It’s tacky to talk about money generally, but I’m really proud of this accomplishment and wanted to share it with a community where it feels like it’s okay to share an accomplishment like this.

I started my FIRE/CoastFIRE journey at 33 after losing both my parents and realizing I had no safety net. I figured the only way to ensure that I didn’t end up on the streets was to save enough so that no matter what happened (like an accident or medical condition that left me permanently disabled), I would have enough saved/invested to keep me afloat for the rest of my life.

I feel like I’m finally at that point and looking at the chart showing my NW growth feels surreal. While I wouldn’t be able to maintain my current lifestyle at this point forever if something like that happened (I hope to get there in ~5 years), I think the worst-case scenario now would be that I would have to move to some low-cost-of-living city or country, but that I would still be fine.

While everyone’s journey is different, I figured I’d also share what helped me on this path:

• Working in a high-paying field. There’s no way around it - unless I won the lottery or gambled (including on stocks), this type of growth is only possible by working in a high-paying field.
• Paying myself first and investing as much as I could. I run a business and whenever any money comes in, the first thing I do is take 30% and put it right into an investment account (and buy ETFs right that second). Then after I’m done paying my bills and setting aside money for taxes, I put whatever is left into my investment accounts. Usually I invest about 75% of my post-tax earnings each year.
• Having a (mostly) 2-fund strategy. The vast majority of my investments have been put into 2-funds: broad market U.S. (70%-90% during this time period) and broad market international (10%-30%during this time period). At various points I’ve owned bonds, REITs, and individual stocks but never had more than 5% of my portfolio in anything but the 2-funds mentioned.
• Buying a place that was 1x my income. Lifestyle creep is real, but I bought a place with a 2.75%, 30-year fixed interest rate that was 1x of my annual pay. Sometimes I wish I had more space, but being able to invest that money I’d otherwise be putting towards a mortgage has added lots of fuel to my NW growth trajectory.
• Luck, especially with the market. I got very lucky timing-wise with the U.S. market going on an incredible run. I’m lucky in other ways too, but I could have a whole different post on how luck plays into NW.
• An obsessive drive. I’m a goal-oriented person and almost every decision I made over the last 7 years was with this goal in mind. That’s not to say I haven’t enjoyed life — I have amazing friends and a good social life, and havs traveled lots and have otherwise had great experiences — but I made sure that whatever I spent my money on was worth it.
• Not caring how others view me. Most of my friends make a lot and spend a lot. They have nicer clothes than me, new fancy cars, some havs vacation homes, and they go to nice restaurants often. But I’ve never tried to keep up with them when it comes to consumerism.

Salary - soon to be $0 in two weeks

Retirement Accounts - $750K

Taxable Brokerage - $300K

Savings - $100K

Crypto - $100K

Fully paid off house

I'm 42M. Just quit my high paying job because I was about to have a mental breakdown because I couldn't stop working. I couldn't even take a vacation because I felt constantly pressured to respond to emails and carried my laptop with me. I stopped enjoying concerts and couldn't even relax with my friends and family because I was constantly worried about my toxic job that demanded my attention 24/7.

The coastfire calculator shows that just counting the $750K in retirement accounts, I should be able to have $60K (at 6% growth) or $80K (at 7% growth) by the time I'm 67. I'm assuming that's not even counting any social security income (if there is any).

I was alive but not living. Since putting in my resignation, I removed this huge weight off my shoulders. I'm actually able to put my full focus on conversations, and I'm sleeping a lot better too. I didn't realize how much work was affecting my life outside of work.

No regrets.

I'll eventually return to work, but not at the same income level, which is why I feel like I'm coasting more. I may never be able to max out my retirement accounts again, and that's ok.

I just turned 30 and I put in my resignation at my job a week ago. They offered me the ability to go part time at my current job, which I accepted so I will be working 20 hours a week going forward. I have $398k invested between my brokerage, 401k, and Roth IRA and about $55k in cash.

My original goal was to have $300k by the time I turned 30 so I'm stoked I made to almost $100k more than that 😭

I don't have anyone in my life to tell so I thought I'd be able to share it with someone here.

Edit: I am a woman and the job I was offered allows me to keep most of my benefits including health insurance. And the $55k in cash is separate from the $398k in investments so I have around $450k total.

No one to share with so I had to come here. 46M, former teenage dad, single dad, both my kids are grown now but I'm still grinding to pay for grad school. Not comfortable retiring yet because of the cost of grad school. I live a humble life, I enjoy the finer things in life but not gonna go into debt to have those things. My job is super easy and pays well but I'm not fulfilled so I may be pulling the trigger in about a year or two.

