Coast FIRE Is The Fastest Path To Buying Your Freedom - Here's How To Start
The Future Retirement Plan Young People Need To Leverage NOW
Traditional retirement planning is broken in the modern, Western world.
Well, it does work…Provided you want to work until you’re almost 70 and then enjoy the fruits of your labor.
The reality is that times have changed.
Housing prices are through the roof. The cost of living is outpacing wages in many cities. And general economic data related to consumer lending/debt is pretty grim (I mean, people are Buy-Now-Pay-Latering DoorDash orders to get by.)
It’s no surprise that we see a rise in sports gambling, crypto YOLOs, or people just giving up on ever trying to get their finances on track. These days, retiring seems like an impossible task unless you somehow find a way to strike it rich.
But here’s the thing: you don’t need to use an outdated playbook to gain financial freedom. And you certainly don’t need to invest in Fartcoin in the hope that it moons.
Instead, you can leverage Coast FIRE, WiFi-Wealth building strategies, and time to buy back your freedom much faster.
Here’s how the math breaks down and how you can get started with Coast FIRE starting today.
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Quick Recap - What Exactly Is FIRE?
FIRE = Financial Independence, Retire Early.
It’s a movement that’s grown in popularity over the last two decades or so.
The gist of it is to use investments and your portfolio to become financially free faster than the average age of retirement.
In other words, people who follow FIRE try to invest as early and aggressively as possible. When their portfolios can earn enough annually to cover their living costs, they’re technically financially free and can sail off into the sunset.
But here’s the catch: Many FIRE paths are so extreme that they turn people off. They involve immense frugality and sacrifice, so it’s not a lifestyle many people want to adopt, especially if they want to start a family or travel.
Which leads us to…
The Different Flavors Of FIRE You Can Try
As a quick note, pretty much all of these FIRE models are based on the 4% rule.
The 4% rule asserts that you can safely withdraw 4% of your portfolio per year and never run out of money. That’s because on average, your portfolio should be able to replenish at least 4% of its value annually.
A simpler way to think about this: Once you save 25x your annual spending, you are financially free, according to the 4% rule.
However, people have all sorts of annual expenses and living standards. This is where different FIRE styles and living costs come into play.
Let’s break them down:
🔹 Traditional FIRE Example: Spend $70,000 per year → You need $1.75M saved to be financially independent.
🔹 Lean FIRE Example: Live super frugally and spend $30,000 per year → You need $750,000 saved to be financially independent.
🔹 Fat FIRE Example: Spend $100,000 per year → You need $2.5M saved to be financially independent.
🔹 Coast FIRE Example: Save $200,000 and put that money aside for retirement. Then get a lower-stress job and move to a low-cost of living area and let your money grow on autopilot until you’re ready to retire.
As you can see, all of these versions of FIRE require saving $750,000 to $1M+ to pan out…with the exception of Coast FIRE.
Interesting…
Why Coast FIRE Is The Ultimate Freedom Hack
The idea behind Coast FIRE is to save up enough of a retirement portfolio so that by the time you’re 65 (or your target retirement age), you have enough to live comfortably for the rest of your life.
The goal is to build your nest egg and then let time and compound interest work its magic. Once your nest egg is established, you can get a lower-stress job or side hustle your way into covering your living costs.
Here’s some quick math for an example:
🎯 Goal: Retire at 60 with $1M portfolio. Assume a 7% annual return.
If you invest $150,000 by age 35, that money will grow to over 1M by age 65 — even if you never add another dollar to that portfolio with these assumptions.
This is the power of time and compound interest. And in this scenario, it means someone could Coast FIRE after saving up $150,000 with the assumptions above.
This Coast FIRE strategy also means that once you reach your portfolio goal, you:
Only need to work to cover current expenses
Don’t need to stress about "maxing out your 401(k)" or grinding out the corporate promotional ladder
Gain way more control and freedom over your time and life
Compared to traditional FIRE or Fat FIRE, this strategy is far more approachable.
How WiFi Wealth Accelerates The Whole Game
Coast FIRE gets you part of the way in buying back your freedom.
But combining it with remote income and geo-arbitrage?
That’s the real-life cheat code that lets you obtain locational and financial freedom decades ahead of what society says is possible.
Here’s how it can happen:
🌍 Earn U.S. Dollars & Use Geo-Arbitrage:
Earning $3,000 a month online won’t get you too far in many places in the Western World. But in plenty of other countries on earth, this secures a great quality of life.
