FIRE variants
Common flavors of financial independence - Lean, Fat, Barista and Coast FIRE - defined by spending level and whether you still work.
Coast FIRE number = FI number ÷ (1 + real return)^years until retirement
Explanation
The FIRE community uses informal labels for different goals. None are official definitions, and the dollar ranges people quote vary widely by location and household size.
- Lean FIRE: independence on a frugal budget. A smaller FI number reached sooner, with less margin for surprises.
- Fat FIRE: independence with generous spending, sometimes described as $100,000 or more a year. A much larger target, but more room to cut back in a bad market.
- Barista FIRE: you leave full-time work but earn part-time income (and sometimes employer health benefits) that covers part of your spending. The portfolio only has to cover the rest, so the target is lower.
- Coast FIRE: you have already saved enough that, with no further contributions, growth alone should reach your full FI number by a traditional retirement age. You still need to earn enough to cover current expenses, but you can stop saving.
- Chubby FIRE is sometimes used for the middle ground between Lean and Fat.
These variants are mostly about trade-offs: how soon versus how comfortably, and how much you rely on future work or market growth.
In scenarios, you can model each variant by setting your spending, adding part-time income for a period, or stopping contributions at a given age, and then see how the projected portfolio and success rate respond.
Example
Your full FI number at age 65 is $1,500,000 ($60,000 × 25). You are 35 and expect a 5% real (after-inflation) return.
Coast FIRE: how much do you need today to coast?
- Years of growth: 30
- 1.05^30 = 4.3219
- Coast number: $1,500,000 ÷ 4.3219 = $347,066
Barista FIRE: you want to stop full-time work now and earn $20,000 a year part-time.
- Portfolio must cover: $60,000 − $20,000 = $40,000
- Barista target at 4%: $40,000 × 25 = $1,000,000