Coast

Coast FIRE for one or two incomes

If you both stopped saving for retirement, would what you have grow into enough by the time you retire? And if not yet, when?

FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. You reach Coast FIRE when what you have invested would, with no more saving, grow into your retirement number by your retirement age.

You'd still work to pay today's bills, but you'd no longer need to save for retirement. A lower-paying job, part-time work or a sabbatical stops putting retirement at risk.

The big number at the top is the earliest age you could both stop saving and still reach your FIRE number by retirement. It is solved for: the calculator tries every age and keeps the first that works.

Meets the coast line is the first age your own plan, as you entered it, is at or above the coast line. When nobody keeps saving after coasting and there's no Barista draw, the two are the same age. If you keep saving part of your contributions after coasting, or draw from the portfolio while coasting, they can differ, so both are shown.

The rows under Earliest coast age also solve for each partner alone, holding the other's plan as entered.

FIRE number = retirement spending ÷ safe withdrawal rate.

Coast number today = the FIRE number discounted back to today at the real return: FIRE ÷ (1 + real return)^{years to retirement}. The coast line on the chart is the same sum for every age.

The projection steps one year at a time: last year's balance grows at the real return, then this year's contributions are added (401(k), employer, Roth IRA and HSA for each partner, changing at each partner's coast age) and any Barista draw is taken out.

Contributions are held constant in today's dollars, so they rise with inflation in real life.

Everything is in today's dollars. The return is converted with the exact formula (1 + return) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1. A 7% return with 2.4% inflation is about 4.49% real, not the 4.6% you'd get by subtracting.

The Trinity study (1998) found that taking 4% of a stock-and-bond portfolio in the first year, then raising it with inflation, lasted 30 years in most historical periods. People retiring early, with 40 or 50 years to fund, often plan on 3.25% to 3.75%.

Every starting value is a published US median or typical figure, not anyone's own numbers. Change them to yours; they stay on this device.

• Two earners at $62,608 each: median full-time weekly earnings, $1,204 in 2025, × 52 (BLS).
• 401(k) $4,800 (7.7% of pay) and employer 4.3%: average deferral rate 7.7% and average total contribution rate 12.0% in Vanguard's How America Saves 2025 (PLANADVISER; 24/7 Wall St.), so employer ≈ 12.0 − 7.7.
• Roth IRA $3,200: average Roth IRA contribution of filers aged 35 to 49, $3,211 in 2022 (IRS data in CRS R48051).
• HSA $1,400: nearly $60 billion contributed in 2025 across 41.7 million accounts, about $1,440 each (Devenir).
• Invested $45,000: median retirement-account balance of families headed by someone 35 to 44 who have one, 2022 (Federal Reserve SCF).
• Age 42: median age of employed US workers, 2025 (BLS).
• Spending $71,000/yr: two-person households spent $80,830 in 2024, of which $9,652 was pension and Social Security contributions that stop at retirement (BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey via FRED).
• Inflation 2.4%: the Social Security Trustees' long-run intermediate CPI assumption (SSA).
• Return 7%, withdrawal 4%, retirement at 65: common planning figures (WalletBurst's default return, the Trinity study, Medicare age).
• Bridge and coast age: pre-tax share 90%, since Roth money is only about 7% of US IRA and workplace-plan assets (Q3 Advisors, from ICI data), rounded down to leave room for the HSA and taxable money; 72(t) share 50% (an even split); 72(t) rate 5% (the floor of the maximum IRS Notice 2022-6 allows); coast age 55 (a placeholder midpoint, used only when you switch it on).
• Buying a home (off until you switch it on): price $418,000, the September 2026 median existing-home price of $417,500 rounded (NAR); mortgage 7.4%, Freddie Mac's 30-year average in mid-October 2026 (FRED); 10% down, the median for first-time buyers (NAR 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers); rent $1,530/mo, the Q2 2026 median asking rent of $1,531 (Census); property tax 0.9%, the 2025 effective rate (ATTOM); insurance $1,600/yr, the NAIC 2022 average of $1,569 rounded (Insurance Information Institute); maintenance 1%, the low end of Fannie Mae's 1–4% (Fannie Mae); PMI 0.6%, the middle of Freddie Mac's $30–$70 a month per $100,000 (Freddie Mac); closing 3% and selling 6% (Chase, agent commissions about 5–6%); home prices 0.5%/yr above inflation, between Shiller's long-run estimates; rent growth 0% above inflation (NBER w35124).
• 2026 limits: 401(k) $24,500, IRA $7,500 (IRS); HSA $4,400 self-only, $8,750 family (Rev. Proc. 2025-19).

With these typical numbers the household does not reach its FIRE number by 65. That's a realistic starting point, not a mistake.

Markets don't grow smoothly; a crash early on can push you back below the coast line for years. Taxes, fees, Social Security, pensions, catch-up contributions and income limits on Roth IRAs aren't modeled. Social Security in particular could lower the amount you need.

This is a planning toy, not financial or tax advice.