And earning $3,000 per month from the Internet is possible. I cover tons of ways in my post on starting a one-person business or how to side hustle as a normal person.
PLUS, this strategy lets you live in areas that suit your lifestyle goals.
You can choose the climate you like, check out new and interesting places around the globe, all without having to lose sleep over bills and your landlord raising the rent next month.
For me, this has meant living in all sorts of places, from Medellin, to Cape Town, to Phuket. I also get to skip Canadian winters, and I’ve been self-employed for years and work on projects that interest me without having a boss or hating my Monday mornings.
Again, you can achieve this sort of WiFi Wealth lifestyle in many ways.
Freelancing, remote gigs, running a YouTube channel, selling digital products, and tons of other ideas are real ways people earn their living through the internet.
I also have a prediction: more people, especially young adults, are going to take this path over the next decade.
Playing the rat-race game doesn’t work anymore.
People are burned out. They’re also tired of being told to follow a playbook (get a degree, get a job, work until you’re dead) that clearly doesn’t lead to anything but misery.
Some Common Criticisms of FIRE & This Strategy
Alright: this might sound too good to be true, so what’s the catch?
Well, here are some of the most common criticisms of this gameplan you’ll see online, as well as my answers to them:
1: The 4% Rule Is Risky & Doesn’t Work Long-Term: Somewhat true. The original 4% rule comes from a 1994 study. People live a bit longer these days and life expectancy might keep increasing. Inflation is real too. You can use a 3% rule to be more conservative or just beef up your portfolio target to account for this in my opinion.
2: What If You Realize You’re Running Out Of Money? I think this is a real concern for Traditional and Fat FIRE. But I love Coast FIRE + WiFi Wealth because you’re using your free time to build businesses or income-generating assets that work for you. This keeps your skills sharp and your options open. If you ever want to return to work, you’ll be able to.
3: What About Kids? Kids change living costs without a doubt. Again, this is why I like Coast FIRE over something like Learn FIRE since you still have regular income coming in and can dial this up or down based on needs.
4: Geo-Arbitrage/Digital Nomadism Is Unethical: I’ve had this discussion so many times in my life since traveling the world. I don’t agree. If a country with a democratically-elected government decides it wants a tourism industry and to make it appealing for digital nomads, by all means, I’m heading there. If people don’t like it, change the laws. This is what we’re seeing in places like Portugal since they overdid it, and Lisbon is now super gentrified and full of expats. Plus, I think digital nomads can help stimulate local economies, tip well, be respectful etc. and not be like the loud Bali influencers you see on social media.
5: You Need To Make Crazy Incomes To Pull Off FIRE: For traditional or Fat FIRE, yes, you need to make above average incomes to retire early. And even with Coast FIRE, you probably need to save very aggressively and earn a decent income to hit your targets in your 30s. But I don’t want to write about average goals and average dreams. So what if you need to make more money to pull something like this off? Find a way to do that. Even if you don’t hit your target, just thinking about this framework and how it relates to your freedom puts you miles ahead of waiting until you’re 65 to finally retire. Dream big!
PS 🌎 I have a YouTube channel called TravelEconomics where I talk about digital nomad life, affordable places to live, and how to navigate this entire process. I’d love if you can check it out and leave a comment letting me know you’re from Substack! 😊
What’s Next?
As a quick recap:
Coast FIRE + WiFi Wealth =
✅ The ability to live anywhere
✅ Flexibility in how you make money
✅ Peace of mind knowing your future is secured
✅ The time to actually enjoy your life — not just grind through it
I implore everyone reading this, especially young adults, to spend some time playing with a compound interest calculator and to think about the kind of lifestyle you want to live.
The world changes, and it changes fast.
I don’t think the traditional retirement playbook works anymore in many places on earth. So, why follow it?
We live in a time when anyone with an internet connection can increase their income. We’re also more mobile and free than ever, provided you’re born/living in a country without war or a dictatorship.
Use this to your advantage. Start thinking about the type of lifestyle you want, and reverse engineer it.
Personally, Coast FIRE is the strategy I’m on. And the moment I realized this is how I would buy my freedom, everything made sense. No more anxiety, no more self-doubt, and no more playing a game society told me I need to play.
Hopefully, this post inspires you to do something similar. Or, at the very least, gets you thinking about the options that are out there.
Thanks for reading.
I’ll catch you in the next one.
Tom from WiFi Wealth.
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