Coast FIRE Calculator: Can I Stop Saving for Retirement?

Coast FIRE is the point at which the money you have already saved will grow to what you need at retirement without another contribution. The term comes from the Financial Independence, Retire Early movement, where it usually describes someone in their thirties who saved hard for a decade and now plans to earn only enough to live on while compounding does the rest. The sum that gets you there is your coast FIRE number, or coast number.

The same arithmetic answers a question people ask much later in a career, in plainer words: can I stop saving for retirement? At 55 or 60 the reason is rarely a wish to leave work altogether. It is a move to a less demanding job, a switch to part-time, a wish to stop putting the maximum into the 401(k) while a child is in college, or a plan to put the same dollars toward the mortgage. The question is the same in each case: if the contributions stopped today, would the balance still get there?

The answer is less forgiving late in a career, and most of this guide is about why. With thirty years to run, growth does most of the work and the coast number is a small fraction of the final target. With ten years to run, it is most of the target, and there is little time for a good stretch to make up for a bad one.

This page does one narrow job. To find out whether you could stop work at a given age, use the Can I Retire Now? calculator. To project what continued saving builds, use the retirement savings calculator. For where the target itself comes from, see how much you need to retire.

Illustrative example: the people and figures below are hypothetical, not real clients. Numbers are calculated from the stated assumptions.

There are two steps: size the retirement number, then discount it back to today.

Step 1: the retirement number. Take the spending you want in retirement, subtract Social Security and any pension, and divide what is left by a withdrawal rate. The calculator opens on a 55-year-old who plans to retire at 65, spend $100,000 a year in today’s dollars and collect $48,000 of Social Security from 67. Savings have to supply $100,000 − $48,000 = $52,000 a year. At a 4% withdrawal rate that takes $52,000 ÷ 0.04 = $1,300,000, which is 25 times the gap.

The 4% figure is a convention, not a guarantee. It goes back to William Bengen’s 1994 study of 30-year US retirements, and Morningstar’s estimate for 2026 of the highest safe starting rate over 30 years is 3.9%. A retirement much longer than 30 years argues for a lower rate, which raises the retirement number and the coast number with it: at 3.5% the same gap needs $1,485,714. The rate is yours to set.

Social Security does not start until 67, so for the 2 years from 65 the savings also have to pay the $48,000 it will later cover. That bridge is $48,000 × 2 = $96,000. The retirement number is the two together: $1,300,000 + $96,000 = $1,396,000.

Step 2: the coast number. Divide the retirement number by the growth you expect between now and retirement:

Coast number = retirement number ÷ (1 + real return)^{years to retirement}

Over 10 years at 4% after inflation, a dollar grows to $1.4802. So the coast number at 55 is $1,396,000 ÷ 1.4802 = $943,088. Because the return is after inflation, the result is already in today’s dollars and can be set straight against a current balance.

Step 3: compare. The example saver has $850,000, which is $93,088 short. Left alone, $850,000 grows to $1,258,208 by 65. That is enough to support $94,488 a year under the same rules, not the $100,000 planned. So the answer is not yet. Contributing $30,000 a year, employer match included, the balance passes the coast number at 59, after 4 years, and contributions could stop then. To be able to stop after 2 years instead would take $49,355 a year.

Give the same person $1,000,000 and the answer changes: $56,912 above the coast number, a balance of $1,480,244 at 65 with nothing added, and $103,370 a year of supported spending.

How the bridge is counted

When Social Security or a pension starts after the retirement age, the calculator adds one year of that income to the retirement number for each year of the wait, at face value in today’s dollars. It gives the bridge money no growth after retirement, which errs on the side of a larger number. This is the method the Can I Retire Now? calculator uses, and that page also counts health cover before Medicare, which this one leaves inside your spending figure. If guaranteed income is larger than spending, the core is zero and only the bridge years need funding.