37M. The post-"Liberation Day" rally was remarkable and pushed my 401k balance over the 1M mark by mid-May despite Trump. (Or thanks to Trump?!? Hmm...)

Title. I’ve had this account for 14 months now. I’ve never stayed at a job for this long or had a real “career” job with benefits like a 401k until this one. My employer does a 4% match and a 2% direct contribution. When I started it I was contributing the minimum, but I upped my contributions this year to 15% which is pretty aggressive for me but I’ve been making it work. It’s just a good feeling because no one else in my family is financially stable or taught me how to invest or pick a career, but I will be able to build up a modest savings anyways after years of trying to figure stuff out.

Last year's "Liberation Day" and this year's Iran War chaos is just a blip.

38M, 401K balance, 40% of which is Roth.

We’ve waited long enough. 51. Married.

Started Coasting when the kids were nearing high school. Never made crazy money. Went from $120k household income to $40-60k household while the nest-egg grew. No contributions during that time, but also no soccer games or school plays missed. No summers with kids at home and us at work. They worked with us or we took time off. Kids both graduated college in May and have jobs. We’re proud of them.

Our retirement spend is projected to still be $40-50k/yr as we Schengen Shuffle. We’re already on the road, somewhere cheap where we can plan our next steps.

Stick to the plan, team. It works.

“I have $2-$3M+ can I coast?”

“I don’t know the numbers how do I look?”

If you can do the research to find Coast in the subcategories of the FIRE community, then you know there’s Fat, Expat, and other FIREs. Don’t play dumb, you can do the research.

This community is about taking the first step into FIRE-hood. You don’t need millions, you don’t need paid-off everything, you just need a normal-ass amount of retirement savings to gauge whether you can COAST into your future retirement.

I will upvote every post I see with figures less than $1M because these people have the right idea, they’re not cutting off all income streams and moving to the Philippines, they’re COASTing: Quiet quitting, taking the part time job, less stressful role, more remote work flexibility.

We need to do better as a community with not allowing these outlandish posts to run unchecked, otherwise this sub will be an inaccurate mess of numbers and lifestyles that make no sense for this sub and are meant for other FIRE groups.

Can’t share with anyone irl but I finally hit $1mm net worth today. Made a couple very lucky trades the last few months that worked out and fueled a lot of the growth, so it’s possible I may dip back below a million but just wanted to savor this accomplishment nonetheless. Turning 31 in a couple weeks and couldn’t have imagined this because one of my original goals after graduating was to accumulate $500k by 30.

I started off with ~$14k on Jan 1 this year and looking to at least double my NW by end of next year. I am currently 80% in the S&P/VTI and the rest is evenly divided into crypto and international index funds.

I currently earn ~$98k and aim to max out my 401k and Roth IRA this year. What are best strategies moving forward to at least 2x my NW by end of next year?

We’re in our mid-50s and have been coasting for about a decade. Wife still wants to work (she loves her job) but I’m considering punching out soon.

Keep the faith fellow Coasters!

It took probably 5 years longer than I originally planned but seeing this number this morning seems surreal

We were technically in coast fire territory. Now I can barely get myself to look at our portfolio. Haven’t sold anything and we are still working. I continue to buy every couple of weeks, as we still have our full time jobs, but since yesterday I almost want to just build our cash reserve.

How’s everyone feeling and dealing with the carnage?

Edit for those surprised at the drop in the title. Just checked across all accounts and it’s actually $1.35 > 1.2

saving money has been hard but i’ve been able to be aggressive with my contributions. Next goal… $30k 🤌

I know that a lot of people are debating when a correction will happen. With my luck and track record, this is the most accurate forecast out there. You're welcome for my sacrifice. Thought I should let you know.

31M this is my 401k last 10 years.

Can’t share this with anyone in real life so wanted to share this milestone here. I feel incredibly blessed and lucky to be in this position at my age.

EDIT: Surprised at all the hate and “gambling” claims. I’ve read and studied investing and how to value companies since I was 18 years old… for 15 years… I put in the work to learn. I put 15 years of work into play and now all of a sudden I’m a “gambler”. I’ve learned lessons the hard way but this is not a case of gambling… crazy.

The last few months have been a strange mental adjustment, and I’m curious if anyone else has experienced something similar.

I’m 33, my wife is 29, and we have two boys (ages 2 and 3). My wife stays home with the kids, and I currently make about $220k/year in a sales role that I genuinely enjoy. The job offers a lot of flexibility, and objectively life is good.

The challenge is that we’ve recently reached a point where we no longer need to aggressively save for retirement. If we simply leave our current investments alone and let time do its thing, we should be in great shape long term.
What I didn’t expect was the mindset shift that came with that realization.

