Coast FIRE, Barista FIRE, Lean FIRE, Fat FIRE: Every FIRE Variant Explained

People talk about FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) like it’s a single goal. It isn’t. Over the past decade the community has split it into a handful of variants, each with a different number, lifestyle, and path. A few are way easier than full FIRE. A couple let you stop saving without retiring. One lets you retire without saving more than you already have.

Here’s the whole family, with the numbers, plus a quick framework at the end for figuring out which one fits.

Start with full FIRE

Full FIRE is the original idea: your portfolio is big enough to fund the rest of your life on its own. The standard rule is the 4% safe withdrawal rate, which means:

FIRE number = annual retirement spending × 25

Plan to spend $60K a year in retirement, you need $1.5M. Hit that, retire, done.

Every variant below is a remix of this equation. They tweak the spending number, the withdrawal phase, or what you’re doing in the meantime.

Lean FIRE

Full FIRE on a deliberately small budget. Usually $25K to $40K a year per person, which puts the FIRE number around $625K to $1M.

This works for people who actually like a simple life (small home, few subscriptions, no expensive hobbies, low cost-of-living area). It’s also the favorite of the geographic-arbitrage crowd, who retire to places where their money goes a lot further.

Smaller portfolio, faster to reach. The catch is less margin. A bad market year or a surprise medical bill hits harder when there’s no slack in the budget.

Regular FIRE

Full FIRE on a normal middle-class budget. $40K to $100K a year, FIRE number $1M to $2.5M.

This is what most FIRE blogs are implicitly talking about when they just say “FIRE.” Roughly your current lifestyle (or modestly less), permanently funded.

Chubby FIRE

The space between regular and fat. Annual spending around $100K to $150K, FIRE number $2.5M to $3.75M.

For upper-middle-income households who want a comfortable retirement without going full luxury. The Chubby FIRE subreddit is one of the most active FIRE communities, which says something about how many people land here.

Fat FIRE

Full FIRE on a high budget. $150K+ a year, FIRE number $3.75M and up.

The high-earner variant. Tech, finance, medicine, founders. Multiple homes, regular travel, never thinking about a restaurant bill. Most Fat FIRE stories involve either an equity event (IPO, acquisition) or two high-income earners saving aggressively for a couple of decades.

Coast FIRE

The portfolio you need today so that, if you stopped contributing tomorrow, compound growth alone would carry you to your full FIRE number by retirement age.

Coast FIRE number = FIRE number / (1 + r)^N

Where r is your real return (5% to 7%) and N is years until retirement.

Coast FIRE numbers by age, assuming a $1.5M target, retirement at 65, 7% real returns:

This is the most pragmatic milestone in the family. Usually 10 to 15 years earlier than full FIRE, and once you hit it, every dollar you earn from then on only has to cover today. Take a job you love at lower pay. Switch careers. Start a business. Take a year off. The retirement question is settled.

For more, see What is Coast FIRE? or run your own numbers in the Coast FIRE Calculator.

Barista FIRE

Your portfolio covers most of your expenses but not all. You take a part-time or low-stress job to bridge the gap. The name comes from working as a barista at Starbucks, partly because they offered health insurance to part-timers.

There’s no clean formula. Usually 60% to 90% of your full FIRE number, with the part-time job covering the rest.

This fits people who want to keep working, just on their own terms (fewer hours, lower stakes, different industry). In the US specifically, it’s also a health insurance hack. Employer coverage is expensive to replace before Medicare age, so a part-time W-2 job that comes with benefits can be worth more than its paycheck.

Quick comparison

Which one fits you?

A few honest questions usually surface the answer.

Do you want to stop working, or do you want to stop being forced to work? If it’s the second, Coast FIRE or Barista FIRE is your goal. If it’s the first, you need full FIRE in some flavor.

How attached are you to your current lifestyle? Happy to downsize, Lean FIRE is faster. If not, plan for at least Regular.

What’s your income trajectory? High earners often blow past Coast FIRE without noticing and aim straight at Chubby or Fat. Median earners get the most leverage from targeting Coast FIRE first.

What about health insurance? In the US, this is the secret driver of Barista FIRE. If you’re pre-65 and not on a spouse’s plan, budget $15K-25K a year for coverage in any FIRE scenario without a W-2.

Kids in the picture? Adds to spending in every variant. A lot of FIRE writing comes from DINKs or empty nesters. Adjust for your actual situation.

How to figure out your number

The workflow is the same no matter which variant you’re aiming at:

1. Estimate your annual retirement spending in today’s dollars.
2. Multiply by 25 for your full FIRE number.
3. For Coast FIRE, divide by (1 + r)^N.
4. For Lean or Fat, adjust step 1 down or up.
5. Compare to where you are now.

Fastest path is the FIRE Calculator for your full number and the Coast FIRE Calculator for the coast number.

Track your progress

Once you have a target, the hard part is keeping an honest read on where you actually are. Net worth moves with markets, contributions, debt payments, and home values. Most people check quarterly at best and miss the trend.

Bonsave hooks into your accounts, tracks your net worth automatically, and shows your progress toward each FIRE milestone. It’s the cleanest way we know to keep your number and your reality in sync.