The coast number depends on three things: the retirement number, the years left and the return. The table takes the retirement number out of it by showing what you need today for each $1,000,000 required at 65. Scale it to your own target: someone who needs $1,396,000 multiplies each figure by 1.396.

Two things stand out. At 30, the coast number at 4% is 25% of the target; at 55 it is 68%, and at 60 it is 82%. By the last few years there is very little difference between having the coast number and simply having the money. And the columns spread apart with time: at 30 the 3% figure is 2.0 times the 5% figure, while at 60 the two are 10% apart.

A table like this cannot stand in for your own figures. The target behind it changes with your spending and your Social Security, and a table built on a return before inflation will show much smaller numbers than one built on a return after it. The calculator applies your inputs to the same formula.

The coast number is a present value, and a present value moves every time the discount rate does. For the example saver, with the same $1,396,000 target and the same $850,000 saved:

Between 2% and 6% the coast number runs from $1,145,206 to $779,519, and the answer turns from not yet to yes at 6%. Over 10 years, one point less return raises the coast number by 10.1%. Over 30 years the same point raises it by 33.6%, which is why a coast number worked out in your thirties depends so heavily on the return chosen. A shorter horizon makes the result less sensitive to the assumption, but it also leaves a larger sum exposed and less time to repair a shortfall.

What return to assume

Use a return after inflation and after fund costs, for the mix of investments you actually hold. As a point of reference, Aswath Damodaran’s historical returns dataset at NYU Stern puts the compound real return of US stocks at 6.8% a year and of 10-year Treasury bonds at 1.5% for 1928 to 2025. Weighting those figures for a mix of 60% stocks, 35% bonds and 5% cash gives about 4.6%. The UBS Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2026 reports 6.6% and 1.6% for 1900 to 2025, which weights to about 4.5%.

The calculator opens on 4%, a round figure a little under both. It is our assumption and you can change it. US history was unusually favorable, starting valuations and bond yields today are not the historical average, and a ten-year stretch can land a long way from a century’s average in either direction. Take care when comparing tools: some ask for a return before inflation and some for a return after it. If you enter a return before inflation here, the result will be too optimistic, because spending is in today’s dollars. The Monte Carlo retirement calculator sets out the same sources in more detail.

Less time for compounding to cover an error

Suppose the example saver had exactly the coast number, $943,088, stopped contributing at 55, and then earned 2% a year after inflation instead of 4%. The balance at 65 would be $1,149,618, which is $246,382 short and enough for $90,145 a year, not $100,000. A 30-year-old who makes the same mistake has decades to notice and resume saving. A 55-year-old who finds out at 62 has three years.

Sequence risk arrives early

A steady 4% is a convenience. Real returns come as a run of uneven years, and the years just before and just after retirement are when the balance is largest and a fall costs the most dollars. If the same saver’s first year were a 20% fall after inflation, followed by 4% a year, the balance at 65 would be $1,073,846. Getting back to $1,396,000 without new money would take 7.1% a year for the remaining 9 years. With 30 years to run, the same fall needs 4.9% a year, barely above the original assumption. This calculator cannot show that risk, because it uses one constant return. The Monte Carlo retirement calculator runs a plan through thousands of uneven paths, and the retirement withdrawal calculator tests a poor first few years once withdrawals begin.

Coasting still means earning a living

The coast number says nothing about the years before retirement. Stopping contributions frees up cash, but pay still has to cover living costs until 65, and the calculation assumes nothing is drawn from the savings before then. For someone who leaves a full-time job, health insurance is often the largest new cost. Medicare starts at 65. Before that, cover comes from an employer, a spouse’s plan, COBRA for a limited period, or a marketplace plan whose price depends on household income. The healthcare cost estimator puts a figure on those years.

Access matters too. Withdrawals from retirement accounts before 59½ generally carry a 10% additional tax. One exception applies to a workplace plan, but not an IRA, when you leave that employer in or after the year you turn 55. Money you might need before then is better counted as a cash reserve than as part of the coasting balance.

