What are you chasing in life?
Professional accolades?
Tens of millions of dollars?
The ability to retire someday?
Do you even know?
Most lawyers and professionals have a complicated relationship with their careers. That’s a topic for another day. Suffice it to say, the relationship evolves over time.
In the beginning, we’re mostly satisfied to have a decent job. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished to get this far. We can put our skills to use and start living like adults.
This phase typically lasts until we develop confidence and realize that we’re pretty good at our jobs. We know that we can take on more responsibility and perform more challenging work.
At this point, we begin to work harder than ever. Oftentimes (but not always), we make more money.
We tell ourselves that we’re doing important work. We even start to earn recognition and receive awards from professional groups.
The thing is: we haven’t ever questioned why we’re doing it and what we’re chasing.
Somewhere along the way, our work becomes our identities.
Is your job the most important thing in your life?
How would your spouse or kids answer that question about you?
When your job is the top priority in your life, your health, relationships, and personal interests all take a back seat.
Many of us prioritize our jobs above all else until we get around to retiring in our sixties or seventies.
We never stop to think about whether there’s another way. We’re stuck on autopilot.
Earn a paycheck, buy nice things, save for retirement.
It’s that last part that we oftentimes use as justification for working so much: saving for retirement.
Part of the problem is that we’ve been programmed to think that saving enough for retirement is a never-ending challenge.
We’ve been brainwashed to think that unless you save 10-20% of your paycheck for the rest of your life, you’ll never comfortably retire.
These fears are strong enough to push us to chase more money. To save endlessly for retirement.
Because if you don’t save enough, so we’re told, you’ll never get that lake house in Wisconsin you’ve always dreamed about. Instead, you’ll be living in your kid’s basement.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Saving for retirement is extremely important. It’s one of the bedrocks of personal finance.
But, saving enough for retirement is not an impossible goal. It is most definitely an achievable goal.
For many of us, it’s achievable earlier in life than we ever thought possible.
Once you accept the fact that you actually can save enough for retirement, you give yourself permission to ask, “When is enough is enough?”
This is where Coast FIRE comes in.
With the money mindset hack of Coast FIRE, you can tell yourself, “I have saved enough for retirement. Cross that major goal off of the list.”
Enough is enough.
With retirement taken care of, you can think about what else to do with your time and money.
That might mean staying exactly where you are: same job, same house, same vacations. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
If it is broke, you can pivot.
You can start to dissect exactly what it is that you’re chasing in life.
What is Coast FIRE?
Coast FIRE is a subset of FIRE for people who are not necessarily trying to retire early.
Instead, the idea is to aggressively fund your retirement accounts early on so you have more options as your career progresses.
The reason you’ll have options is because once you hit your projected magic retirement number, you no longer need to fund your retirement accounts.
You can sit back and let compound interest do its thing. Your retirement years are covered.
With retirement covered, you don’t need to earn as much money. You can focus more attention on your present-day self. That might mean working less hours or working the same amount but in a different job.
This is the essence of Coast FIRE: knock out retirement planning early on to create more career flexibility later.
Coast FIRE does not mean complete financial independence.
When you reach Coast FIRE, you are not financially independent because you still need money coming in to fund your current lifestyle.
But, you need less money because you no longer need to save for the important goal of retirement. That means you have earned some financial freedom, but not complete freedom.
That’s OK.
Remember, the part that separates Coast FIRE from traditional FIRE is that early retirement is not the goal.
Instead, Coast FIRE means continuing to work until normal retirement age (like age 65) but having more freedom in what you do for work.
To put a bow on it: the main money mindset benefit of Coast FIRE is that you have options once you’ve already put away enough money for retirement.
With retirement taken care of, you can:
- Switch to a lower paying job or lower stress job.
- Become a stay-at-home parent and live off of one spouse’s income.
- Start a business.
- Grow your side hustle.
- Take some time off to think about what you want to do next.
With Coast FIRE, each of these options feels safer because you’ve already fully funded your retirement.
Knowing when enough is enough.
Towards the end of 2024, I had a breakthrough moment thinking about when enough is enough.
Earlier that year, we had moved into our “forever home.” I had traded in my 20-year-old car for a new one. My wife and I were expecting our third child.
As it happens, I was reading an excellent book on real estate investing written by Chad “Coach” Carson.
His book is called Small and Mighty Real Estate Investor: How to Reach Financial Freedom with Fewer Rental Properties.
In his book, Coach Carson makes a compelling argument to think about when enough is enough.
His message was about acquiring more and more real estate, to no end, but also applies to any pursuit in life.
Reading Small and Mighty Real Estate Investor helped my wife and I conclude that at this point in our lives, we have enough.
If anything, we’re closer to having too much on our plates. We self-manage our 10 units in Chicago and work closely with a property manager in Colorado.
With our full-time jobs and kids at home, we’ve bitten off as much as we can chew.
Our portfolio generates enough income to help fuel our current goals. If we were to continue expanding, the headaches could end up outweighing the financial benefits.
We want to build a life full of experiences and memories. That means we need more time, not more money. Acquiring and managing more properties right now would take up a lot of time.
That tradeoff is not currently worth it to us.
What would you do with your time if money was not an obstacle?
Whenever I think of Coast FIRE, I’m reminded of a conversation I had with a friend earlier this year.
We were having lunch at a downtown Chicago lunch spot that’s been serving up epic burgers since the 1970’s. My friend and I are both balancing careers as lawyers in Chicago with young families at home.
In between bites of a massive BBQ-bacon-cheeseburger, I asked him a question I like asking smart people:
“What would you do with your time if money wasn’t an obstacle?”
Without hesitation, he answered that he would work with his hands.
He likes working on projects around the house. He gets immediate satisfaction from completing a repair or making an improvement.
His answer was great and very relatable. My years as a landlord has taught me the same feeling of satisfaction in completing a project.
What stood out to me the most was how quickly he answered the question. He knew exactly what he would do if money was not an obstacle.
This simple question helps illustrate what I mean by Coast FIRE.
When you achieve Coast FIRE, you can afford to take a pay cut. You can choose to work a job that you enjoy for less money.
It’s not an easy goal to accomplish, but I can’t think of a better goal to strive for.
By the way, since having that burger with my friend, he left his old job for one that better fits his life goals. I’m thrilled for him.
Coast FIRE is not about giving up.
Some critics of Coast FIRE argue that it’s just a catch phrase for quitting on your career too early. They say the consequences of having a “bad retirement” are too severe.
The way I see it: having a “bad life” now in hopes of a “good retirement” later is not a worthwhile trade off.
You can certainly prioritize making the most money in life. That might mean continuing to earn and earn so you can invest in the stock market or purchase more rental properties.
But, at some point, you don’t need any more money. At some point, you need to know when enough is enough.
Coast FIRE is about exactly that: knowing when enough is enough.
Have you thought about when enough is enough?
Does Coast FIRE help you visualize that moment?
Let us know in the comments below.