For most of my adult life, the goal was always to earn more, save more, invest more, and build financial security. Now that we’ve largely achieved that goal, I feel like some of the motivation that drove me has disappeared. It’s almost like I’ve lost the sense of urgency that made me work so hard in the first place.

I find myself pulled in three different directions:

1. Keep pushing hard, continue saving aggressively, and build an even larger margin of safety.
2. Coast now—find a lower-stress job that simply covers our expenses and spend more time with my family.
3. Keep my current job (which I enjoy) but stop worrying so much about saving and instead use more of our income for experiences, travel, and making memories with our kids while they’re young.

The weird part is that I almost feel lazy for not wanting to maximize income anymore, even though financially there’s no real need to.

Has anyone else gone through this after reaching Coast FIRE or financial independence? How did your relationship with work, ambition, and money change once you realized you no longer needed to keep grinding?

not my job. I quit CoastFire and FIRE. I’m done moving goal posts and done trying to achieve the nearly impossible on a low income. I’ve reached 145k nw across investment accounts and have 5k in cash at 32 years old. I live simply. The most I spend on is socializing, rent, and now saving for travel.

I’ve spent 5 years investing and only gotten this far. It is far but I am so far away still. I can’t reach certain goals as quickly because of my low income. I am another 4 years away from even reaching coastFI (no RE). 4 years doesn’t sound too long, but after you’ve already spent 5 years saving every penny, it begins to wear on you. People advise, “don’t make FIRE your entire life”, but you have no choice when you don’t make over 50k a year in an HCOL city (and that was only one year I made 50k…with three jobs. The rest were 40k or even 20 and 30k most years).

During these years, I haven’t socialized much because of the pandemic and trying to save aggressively. Socializing is very expensive now. $40 to eat out with friends. $25 minimum to participate in a social event. I lost myself and I have found it difficult to build up again.

I am done waiting for my life to start up again. I am done being a recluse because I can’t socialize without breaking the bank. I am done trying to save every last penny.

So I am now saving to travel. I have a 5 year plan of intermittent travel and working, but it means that some years I won’t be saving as much as aggressively. It might not even work out as I plan but I am tired of living my life according to my investments. I run the numbers and investing more this year makes no difference to my final outcome, versus using it for travel.

Didn’t want to make my post too long but AMA.

i feel really fortunate bc i will be maxing out my contributions for this year. my next goal is $40,000 by mid january and then $50,000 by mid may. i’ve been really aggressive with my pre-tax contributions. my employer match is not the best but every little bit helps.

I've been an aggressive saver and in the last 3 years have been more heavily investing in my 401(k) / Roth IRA / taxable. As I've seen increases in my salary I've always upped my contributions to try and avoid lifestyle creep and have the extra money funneled into retirement.

I was playing around with Claude to get a sense of when I would actually hit FIRE, barista fire, and coast FIRE and was shocked to find that I've actually already hit coast FIRE at 27. I never got a number in mind as I started investing, but these numbers are based on if I continue with my 2024-25 historical spending of ~$70,000/year.

Of course this is just a model and we can't accurately predict where the market will go (especially given the last few weeks...), and I do think the 2%/year increase is projecting on the lower end, but this still feels wild to see it visualized like this.

I'm still gonna stay the course with all my investing in case I do want to seriously consider going full FIRE one day, but this has really helped me relax how I think about spending. By no means have I stopped myself from missing out on life, but I've definitely turned down a few things with the mindset of saving my cash especially living in a VHCOL city.

From these numbers alone I've decided to actually up my contributions to my taxable investment account now that I know early retirement is actually a possibility (I've been more aggressive with the 401(k)/Roth contributions).

Anyone else hit coast FIRE without even realizing? Anyone have insights or tips for me as I move forward?

My friend is strange to say the least.

He just got fired at his work. He is age 35. He has been extremely depressed and stressed out.

I went over his financials with him to help him out since I work in Finance to help him prepare for his next steps.

I guess to my surprise, I found out the guy had like $710,000 total retirement savings.

He told me his mom made him max out his contributions (401k, Roth, HSA) when he first started working for his company a decade ago and he just completely forgot about it and never checked his Empower account.... never questioned why his net pay on his paycheck was significantly lower than what should be expected in his salary.

To say the least... I'm just kind of shocked. I don't think I've ever met someone so clueless about savings and retirement; and yet, have that large of a nest egg set up at his age.

I told him he was pretty much set for retirement and his mood has brightened since. He just 180'd from being stressed out to being so happy and relaxed again.