Coast FI & FIRE drawdown calculator
Most retirement calculators stop at the number you need to hit. This one keeps going: enter what you have today, add a raise, a bonus, or an inheritance whenever it actually lands, and watch one continuous chart show your portfolio compounding through your working years, then spending down — every year, from today through age 85 — instantly, with no login and no email wall.
What you invest each month — and when that changes.
A bonus, inheritance, home sale — anything dropped in at a specific age.
Growth compounds monthly while you contribute and annually once you're drawing it down. Spending is withdrawn at the start of each retirement year.
At $40,000/yr, the $2.2M you retire with could potentially grow to $6.76M by age 85 instead of running down — assuming your 7% return holds up over that whole stretch.
Logarithmic scale — the balance spans seven figures to eight, so equal steps up the axis mean equal proportional growth.
Adjust the numbers on the left to see your own trajectory.
Every 5 years in retirement, plus every contribution change, injection, and the year you reach Coast FI — real (today's) dollars.
| Age | Balance | Event | That year's cash flow | Withdrawal rate |
|---|
Coast FI (Coast Financial Independence, also called Coast FIRE) is the point where the money you've already invested could grow to your full retirement target on its own, even if you never contributed another dollar. Past that point, saving more is optional: it lets you retire earlier or with more cushion, but compounding alone could carry you there.
This calculator shows three numbers for it: your FI target (25× your yearly retirement spending), your Coast FI number today (that target discounted back to today at your expected return), and your Coast FI age, the first year your projected balance crosses that line.
Most Coast FI and FIRE calculators stop once you reach your number. What happens next depends on how much you spend compared with what the portfolio earns. Withdraw less than your real return each year and the balance can keep growing in retirement; withdraw more and it draws down.
The chart and year-by-year table above run straight through both phases, from today to the age you choose, so you can see which one your plan lands in.
The FI target uses the 4% rule: withdraw 4% of your starting balance in your first year of retirement, then keep that spending level steady in real terms. It comes from William Bengen's 1994 study of historical U.S. market returns and the later Trinity Study, which found a 4% withdrawal rate held up across most 30-year retirements in the historical record. Early retirees planning for 40 years or more often use 3–3.5% instead.
Every figure is in today's dollars, using a real (after-inflation) return. Growth compounds monthly while you contribute, and spending comes out at the start of each retirement year. It uses the same return every year, so it can't show sequence-of-returns risk (a crash early in retirement), and it doesn't model taxes, Social Security, or part-time income. The FAQ covers each of these in more detail.