Your Social Security earnings record

Social Security bases a retirement benefit on your highest 35 years of earnings, adjusted for wage growth. If you stop work before you claim with fewer than 35 years, each missing year goes in as a zero. With 35 years or more, a late high-earning year would have replaced a low early one, and stopping gives that up. Moving to lower-paid work has a smaller version of the same effect.

There is a second trap in the estimate itself. The projection on a Social Security statement assumes you keep earning at about your most recent level until you claim. If you plan to stop or cut back at 58, the benefit at 67 will be lower than the statement shows. The size of the cut depends on your record. For a long-career high earner it is often modest, because the benefit formula credits only 15% of average indexed monthly earnings above its second bend point ($7,749 a month for someone first eligible in 2026). For someone with gaps in their record it can be larger. The retirement calculator in a my Social Security account at ssa.gov lets you change the future earnings it assumes, and the figure it returns for your plan is the one to enter above. Our Social Security estimator gives a quick figure from current pay and compares claiming ages.

Coast arithmetic treats every contributed dollar alike. An employer match is different: it is pay that you receive only if you contribute. In the example the match is $6,000 a year. Over 10 years that is $60,000 of contributions, worth $72,037 at 65 at the assumed return. Stopping your own contributions entirely gives all of it up.

A common middle course for someone past their coast number is to keep contributing up to the match and stop there. As an illustration, $6,000 of your own money matched dollar for dollar puts $12,000 a year into the plan and adds $144,073 by 65, while freeing most of the cash that full contributions used. Match formulas vary, so check what your plan requires. The 401(k) calculator works through a specific formula.

The tax break you would also give up

Pre-tax contributions lower this year’s taxable income. The example saver’s $24,000 at a 24% marginal rate defers $5,760 of tax a year, so stopping raises take-home pay by $18,240, not $24,000. It is a deferral: the money is taxed when it is withdrawn, at whatever rate applies then. Late-career savers also have the most room. The 2026 limits are:

One rule is new. Beginning in 2026, if your wages from the employer that sponsors the plan were more than $150,000 in the prior year, catch-up contributions must be made as Roth contributions. For those earners the catch-up no longer reduces current tax, and only the $24,500 base deferral can be pre-tax. That changes the cost of skipping the catch-up: you give up tax-free growth, not a deduction this year.

Cash freed by lower contributions does not have to be spent. These are common destinations for it, described as information. Which, if any, suits you depends on tax, cash flow and temperament.

• A larger cash reserve. A year or more of spending in cash or short-term Treasuries means a market fall near retirement does not force a sale. It also covers the gap if a move to part-time work turns into no work. See the emergency fund calculator.
• The mortgage. Clearing a mortgage before retirement lowers the spending the portfolio has to fund. At a 4% withdrawal rate, each $1,000 of annual payments removed takes $25,000 off the retirement number, and so lowers the coast number too. The mortgage payoff calculator compares paying it down with investing.
• Roth conversions. A conversion moves money from a traditional account to a Roth and adds the amount to that year’s taxable income. Years of lower pay, such as part-time years before Social Security and required distributions begin, are when a given conversion is taxed at lower rates. Cash that is no longer going into the 401(k) can pay the tax. The Roth conversion calculator models it.
• Family. Help with a down payment, a grandchild’s 529 plan or support for a parent. In 2026 a gift of up to $19,000 per recipient needs no gift-tax return. See gifting to children and grandchildren.
• Fewer hours. For many people the point is to earn less, and the freed contribution is what makes a smaller paycheck workable. In that case nothing is redirected, and the pay cut takes up the room.

The three terms describe different relationships between savings, work and spending.

For the example saver the traditional figure at 65 is $1,396,000 and the coast figure at 55 is $943,088. Barista FIRE has no single formula, because it depends on how much the part-time work pays and for how long. It also breaks the coast assumption that the savings are left untouched: any withdrawals before 65 have to be taken off the balance first.