double

The wider picture is genuinely reassuring, with one caveat worth stating plainly. Among wealthy retirees who stopped at the normal age, most adjusted quickly and 84% said they were happier than at any point in their lives. In a separate survey, about a third said they struggled to find a sense of purpose. Both studies were funded by financial firms, which have little reason to publish the gloomier finding — and nobody has studied people who stop in their thirties or forties at all. Treat all of it as suggestive, not settled.

Sources: Merrill Lynch / Age Wave (2013) for the expectation gap; UBS Investor Watch (2017) and Edward Jones / Age Wave for the adjustment figures. All industry-funded, none peer-reviewed.

What actually happens after you hit your number

Retiring before 59½

Reaching the number is half of it. The other half is getting at money that the tax rules hold back until 59½.

The other calculators

The number for your situation, and the costs that come with leaving early.